Mark McGinness

Granada’s Brideshead Revisited remains the sine qua non of mini-series

Anthony Burgess said it was 'the best piece of fictional TV ever made. It is the book. In some ways, it is better than the book.'

In some ways it is better than the book: Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder and Anthony Andrews as Sebastian Flyte in Granada’s 1981 Brideshead Revisited. Credit: ITV/Shutterstock 
issue 16 October 2021
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It is 40 years ago today since Granada’s masterly adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited first beamed into British homes. This 11-part serialisation of a book originally entitled A Household of the Faith soon gathered millions of faithful householders. The autumn of 1981 was an especially cold and wet one and it was still too soon in the Thatcher premiership for her patron saint, Francis of Assisi, to have worked his magic. So

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