A key episode in Alan Bridges’s faithful adaptation of Isabel Colegate’s The Shooting Party is the Nettleby’s fall bird-hunting and picnic luncheon.
Because it’s a cool October, the luncheon is served in a tent, inside of which is a long refectory table surrounded by Windsor chairs. It’s a setting that reminds a guest of Goldilocks and the three bears, but the joke falls flat.
For her guests, Mrs. Nettleby has made sure that the table is as elegant as her dining room. Her menu includes chicken mayonnaise, Lobster Vol-au-Vents (diced or creamy lobster in a pastry puff), boiled potatoes, lemonade, wine, and iced champagne. But according to Sir Randolph’s largesse, the local men hired to help are provided with rabbit stew, baked potatoes, bread, and beer. They eat sitting on the turf.
The hunting resumes when they have finished the champagne. And then a tragedy occurs when Lord Gilbert Hartlip takes a bad shot and kills one of the local men assisting the hunters. Understandably, the day is ruined, and Sir Randolph is stunned. Lord Gilbert, a cruel man, is contrite but not apologetic.
Though the Nettlebys cannot conceive of it, Hartlip’s carlessness and unintended murder are indicators of a future war with Germany in the coming year. As the narrative fades, the dead man is carried off on the shoulders of his comrades. It’s a solemn scene that slowly morphs into the vision of a dead soldier being carried from the battlefield. The transition creates a crushing ending for what might have been a very pleasant hunt picnic day in the field.
See: Isabel Colegate. The Shooting Party (1980); Alan Bridges. The Shooting Party (1985). The screenplay by Julian Bond is based on Isabel Colegate’s novel.