The Common Pursuit by Simon Gray starring Stephen Fry 

I was a student when F R Leavis was still teaching. He was eccentric, acerbic and kind and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for instilling in me a critical faculty which is integral to my intellectual life and literary endeavours.

Tim Roth….a true genius …he could literally play any role…

Thanks for uploading this. I remember watching it here in Australia back in the early 1990s when it came out. The chief message I came away with after watching this was that that John Lennon song line was true- 'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans'. Stephen Fry's character is the only one of the group who tries to 'live the dream', devoting his life to pure intellectual pursuits, yet he ends up secretly miserable & lonely. The others go out and 'get a life'- yes, those lives are messy, chaotic and disappointing with mistakes, regrets and compromises but they are lives nonetheless. The only thing I found hard to believe was that Tim Roth's character, with his persistent, hacking smoker's cough and bouts of nausea could successfully host a book show for years.

What a wonderful, bittersweet film! Thanks for uploading it.

This is a marvellous play, not to be missed. The British cast is so outstanding that Andrew McCarthy's intelligent, nuanced performance is sometimes overlooked -- he adds so much to the production. . I hope prospective viewers do not turn away because of some rather jumbled scenes in the first 10 minutes -- after that, the screenplay becomes an intensely enjoyable play, perhaps Simon Gray's best.

14:58 - 'Would you really have hit me a moment ago?' 'The moment hasn't passed.'

great cast...an all round real treat...many thanks....

'If I am going to institutionalize myself it may as well be in one of the better institutions." -Fry can say a line and give it gravitas.

Utterly marvellous. Wish we got more drama as brilliant as this nowadays, instead of the trite blood and guts offal The Comtemp-ry Me-ja churns out.

This is an excellent play by Simon Gray with a superb cast including Stella Gonet, James Fleet, and Andrew McCarthy. Thank you for uploading! This is the vintage BBC at its best!

Here because a friend on Instagram sent me this link. We're in the Tim Roth club 🥰 "This room reeks of passion. What have you two been up to?"

Absolutely delightful! Thank you for the upload.

Haha that Tim Roth characer is awesome

Witty, rueful and all the rest. Promise of youth, aching sadness of ageing with all its failures and betrayals. Watch it for the stellar cast alone: Stella Gonet, Stephen Fry, James Fleet, Tim Roth etc. Captures brilliantly the genius and the claustrophobia and incestuousness of University life. Follow this up with Gray’s Unnatural Pursuits for a study of just where this cloistered life can take you, complete with all its ironies.

Didn't Stephen Fry once walk out on a Simon Gray production?

Last night I watched Quartermaine's Terms by Simon Gray here free on RU-vid, so I came here to watch The Common Pursuit. Hmm, this one lacks the central character and location to hold the story together and the shifts in time ('Two years later') seem clumsy. We're in the same emotional Gray area of betrayal and disappointment but without the comedy, the atmosphere and the cohesive plot. In the spirit of Cambridge University I give it a B- but to Quartermaine's Terms an A++.

Excellent.Thanks for sharing !

Thanks for posting this, I havent seen it for nearly 30 years. Have it on VHS somewhere, no player though. Brings back a lot of memories. Cheers 🙂

Brilliant....... thank you.

Excellent play and acting

Many thanks.

A quite brilliant play by Simon Gray. It was funny, macabre and expertly acted by a great cast especially Bob Peck and Miranda Richardson. I think Simon Gray was a better playwright than his friend Harold Pinter.

Terrific.

Good, but by gosh I wish they could have used the original stage cast

Mrs Richards: " I paid for a room with a view!" Basil: (pointing to the lovely view) " That is Torquay, Madam." Mrs Richards: "It's not good enough!" Basil: "May I ask what you were expecting to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically past?..." Mrs Richards: "Don't be silly! I expect to be able to see the sea!" Basil: "You can see the sea, it's over there between the land and the sky." Mrs Richards: "I'm not satisfied. But I shall stay. But I expect a reduction." Basil: "Why?! Because Krakatoa's not erupting at the moment ?"

Shit! McCarthy was in the _Brit-Pack_ , too! 😏

Love Tim Roth...

Play comedy like drama, and drama like comedy... or is it the other way around? To see otherwise watch this. It's a diversion. I'm not suggesting the British Army Documentaries channel and it's 4hr series, Falklands: The Land Battle; although it's a damn good show. But in a graveyard it's important to maintain a sense of equilibrium.

My God, did anybody ever really talk like that in the seventies? As they would say, how absolutely ghastly

I think we can all safely say that Tim Roth has aged much better than Stephen Fry.

Snoring....like an Australian (female). Interesting.

Really bad acting makes it unbearable!

I hated all the characters in this, but especially Tim Roth's. Waste of one hour and 27 minutes.

Just awful.