The obituary of the TV director James Cellan Jones made no mention of the lasting impact of his work on the sociology of religion. The Forsyte Saga broke the mould of Sunday evenings by giving people something to do other than attend church, and is often cited as a major factor in the death of evensong.
At that time I was a novice in a religious community where every Sunday evening a clandestine group crowded round a battered old telly in the guest house to gaze in wonder at the antics of the Forsyte clan. No one it seems was immune to the magic that Cellan Jones displayed in bringing John Galsworthy’s novels to the small screen.
