`Empires' Strikes Out; On `Masterpiece,' a Soggy Vaudeville Saga
by Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer

Even Alistair Cooke looks a bit sheepish about introducing the latest "Masterpiece Theater" entry, "Lost Empires," which begins its seven-episode run tomorrow night at 9 on Channel 26 and other public TV stations. Cooke marvels that J.B. Priestley was 70 when he wrote the book on which the serial is based. To judge from the filmed version, he should have stopped at 69. 

Damp and chilly as English manners, "Empires" has milieu aplenty but nothing more. It is set among vaudevillians who perform in theaters (often named "The Empire") in the years 1913 and 1914, with the war guns booming, literally in one scene, in the distance. A way of life is coming to an end and a callow youth growing into manhood. It's all been said and done before, and  much more convincingly than here.

The youth is played by the contagiously sedentary Colin Firth, who is dreary enough skulking about on camera, but downright soporific reciting the overexplicit voice-over narration ladled on by adapter Ian Curteis. Newly orphaned, the lad signs on as apprentice to his nasty Uncle Nick (John Castle), an insufferable misogynist who considers all women "tarts" and likes to bully midgets. On stage, Uncle Nick is a pseudo-swami called Ganga Dun who does half-baked magic tricks. If only he could make himself disappear, and take "Lost Empires" with him. 

The slim story is padded out with variety numbers, including the obligatory rabble-rousing recruitment tunes sung by beckoning chorines. "Empires" opens and closes with such routines, seeming to have stolen them directly from "Oh! What a Lovely War," the stage and screen show about England's naive entry into the hellish conflagration at hand. A song featured in "War," Jerome Kern's "They Wouldn't Believe Me," is rudely included in "Empires," too. 

Three supposedly fascinating women figure in the hero's minstrel life: Carmen Du Sautoy as the moody Julie, Gillian Bevan as the moody Cissie and Beatie Edney as the moody Nancy. Moody they may be, but they certainly outclass Firth in the old esprit department, and you do wonder what they see in this sodden blob  of protoplasm. 

Part 1 is fitfully enlivened with appearances by Laurence Olivier as an impossibly seedy old has-been called Harry G. Burrard, whose every performance is greeted with catcalls, jeers and sometimes
by tossed vegetables from the surly throng. Olivier is reprising the role he played in the film version of "The Entertainer," more or less, but he radiates hokey brio. Alas, he expires in Part 1 of this desultory downer. "Lost Empires," produced by Granada Television, is "Minorpiece Theater," at best.