Room at the Top (2012 film) Room at the Top (2012 film) Room at the Top is a 2012 BBC television adaptation by Amanda Coe of John Braine's novel of the same name, with a cast led by Matthew McNulty, Maxine Peake and Jenna Coleman, and directed by Aisling Walsh. It aired in two parts on 26 and 27 September 2012 on BBC Four, but was originally due to premiere on 7 April 2011. A statement at the time said that delay was due to "a potential contractual issue", and it later emerged that another film company challenged the sale of the TV rights to Great
John Braine small town five miles up the Aire Valley . Although he wrote 12 works of fiction, Braine is chiefly remembered today for his first novel, "Room at the Top" (1957). The novel was conceived when he was being treated for tuberculosis in a hospital near the Yorkshire Dales town of Grassington. He stated that his favourite author was Guy de Maupassant and that "Room at the Top" was based on "Bel Ami", but that "the critics didn't pick it up". "Room at the Top" was turned into a successful 1959 film, with Laurence Harvey as Joe Lampton and featuring an