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 Mal Young, best known for producing Liverpool-set Channel 4 soap "Brookside", to head up the Drama Series section of the in-house Drama Department, which had become something of a poisoned chalice with many Controllers departing in quick succession. As Controller of Continuing Drama Series, Young oversaw the move to volume production and also commissioned a new medical Series, "Holby City". By the time Young left the BBC to join 19 Television Limited as head of Drama in December 2004, the BBC had increased Series production to nearly 300 hours per annum, including "EastEnders" at four times a week, "Holby City"