Brideshead Revisited A faithful and well-received television adaptation of the novel was produced in an 11-part miniseries by Granada Television in 1981. The novel is divided into three parts, framed by a prologue and epilogue. The prologue takes place during the final years of the Second World War. Charles Ryder and his battalion are sent to a country estate called Brideshead, which prompts his recollections which form the rest of the story. In 1923, protagonist and narrator Charles Ryder, an undergraduate studying history at a college very like Hertford College, Oxford, is befriended by Lord Sebastian Flyte, the younger son of the
BBC television drama major location and shot entirely on videotape and thus comparatively cheap to make, longer runs of drama series became rare, with short series of six or eight episodes becoming the norm. The single play, in its original studio-based form, also began to disappear from the schedules, with the final series of "Play for Today" airing in 1984, and the last single drama recorded at Television Centre being "Henry IV, Part 1" in 1995. The BBC was envious of the success of its rival Channel 4's newly formed film arm, which had seen made-for-television one-offs such as Stephen Frears' "My Beautiful