The Brothers

I have just re-watched all 92 episodes (not having seen them since I watched the original broadcast in the 70s) and greatly enjoyed them.

The drama centres on a family-run road haulage firm whose ownership becomes complicated after the death of its founder with business, family, and other personal issues becoming intertwined.

All the acting is of high quality and the balance of personal vs business story strands is largely OK although in series 3 and 4 things get a bit bogged down in one particular marriage and the balance suffers somewhat.

One major quality that distinguishes it from modern drama touching on similar topics is that the financial and business content is written realistically and from an informed perspective. Today's TV (and radio) is written by children who know damn all about business and trot out rubbish plucked out of thin air with no basis in reality.

Series 1-6 are truly excellent. In series 7 things do start to get a bit tired. The characters are still compelling but the plot ideas are becoming thin and it is a blessing that it was stopped before it became a disappointing soapy shell of itself.

All in all after episode 92 one is left with entirely happy memories of an excellent drama.

An interesting and intelligent 'soap opera' from the '70s. The dialogue and acting are first-rate and constructive while the very ''70s' bourgeois props and costumes are evocative: I saw a framed print of Vermeer's ''Girl With A Pearl Earing'' in one domestic scene showing good taste. The young graceful English actor - the Chaucerian Malcolm Stoddard was in the brilliant scientifically fascinating documentary series, ''The Voyage of Charles Darwin'' (1978). Prim and proper actress, Jean Anderson was born in the remote year of 1907! The series was a big hit in Holland. The first episode was aired in 1972 - that greyest of hippy years although the early-'70s were pioneering years.

I had heard of The Brothers for years before I actually saw it. Luckily, Talking Pictures TV began their repeats of it on Thursday nights paired with the original Van Der Valk, which is top class scheduling.

The Brothers is the story of three brothers (the clue is in the title) who inherit a haulage business when their Dad dies, but they have to run it alongside his mistress, which causes tensions with the Mum. The characterisations are brilliant, particularly Alpha Male eldest brother Edward who wants things his way or not at all. His two younger brothers bring their own talents to the boardroom table too, and the prim, manipulative Mother orchestrates things from afar, gently influencing their professional and personal lives.

I love the wives in this - model Jill and vamp Ann Hammond. Ann is a forgotten gay icon, always with a cigarette, an arched eyebrow, and a waspish comment (and always in the midst of an affair). The old school Mother is well worth it too with her curiously dated diction and delicate accent. She's a piece of work on the quiet.

The boardroom scenes remind me of the "BUSINESS, MARJORIE!" sketches from A Bit Of Fry and Laurie, but they are good studies of class at the time. The Hammonds are working class done good, and Bill Riley is the uneasy working class guy who somehow found himself on the board. Above all of them are the bankers (notably Colin Baker), and you can really sense the Thatcher years on the horizon.

It really sucks you in, and it would be interesting to see it done nowadays.

It's great to see this show has been picked up for a re-run from Series 1 by Talking Pictures TV.

The children of a highly successful businessman fight to carry on the business, each with their own idea of how it should be run and ultimately seeking overall control. Various outsiders including rival entrepreneurs and financial whizzkids want a slice of the action. Add in the spice of a long-hidden illicit relationship, ongoing conflicts between hurt and betrayed parties, and you have a storyline which could easily find its place on mainstream TV today. No, it's not "Succession", but could easily be seen as a 1970's "ancestor" to that phenomenon.

I was 12 when the first series of The Brothers hit the screens in 1972, and 17 when it reached an untimely end in December 1976, at the end of Series 7, and thus didn't understand half of the 'business-y' things that went on, but that didn't stop it from establishing itself as the best thing I'd ever seen on TV. 40+ years later, I've just finished watching it all again on DVD, and my opinion is unchanged : pure magic. We must thank our lucky stars that this is NOT one of the shows that the BBC threw away after transmission (the majority of things from that era no longer exist) : all episodes surviving on their original 2" videotapes long enough to be digitally transferred by said organisation. Most people now have no idea what this show was : but at the time it was regularly #1 in the 'Most Watched' weekly chart. 41 years later, I'm still waiting for Series 8, but I'm starting to think that I may be disappointed ...