Fortunes Of War

1 9 8 7 (UK)
7 x 60 minute episodes

The BBC’s £6 million Fortunes Of War was set in Bucharest at the outbreak of World War II and featured the world’s most irritating hero, Guy Pringle (played by Kenneth Branagh).

It also had Emma Thompson, struggling under some awful wigs, as his sensible wife Harriet, finding to her anguish that her husband – a naive lecturer working for the British Council – was all things to everyone but quite insensitive to her needs.

Following the outbreak of the war, newlyweds Guy and Harriet were eventually forced to abandon their lives in Romania and move first to Greece and then to Egypt, putting a great strain on their marriage.

As they reaffirmed their love high on a pyramid (with a friend he’d invited along for good measure) you knew this was the Harrods class of drama.

Fortunes of War was the BBC’s riposte to Granada’s hugely successful serials Brideshead Revisited (1981) and Jewel in the Crown (1984).

Shot on a big budget on location in Greece and Egypt, with Yugoslavia standing in for Romania, it was adapted by Alan Plater from Olivia Manning’s six autobiographical novels derived from her experiences with husband Reggie Smith between 1939 and 1943.

In a prime case of life imitating art, Branagh and Thompson later married in real life.

Guy Pringle
Kenneth Branagh 
Harriet Pringle 
Emma Thompson
Prince Yakimov 
Ronald Pickup
Dobson 
Charles Kay
Inchcape 
James Villiers
Sasha Drucker 
Harry Burton
Bella Niculesco 
Caroline Langrishe
Lord Pinkrose 
Alan Bennett
Simon Boulderstone 
Rupert Graves
Edwina Little 
Diana Hardcastle
Toby Lush 
Christopher Strauli 
Castlebar 
Robert Stephens
Dubedat 
Mark Drewry
Angela Hooper 
Ciaran Madden
Galpin 
Desmond McNamara
Lawson 
Richard Clifford 
Aidan Pratt 
Greg Hicks
Sophie Oresanu 
Elena Secota 
Despina 
Magdalena Buznea
Hadjimoscos 
Vernon Dobtcheff
Horvath 
Mischa De La Motte