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Old Bridie stuck with me for years between first seeing it and then reviewing on a tv re-run not long ago. The story of Charles and Sebastian and their families (and Sebastian's teddy bear) opens out Evelyn Waugh's slow-paced novel and instead of rushing through it in a couple of hours takes time to work with it and present the story at a leisurely pace, taking stock of some of the UK's greatest scenery.

Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews play the leads, who meet at University and become lifelong friends. Diana Quick and Phoebe Nicholls play Sebastian's sisters, and the two boys' fathers are played by no less than Olivier and Gielgud. Inspired casting. Mona Washbourne is also used well, along with Nickolas Grace.

I think the days of these long and involved dramas have long gone by in the climate of 'whatever grabs ratings quickest'. But Granada TV managed to make a British gem which will and should be remembered for many years. Excellent.

A dream cast with a magnificent script (John Mortimer) brings to life Evelyn Waugh's elegiac upon the between-wars years. Golden years and golden people are lost, and the sense of loss is captured in the changes inflicted on the buildings, and in Geoffrey Burgon's heart-wrenching score. Brideshead captures the clash of humanistic values with those of old-time Catholicism, while tracing the decline of an aristocratic (somewhat precious) family, in a series that is part comedy, part romance, part tragedy. It is an enriching experience that no-one should miss.

The reviewers who have given positive feedback for this series have done quite well and I have little to add. Sadly, there was one review that seemed to miss the point, and I would like to address this:

"We can suppose that Lord Marchmain pretended to convert to comfort his family. There is no such excuse for Charles, who has seen the damage that Catholicism did to the whole family."

Wrong. It was the shirking of religious principle that tore apart the family. Lord Marchmain left Catholicism and thought he had license to leave his wife, so he abandoned his children to a confused, fatherless upbringing. Had he remained true to his sacramental vow to stay, "for better or for worse," by his wife's side, the family would never have been so dysfunctional.

As for the vague homo-eroticism in the first few episodes, many young men at Oxford back in the day did go through such phases and often they were in fact merely PHASES. Evelyn Waugh himself apparently did.

The book and the mini-series always broke my heart. I first read the book and viewed the series as a teenager and it affected me much more then "Catcher in the Rye".

It is probably one of the finest adaptations of a novel put to film. You watch as the reckless innocent fun of youth is slowly taken away and replaced by sad old cynicism.

It captures the feeling of the stolen season of peace between the world wars and the cool observant eye of Waugh who before hand always wrote detached speedy amoral stories. This seemed so...different.

The acting is so on the spot. Carefully restrained and woeful as we watch our favorite characters grow.

Everyone is of course entitled to an opinion about matters such as this, but how anyone can rate this series as anything less than a great milestone in television is, to my mind at least, quite difficult to understand.

I recently re-read Evelyn Waugh's wonderful novel and was, consequently, inspired to watch the series for the fourth time, on DVD on this occasion. It is disappointing that the DVD boxed set contains no additional features as one would expect from a series which is so highly regarded by so many people. At least, interviews with the stars and comments by the Director, Charles Sturridge, would have been welcome. In that respect, the DVD set can be seen to be somewhat lacking.

However, the acting, direction, costume design, sets and John Mortimer's brilliant adaptation of the novel for television make this one of the greatest achievements in television and a demonstration of what can be accomplished in that medium with a great deal of care for detail.

What I find particularly heart-rending is the transition from the light and airy early scenes to the darker ending of the series. I am really not sure whether this comment contravenes the "spoiler" guidelines but I suspect that I'm on reasonable safe ground in that regard.

I would go so far as to suggest that "Brideshead Revisited" lives up to the comments which were made about it at the time of its release in the early '80s that it is one of the greatest television series ever produced and it is hardly surprising to me at least that a series of such enduring quality emanated from the UK.

10 out of 10 from me. I am looking forward to reading the book and seeing the series again at some time in the not too distant future.

Please do yourselves a great favour and read the novel and then see the series. You will find, as I have done, that it is a true classic and a faithful adaptation from the novel to the small screen.