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The Times (U.K.), 28 January 1997
Television: Period piece but no frills
by Daniel Rosenthal
[...]
[John] Hale's superb adaptation is matched by the direction of Alastair Reid [...] Firth and Albert Finney, who plays the
disillusioned Dr Monygham, are both excellent, and Italian film star Claudio Amendola pins down Nostromo's fatal vanity.
[...]
Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) 2 February 1997
Television
By Judy Rumbold

[...]
Not for [Albert Finney's booze-sozzled doctor Monygham]  the crisp linen cool of Colin Firth, who remained infuriatingly buttoned-up in Darcy mode until it came to a rain-sodden night scene where he got very frisky indeed while on the subject of
mines. Or, to be precise, men in mines, with candles and filthy faces. "It's like fairy-tales when you were young," he breathed to his wife. "A spell is cast over you." Now if I were Emilia, I'd have been a touch wary about unlacing my stays after being spun a line like this.[...]
 
Mail on Sunday (U.K.), 2 February 1997
Night & Day supplement - Week in Review
By Brian Viner

The Colin Firth Appreciation Society, of which I have fallen foul in recent months, must have been looking forward to the BBC's four-part adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Nostromo, in which Firth plays Charles Gould, an upper-crust Englishman determined to reopen his late father's silver mine in a small South American republic.
Bearded, Firth doesn't look quite as hunky as he did in Pride and Prejudice, indeed my wife didn't recognise him for the first 30 minutes and kept asking, 'When is Colin Firth coming on?' But what matters, of course, is not his hunkability but his acting ability, in which regard Firth can rub shoulders with anyone [...].
The Express (U.K.), 2 February 1997
Inside Television
Firth among equals...
By Margaret Forwood

Drag your eyes away, if you can, from the welcome sight of Colin Firth in his first TV role since P and P. Concentrate instead on that chap with the tight cotton pants and the shirt slashed to the waist who looks like a more muscular Englebert  Humperdinck. He is Nostromo, and he, not our Colin, is meant to be the hero of BBC2's beautifully designed new Costume drama, an epic tale of men corrupted by the love of silver (as a change from gold) in 19th century South America.
[...]
But it's impossible to think of someone you've neither seen or heard of before as the star of the show when the divine Mr Firth is hovering nearby as mine owner Charles Gould. Half-an-hour into the show, he was into a pair of Darcy-style white riding britches, looking deliciously elegant as he pranced about on a horse doing that curious "paso fino" gait. (It's because the horses would die of heatstroke if they galloped, since you ask).

Albert Finney is doing his usual scene-stealing as a fat old doctor who's gone native. ("Did you pad up for the role?" he was asked. "No, it's all me," said Albie cheerfully). But so far it's Colin's show. Out-trousered, Claudio.
Daily Mirror (U.K.), 3 February 1997
Weekend View
By Tony Purnell

[Regarding "Nostromo"] there was little fear of the Beeb having another £9 million flop on its hands. Not once Colin Firth appeared on the scene. The man was born to wear breeches. His clothes and manners were impeccable as mine owner Charles Gould. And he was melting hearts again in passionate embraces with his beautiful new bride played by Serena Scott Thomas.
 
Daily Telegraph (U.K.), 3 February 1997
South American saga with a soporific beat
By Cristina Odone

About halfway through "Nostromo" Charles Gould (Colin Firth), astride a horse, snapped impatiently at his fellow riders: "Could we go any faster? I want to get there before Christmas!" He took the words right out of my mouth [...]

Alongside Colin Firth in this slowly unfolding tale of Charles Gould's efforts to revive his father's silver mine in a Latin American dictatorship were Serena Scott Thomas as his wife Emilia, and Claudio Amendola as Nostromo.[...]

As for Firth... how I wept when he first appeared in a beard. The furry growth will prompt as furious a debate, no doubt as the tight trousers he had donned as Darcy in Pride and Prejudice: what does a beard do for a man? Not much, as Firth
demonstrated. The beard blurred his well-chiselled features, erased his handsome mouth and generally obscured his dashing good looks in a forest of hair that, if not Amazonian, was certainly dense. As for his acting, it was hard to judge, restricted as he was to crossing a few palms with silver, trotting about his mine on a handsome horse and, in a preposterous scene that would have had Conrad cursing in his native Polish, making love to his wife in the disused mine.
Daily Mail (U.K.), 8 February 1997
Weekend supplement
TV - Pick of the Day: Nostromo
By Nigel Andrew

With the silver mine now prospering, Emilia Gould (Serena Scott Thomas) is urging Charles (Colin Firth) to take a break, or at least give her some attention. Some hope. The man is completely obsessed with his mine and its silver — though you'd  hardly know it from Firth's sleep-walking performance. [...]
Sunday Express (U.K.) 9 February 1997
Anthony Holden on last week's TV

[...]
I have spent the week re-reading Joseph Conrad to see what relation, if any, his 1904 masterpiece bears to BBC2's glitzy new Saturday night serial, "Nostromo". In vain did I search for the opening scene in John Hale's powerful TV version, where Charles Gould's silver-mining father is brutally murdered by South American revolutionaries (in the book he dies peacefully, if prematurely, in his bed). In vain, come to that, did I search for any mention of Gould until Chapter 5 - before which, unsurprisingly, pride of place goes to the book's eponymous hero.

But Gould is played by Colin Firth, in his first TV role since the dashing Mr Darcy, so the entire story must be reshaped to give Britain's most fancied actor opportunities to ride manfully into the tundra, and look moodily towards the horizon (presumably in search of some good ratings).
Nostromo, beguilingly played by Claudio Amendola, scarcely got a look-in before last night's second episode began edging him centre-stage, past more macho moodiness from Firth. [...]
TV can never do more than scratch the surface - steal the plot - of works so ambitious and many-layered. Does it matter? Not really, so long as we acknowledge that these small-screen spectaculars, however well acted and lavishly photographed, tell you as much about the original book as the blurb on its dustjacket. With that in mind, sit back and enjoy this stylishly dark "Nostromo" - and then, please read the book.
 
The Express (U.K.), 22 February 1997
Saturday magazine
by Patrick Stoddard

 [...]
The irritations of keeping up with the plot has hampered what might otherwise have been an enjoyable experience, but at least Nostromo has looked great, and some of the acting - from Colin Firth and the eponymous Claudio Amendola - has been very good.
[...]
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