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'Here, at the age of thirty nine, I began to be old. '

In 1944 Captain Charles Ryder travels with a company of soldiers to Brideshead. It's a place he's been to before, and one which serves as a potent reminder of the decadent and stylish lifestyle now destroyed by the austerity of the Second World War.

Evelyn Waugh's moving and nostalgic novel revisits a golden age, when Ryder was a student at Oxford in the 1920s and in thrall to the captivating but tragic Sebastian Flyte. As the story unfolds over the next two decades, Ryder traces his friendship with Sebastian and his involvement with the young man's aristocratic Catholic family - in particular Julia, the eldest Flyte daughter.

Ben Miles stars as Charles Ryder with Jamie Bamber as Sebastian in this full-cast dramatisation, which also features Eleanor Bron and Edward Petherbridge.

Written By
Evelyn Waugh

First Broadcast
16 March 2003

NUMBER OF EPISODES
4

Last Broadcast
6 April 2003