Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21440 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-09-19
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Original language: English, Italian
• Number of discs: 4
• Running time: 663 minutes

DVD Description

The Brideshead Revisited – Complete Series four-disc box set contains the complete collection of episodes from this award-winning ITV series, based on Evelyn Waugh's bestseller of the same name. First broadcast in 1981, the show stars Jeremy Irons (as Charles Ryder), Anthony Andrews (as Lord Sebastian Flyte), Dianna Quick (as Lady Julia Flyte), Laurence Oliver (as Lord Marchmain), Claire Bloom (as Lady Marchmain) and John Gielgud (as Edward Ryder). Much of the series is set in the beautiful Castle Howard in North Yorkshire.

Customer Reviews

Ought we to be drunk all the time?
I have come to adore the writings of Evelyn Waugh, and watched this for the first time when I was 17 and loved every second of it. I was thrilled to find the DVD set on here for such a reasonal price (at about £1.20 per hour...) and snapped it up immediately.

Of huge benefit is the extra documentary, where the cast explain how they all went away during the production hiatus, read the books and then brought back particular lines to the scriptwriters to be included. This, I feel, adds to the success of this production.

Charles Ryder's narration is imperative, and Jeremy Irons' seductive tones carry us through the story as he meets the Marchmains and how influential they become in his life. I doubt whether there are many people who would watch this, having read the book, and find it unfaithful or very different to how they imagine Brideshead to be.

For me, Charles and Sebastian are perfect, Antony Blanche's stuttering a true gem, Jane Asher is particularly annoying as Charles' wife (as she ought to be) - in essence, the cast are all phenomenal, especially when put against John Gielgud (delicious as Charles' father) and Laurence Olivier.

The best television production I have ever had the pleasure to watch. Buy it whilst you can - the production value of this box set is stunning, both on screen and the box case itself.

Subtitled?
I'm sure there are thousands of international customers who would be extremely happy to know whether a movie has English subtitles or not. This information really should become a regular item when listing DVD features. For instance, I would buy Brideshead instantly if I knew it was subtitled. Now I have to go hunting for this bit of information.

5+ stars for the series, but still an inferior dvd quality
It is pretty exasperating to find that while so many TV-productions inferior to this one (and most are) reach us on DVD in mint condition, it is apparently impossible to do the same favour to this, one of the three best things ever made for television (the other two being the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice, and ABC's Angels in America). It took ridiculously long for Brideshead to appear on DVD at all. When it did, it was crammed onto three discs in an otherwise featureless set. Image and sound were appalling throughout. So what a relief to find there is now a 'collectors edition' on 4 discs, presumably to correct the initial errors. But don't get your hopes up too high. On this reissue the sound is as bad as on the old version; listen to the opening tune - whatever happened to CD quality sound? The picture quality has improved somewhat: less grain, some gain in clarity. Yet, unbelievably, this reissue again shows up tape artefacts, unsteady backgrounds, and occasional fuzzy images.The main improvement is in the presentation: there now are several interesting extra's, and even a booklet! But that, of course, is not what it is all about. Worst of all every disc begins with a noisy, non-skippable anti-piracy add that is an insult to buyers of this set, and is so infuriatingly irritating that it would turn you into a movie pirate on the spot. Unfortunately there is little choice but to make do with this, as any serious lover of great television will not want to be without this monumentally impressive series. Of the available options (including the Region 1 'collector's edition' - what's in a name...), this one is the best, though that is not saying much.