Roedy Green This series was made in 1981, roughly 12 years after gay lib launched.It comes across as if made by straight people who have never met any gay ones.The director seems to think gays spend their lives doing Oscar Wilde impersonations.The character Anthony Blanche is like the silliest stereotype cubed. It should have been funny, but I just found him insulting and nauseating.Sebastian is has enough money he does not care what others think of him. He plays the part of a little boy, carting around a large teddy bear. He is the male equivalent of the female who calls her lover daddy and has little girl affectations. The director missed his charming innocence. He looks the part though.Charles Ryder is a closet case. He would not in a million years puff his cigarette like Marlene Dietrich or take on other camp affections. The director did not understand that. It is frightening for Charles to hang out with Sebastian, but he is dragged to it by sexual attraction. In the film, Charles is far too comfortable.Charles and Sebastian have a physical relationship, yet it is hidden in the footnotes. All you hear is some incredibly obscure references. This does not ring true. You might not have an actual sex scene, but there should at least have been an shirt-removing scene, or kiss, or an embrace, or a scene of the two of them in bed afterwards, or even a devilish look. But nothing. There is no fire at all. Perhaps the director intended this film for straights and children and hoped most of them would never twig there was any sex going on.

Armand a series who has the rare gift to not be only a good adaptation. but a travel. not in heart of a beautiful book but in science to recreate an universe exploring each of its nuances. in essence, a splendid cast, a wise script are pillars of that movie who not presents a story but create an unique flavor about passing , illusion, fights against roots and against yourself and fragile form of survive. at first sigh - a testimony. in fact- a magic meeting between great actors and one of seductive performances for Jeremy Irons, a splendid Sebastian by Anthony Andrews and the impression to be part of story for viewer. a film more important after its final image because the state who remains represents a precious gift. must see it ! as useful experience.

Rogermarksmen 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.

kabrorsen Brideshead Revisited - I have seen the full series several times, I have read the book and I also saw the TV-series on Danish Television, when it was first shown in the early 80's. Brideshead Revisited is in my eyes the masterpiece of British TV-drama. The extremely precise adaption of the somewhat short novel succeeds in the difficult art of capturing the nostalgia, which is the main theme of the book. It is after all first of all a tale of, how the world was as a young man - before everything was changed by WWII. I am not sure, whether book-critics regard Brideshead Revisited as the author's main work, or it just happened to be well suited for filming; but the final TV production is of a quality, which makes all this irrelevant. I have seen most of the great British TV-series, and I always loved the best of them - this one is better than the best. As so many others on this site, I rate it as a clear 10 out of 10.