The Glittering Prizes

The script's the star of this sprawling six-part series from Frederic Raphael: probing, caustic and matchlessly witty, particularly in the two most successful episodes, the Brideshead-esque 'An Early Life' and the frankly outlandish 'A Past Life', which features Eric Porter as a fascist sympathiser. The acting is variable (Tom Conti's bravura central performance is the obvious standout), the worldview sometimes unsavoury and the penultimate episode has passages that really drag, but it's a work touched with a rare brilliance and the dialogue is simply spectacular. I picked it up after hearing Nigel Havers (who has a small but memorable role) say it was the best script he'd ever read.

This series was the kind of thing that made TV worth it a quarter century ago. Written by the English novelist Frederick Raphael from his book, it was more than a little autobiographic, and carried the flavour of the 50s and 60s, while avoiding many of the clichés this period evokes.

The TV series was Intelligent, wry, literate, subtle, with brilliant acting.

In post-war England, it followed a group of students at Cambridge, with their hopes, affairs, confrontations with life, and, later, disillusionments and achievements. It's impossible to explain how truly intelligent the writing is; this has to be experienced.

We NEED it on DVD!

This series, which ran on PBS in the '70s, was written by award-winning screenwriter and novelist Frederic Raphael. It follows a group of Cambridge students from the 50's through to the 70's. Several of them are thinly-disguised versions of their real-life counterparts. For example, Tom Conti plays Adam Morris, an aspiring Jewish novelist (presumably Raphael himself) and Mark Wing-Davey (of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy) plays Mike Clode (obviously David Frost.) A wonderful analysis of life in England from the post-war period through to the Swinging '70s. Shamefully, this series has never been released on video.

Totally engrossing series. Excellent cast, with a young Tom Conti particularly outstanding. Many mini-series have since come and gone, but very few match it in quality or in hauntingly evoking an era. A masterpiece.

Over six episodes, vaguely connected, we follow a group of Cambridge students from their time at university in the 1950s to resignation in the 1970s. The glittering prizes of the title might be the trappings of academia, or simply success, children, or a sense of self.

Nominal star is Tom Conti, as a character perhaps based on the writer Frederic Raphael himself, touchy about his religion but not really caring about the Jewish traditions, seeking success and glory but staring failure in the face - although he only really appears in episodes 1, 3, and 6. On the fringes are other actors like a very young Nigel Havers, as a gay man sent down for indecency; Mark Wing-Davey, as a narcissistic David Frost-type producer director seduced by the bright lights of Hollywood; Malcolm Stoddard, not marrying for love but fond of the quiet life, and in one episode only, Dinsdale Landen as a boozy, cynical flirt bored with his minor university and his ordinary unchallenging wife who he remains 'academically' faithful to.

Like most 1970s productions, scenes studio-bound have an air of fake about them, while filmed inserts are showing their age. And in the cast there's a surprise or two - look for Spandau Ballet's Martin Kemp as a gangly schoolboy. The dialogue shows its age in places, too, but in the main it is good, though wordy.

Just don't expect a real storyline, or closure for the characters, and you might well enjoy this nine hour series.