This piece of fiction is little more than an neo-Renaissance anti-Catholic vitriolic morality play diatribe thinly disguised as literature.Although told from the viewpoint of innocent Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder, the plot revolves around Claire Bloom as Lady Marchmain and how her disingenuous religion destroys her family and friends. Lady Marchmain was forced to marry to achieve her position and has never forgiven her God for forcing her into this carnal action to achieve what she saw as her due.In return Lady Marchmain is punished first in the vulgar world when her husband deserts her, and then she is further punished by Providence which destroys her son and their relationship through his alcoholism.Always taking center stage is a great personal vanity which suggests that the faith which they swear by is merely another affectation, another lordly possession found somewhere after the fox hunt and before the lobster thermidor. No mercy is granted towards those who follow the Pope; even the kindest member of the family balks at the notion that a priest might better serve God by ministering to a larger number of people rather than the four or five family members who insist on maintaining a personal chapel for their convenience.The author and film-makers go out of their way to note that the servants of the family are Protestant, not Catholic, thus making more apparent the vanity of the personal chapel. We don't learn anything else about any servants. This is not about rich vs. poor, this is not about liberal vs. conservative, this is not about Manchester United vs. Chelsea, this is about Catholic vs. Protestant.Lady and Lord Marchmain both spend their final days in mental torment passing to their graves unredeemed by those who should have been their loved ones. The *cough* sinister hand of Popery also reaches out to deal rude slaps to family best friend Rex and eldest daughter Julia. No Protestants are punished by heaven, and former Protestant Rex is punished only after he turns Catholic to marry into the family.If instead of making a complex parable the curse was out in the open and instead of turning into a sot the Anthony Andrews character Sebastian Flyte turned into a vampire or werewolf, this would have been a lot more engaging. As it is, what we really have here is the closest thing to Elizabethan era anti-Catholic propaganda as you would be able so sneak into a good library or on public TV.As a work on film, it fails to make me care about any of the characters. In fact, after finishing episode three I was hoping the Sebastian character would maybe kill himself and quit wasting any more time. When you look over the entire cast, there is no more than one good human being among them, that being Lady Marchmain's youngest daughter.Even Charles, who is put forth as an innocent caught up in it all, is as much to blame for much of the misfortune as anyone else and demonstrates no less a failure of responsibility.Although this story is not about class, it does not do much to flatter nobility. But that is a function of fact, and behavior is portrayed realistically. If we want to look for a proverb here, we can say the film represents that those who shout at God the loudest, are heard by him the least.As a final insult to the gentry depicted here, none of them are ever shown to have any productive activities. They are highly wealthy aristocrats with large estates and many top notch servants, they run about the continent as they please. But not once does anyone have to run off to tend some family business or anything. There is just endless money for everything. Maybe the money is part of the religion thing. Their choice rewards them in the profane world with riches, but penalizes them in the divine world with damnation.Whatever their economic or social standing, most families will face some crisis at some time, and often more than one. It is not likely that every different crisis would have the same root cause. Religion could cause an issue, a family member marrying out of faith could cause problems for example. But problems also are caused by gambling, infidelity, politics and other catalysts. Here every problem is caused in some way, direct or indirect, by religion.The only thing you could add to this would be a Mother Courage type old woman in rags screaming "Bloody Papists! Bloody Papists!" Remember this principle: Never mistake effort for accomplishment.It's a street whore in a prom dress. It is a bottle of Château Lafite de Rothschild 1879 that has turned. It has John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier but before you harrumph too much might I say, "Inchon"? My final judgment? The opening segment showing troops in WWII is a portent. The British lost many lives fighting against the religious intolerance of the Nazis, but the author to begin with and those who made the film later seem not to have learned anything from it.

This 1981 adaptation of one of the finest 20th century novels is as perfect as any adaptation for television could ever be. Returning to it after some years, what is so moving and so eloquently conveyed is the wonderful, poetic and innocent early recall of Charles's romance with Oxford and Sebastian, and the gathering clouds of winter which Waugh tells us close around Sebastian's heart, as his mother's destructive piety and possessiveness destroy him, while Charles is unwittingly caught by her power. We see many Jungian archetypes at play. Also, revisiting it, one sees the homosexuality much more, so delicately described by Waugh merely by hints, yet which he says was high on the list of mortal "sins" between the two young men. Platonic? No, but the subtlety is what writers of Waugh's standing sought - it was after all based on an affair in his own life.Jeremy Irons is superb, conveying with great subtlety and often few words the poetry, the sadness, the regret, the loss of innocence, while Anthony Andrews is equally superb, haughty, childlike, trusting yet betrayed, aristocratic. Claire Bloom as Lady Marchmain is an ice queen of still, too controlled beauty, destroying all with her Catholic obsession, unable to see her own shadow. Gielgud - what can one say except superb? Anthony Blanche is deliciously camp and conveys the centrality to those early days that Waugh describes, and of course Olivier is unsurpassed, and Diana Quick beautiful and as tormented by her faith as was her mother. To watch this after the sorry movie version (just two hours against about twelve!) is a real lesson in how to adapt a great novel. One of thee truly great TV classics.

I've finished watching the whole series on DVD last night. It is a wonderful and faithful adaptation of the E. Waugh's book and what can I say that's not already been said here? It's just so beautiful and sad that it hurts thinking about it... Jeremy Irons' performance, like a finely tuned instrument, has subtlety and passion in the same degree and Anthony Andrews' Sebastian is a study in charm and self-destruction that enthralls and saddens by its intensity. All the actors, no matter how small their role, were impressive and none of them gave overstated performances. Bravo to all involved in it and I'm pretty sure we'll never see anything like it on the small screen again. I shall treasure it and will re-watch it many, many times, I am sure! P.S. Et in Arcadia ego - Isn't this part of the story the most heart-rending depiction of love, innocence and happiness ever committed to screen?

Possibily there have been two other television adaptations from literature that have equaled "Brideshead Revisited". One, somewhat earlier and in black and white, was "The Forsythe Saga"; the other was "The Jewel in the Crown" and that was in 1983. I honestly can't think of anything of a similar magnitude in the intervening years. Not that television isn't producing great drama: the BBC's rightly acclaimed costume dramas have mostly hit the mark and writers like Alan Bleasdale and Stephen Poliakoff have given us some great contemporary stuff. It's just that television no longer seems prepared to take risks, (and its time), and give us epic serializations like "Brideshead Revisited" and "The Jewel in the Crown".With a running time of almost 12 hours, "Brideshead ..." was, to say the least, properly detailed. We were party to the silences between the words and the inactivity between the action. We were, if you like, party to the character's every breathing moment and never for an instant was it dull. On the contrary, with one of the best casts ever assembled for a television production and with a splendid script by John Mortimer, it was thrilling.Its hero is Charles Ryder, a somewhat vacuous young man whose sole purpose in life seems to be a 'hanger-on', primarily to the Marchmain family and, despite a few sojourns into the wilderness, if he isn't within their radar he seems not to exist at all. He is played by Jeremy Irons, an actor who can perfectly capture the pallid in-consequentiality of someone who exists only in the eyes of others. It is Charles who tells us the tale and it is the tale of the Marchmains, firstly of Sebastian and latterly of Julia.It is through Sebastian that he first encounters the family; Sebastian, the beautiful, slightly effete and, as it turns out, dipsomaniac young lord who befriends him at Oxford. Though never explicit, we must assume they become lovers and in a sexual way. Charles never makes any bones about loving Sebastian and later, even when embroiled in an affair with Julia, it is Sebastian who fills his thoughts. Charles, it would appear, is truly bisexual, though finally it is with women that he consummates his relationships. Sebastian, on the other hand, is gay and a drunk; self-loathing, not because of his sexuality which he seems to happily accept, but because of who he is, a Marchmain. The love of Sebastian's life turns out not to be Charles but Kurt, a young German deserter even more in need of love and affection than he. Even when Charles severs all ties with the Marchmains after he and Sebastian 'break up', he keeps being drawn back into their circle, finally embarking on a passionate love affair with Sebastian's sister, Julia.The Marchmains are Catholics and that is something of an anachronism in the English gentry. Their Catholicism overwhelms them. Where none of them seems to have a 'profession' their Catholicism becomes their profession; their private chapel is their bank and their faith is their currency. it alienates both Sebastian and Julia whose sex-drives are at logger-heads with the teachings of their Church. (Julia, even more so than Sebastian, is overwhelmed by guilt but then, she doesn't have the demon drink to fall back on). Brideshead, the older son and Cordelia, the younger daughter, on the other hand, seem positively priest-like and nun-like in their asexuality. Lady Marchmain is a cold gorgon of respectability whose self-righteousness has driven, first her husband from her and then her son. Lord Marchmain lives with his married French mistress in Venice.All these characters are beautifully delineated and played. Olivier is a magisterial Lord Marchmain while Claire Bloom has seldom been better than as Lady Marchmain and, given time to fully develop their characters, Diana Quick, (Julia), Simon Jones, (Brideshead), and Phoebe Nichols, (Cordelia), are superbly cast as other members of the family. And then there is Sebastian: Anthony Andrews performance is one of the great pieces of acting. Sebastian is, by nature, theatrical but Andrews breaks down his theatricality and gets to the very core of the character. His drunk scenes are phenomenal and, as he breaks down, he is extraordinarily moving. He departs from the series about half way through but his presence is felt to the very end.Four other performances stand out. John Gielgud is a wonderfully comic foil as Iron's supercilious father; John Grillo is properly oily as the toadying Mr Samgrass, (he is like the snake in the Garden of Eden); Stephane Audran is an oasis of calm sensuality as Cara, Lord Marchmain's mistress and Nickolas Grace is magnificent as Anthony Blanche, Sebastian's flamboyant, outré gay friend at Oxford. So indelibly does Grace inhabit the role that I found it impossible to separate the actor from the part. His performance seems to transcend acting altogether, though I am sure Mr Grace isn't like Anthony at all in real life. These are the kind of performances and this is the kind of television that makes you glad that someone had the wherewithal to invent the medium in the first place. It's a masterpiece.