Yes, there were a couple of poor wigs, but the acting was top notch. It was a difficult thing to take on also, going from age 17/18 to mid forties with the same bunch of actors. Maybe it was of its time, Paul, and only old codgers like ourselves enjoyed it!

See also GBH with the peerless Robert Lindsay and Michael Palin. Great Stuff.

I borrowed the DVD box set of it earlier in the year and was gripped from start to finish, one of the best series I've watched all year apart from Lost and Flight Of The Concordes, the latter of which I've just discovered.

for being flippant - I did say I hadn't seen it as I was put off by the comedy stick-on moustaches and bad wigs.
However, I'd be interested to read some comments about the series and maybe I'll give it a try as I'm hard pushed to think of any really decent British dramas off the top of my head...apart from the ones you mentioned maybe "I, Claudius"?

Do things like Minder, Cold Feet, Auf Weidersehen Pet count?

I watched it on DVD boxset a couple of years ago and thought it was excellent. A really good concept of following a series of friends through three decades.

I'm a soft Southerner but really appreciated it as an excellent piece of drama and with some good acting.

Mark Strong's wigs could have won a BAFTA of their own. His Beatle wig had me proper fooled.

...I don't really think it's any better or worse than the others you mention. It was touted at the time as being a groundbreaking, eon-stretching, multi-layered, multi-episode tour de force the likes of which we'd never seen before. Which may have been true.

I did watch it and enjoy it, but I never thought it was the masterpiece everyone made it out to be. Gina McKee's cold as ice in everything, beautiful as she is.

Of course it's been much-imitated since and has passed into kind of legendary status and so has become a bit of a sacred cow. The left-leaning tone and social history elements helped elevate it above criticism too.

I've not seen it since and wondered if it would stand up to a repeat viewing or whether it would be no more of a classic than Clocking Off.

As to you valuing my opinion, I'm totally flattered!

Life On Mars - must be a candidate

State of Play

and if it's not too long ago...
Edge of Darkness

Paul, you're right about Our Friends... I watched it last year for the first time since it was shown on TV and it was as good as I remembered it.

I can't think of any other series which mixes the personal and political so effectively. The stories of the four main characters are compelling, especially as they are all flawed, and the range of political events covered over the years is astonishing. Yet you never feel writer Peter Flannery has to include something like the miners strike for the sake of it. The events shape the characters' lives and the characters have an impact on events.

The acting is superb, right down the cast, but especially Christopher Eccleston.

Blackstuff and Bob and Rose are my other favourities from the last 20-odd years.

I'm a southerner. Watched it when broadcast, then in my 20s. Loved it. You could tell then that Ecclestone & Craig were ones to watch. Would love to see it again. Might blow my Amazon voucher on it...

As I remember it.

to see if it as good as I thought it was at the time.
Well written and superbly acted, deserves the praise it got at the time.

Good shout for Blackstuff - fantastic series which totally nailed early 80's Britain.

is the only work of british drama that comes close to The Wire in terms of being a realistic and gritty discussion of the death of the industrial heartlands of the UK and the politics that went with it. It is also very much about the music that these tensions spawned as in those terms I would imagine word readers should check it out.

I saw it at the time and I saw it a number of times 10 years later and it still stood up in terms of acting, writing, plot and emotional punch.

OK so perhaps the special effects aging them weren't amazing. But what else are you going to do, have different actors play them? Impossible since every episode is 5 years or so after the last and when would you have the jarring changes. They had to do that with the little boy anyway, with the whole cast it would have been much less successful than the wigs and make up that they wen't with.

It was an amazing series and we have not seen its like since.

Yes we've had a few good things here and there. Cracker has its charms. As does most of what is mentioned above. But in terms of novelistic depth and epic televisual experience AFITN is the only thing to come close to the current golden age of US drama.

Life on Mars tried and nearly succeeded, I liked a lot about it, although it failed to be as beautifully conceived plotwise as its original premise and set up made it feel it would be.

Where we do hold our own is in comedy. British comedy is generally as good as the best that American can offer. From faulty towers, the office, peep show, the inbetweeners, even the mighty boosh or have I got news for you (in its glory days) are all classic and british.

Loved OFITN, can we also have a special mention for Between the Lines, Singing Detective, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet; can I also do a shout for- yes I know it was rubbish- The Professionals.

What a story arc.
What performances.

Every single one of the main leads has gone on to do more great work.

I loved it. Gritty masterpiece, no doubt about it.

I don't believe it: I just spent about 25 minutes writing a big spiel praising Our Friends In The North and then my window just crashed or something. Lost to the winds!

So instead I'll just say: I love Our Friends In The North. Probably my all time favourite TV show.

Someone up there mentioned GBH which is in the same league. And The Singing Detective, naturally.

@Mat Davies

Heres an apt treat: Daniel Craig in Between The Lines

Oasis finest moment?

There, I've said it.

Admittedly, The Wire comes close - and managed to sustain the excellence for a full 5 series - but Our Friends in the North is still a clear winner.

I have never been so enthralled by a TV series before or since. Embrawumman and I could hardly wait until the next episode. I bought her the boxed set last year and we watched it again - it was still as good.

As others have mentioned, the interplay of the personal and political storylines is very effective and the use of music is masterful.

I'd never noticed the wigs/taches issues, however I will point out that when you look at photos from the past (especially of yourself) it does sometimes seem that wigs and false taches (if applicable) are being worn. I think that the period touches, from decor to costumes, are well done.

House of Cards

A Very British Coup

and GBH

When accused of having an affair Mark Strong's character says to his wife -

"There is naw woman, man!"

Wonderful.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.....Sir Alec G, Ian Richardson,Bernard Hepton, Hywell Bennett, Patrick Stewart, Beryll Reid, Joss Ackland, Michael Jayston, George Sewell, Terence Rigby, Ian Bannen, Nigel Stock, Michael Aldridge and Warren Clarke...
Story by John LeCarre..
A cast and plot to die for.
Never been bettered

EDIT The spammer was in da house

I just watched OFITN for the first time this week and watched all 9 episodes in one day - absolutely outstanding loved every minute of it.