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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Television»Shows by Decade»1980s Television
    1980s Television Drama Shows F 2 Mins Read

    Fortunes Of War

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    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.

    fortunesofwar_037

    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

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