shoreup Our friends in the North is one of those things you grow to admire in time, long after the details have left your mind and its melancholy essence has been absorbed by your consciousness. You will go back to this essence many many times as you grow old and find yourself identifying with someone or the other in this majestic work.It covers 30 years for the most turbulent period in modern British history starting from the early sixties with its anxious flirtations with radical Marxism and ending in the bland nineties enmeshed in the muck of decadent consumerism. The plot revolves around four friends who are archetypes of the times and the greatness of Peter Flannery's script is to lay out in exquisite detail the fantastic interplay of archetypes and time. Some of the greatest of British actors played their life defining roles like Gina Mckee, Christopher Ecclestone, Mark Strong and a young Daniel Craig whose performance alone should make it worth seeing. Its a kind of work which is now largely impossible today primarily because of the class it focuses on; lower middle class Britain and their problems. In our post political age, where the public has been largely relegated to be spectators to their lives, its refreshing to witness a time where politics was the heart and soul of many lives who wanted to change the world albeit a bit foolishly. Nick ( Ecclestone ) is one such character. The cinematography is not the best but the plot makes up for it. Multi episode TV series like this was a creation of British TV and there is no better example to show how time is such a valuable thing to have in narrative expositions. Every episode focuses on a year and three decades gives the audience the chance to see characters play out their fated, entangled lives amidst all their joys and failures, swimming in the turbulence of sweeping historical changes.Every work of literature invariably comes up against the shores of narrative completeness where it faces its most troubled critics. Our Friends in the North has that self contained completeness where you are hard pressed to find leakages and thus you can say with a proud boast that its complete. There is an inevitability to the flow of lives that gives it a self sustaining rhythm till the end where you realize that nothing could have been any different. You feel for every character because by the time you have reached the end, you have come to believe in the old Buddhist maxim which exhorts man to believe in no judge-mental God who sits and punishes from above but to believe in man himself who weaves his own destiny, thread by thread which at the end of time, can chain him to the rock or carry him over to the heavens. A masterpiece which will last many a storm of time.

Jackie Scott-Mandeville Agreeing with all the other commentators, this drama is the best that the BBC can produce. Gina McKee, Mark Strong, Daniel Craig, and Christopher Eccleston all cut their teeth in this series and went on to bigger things - but never better. Even Daniel Craig's James Bond does not outshine his performance as Geordie. Watching the DVD set years after the first viewing, I cried all over again at human weakness, corrupt politics, illusions and disillusionment, and marvelled afresh at the supremely accomplished acting skills. I have lived right through the period of the play and empathise all the way with the four protagonists' dreams and aspirations then disappointment and demoralisation. And all credit to Peter Flannery whose script's excellence matches those of such playwrights as Poliakoff and Stoppard. He never misses a trick and his grasp of the vagaries of human behaviour are pitch-perfect, and nor do his actors ever fail in conveying his meanings and intentions. And despite everything in the plot lines implying a diastrous ending, the final scenes are upbeat and positive - an admirable achievement. I disagree with some of the other commentators who felt Mark Strong's acting was not quite as good as the others. Oh yes, it was. His character was a deceptively difficult one to play and Strong was convincing in every scene. His ingenuous naivete in its own way compared equally with Eccleston's. The different directions the four lives take were totally believable and every scene in all nine episodes was brilliantly played. And to maintain this the back-up cast were superb. The exceptional performances of veteran actors David Bradley and Peter Vaughan, and also Freda Dowie and Alun Armstrong, added acute verisimilitude, making the whole a complete and perfect drama. If I had to choose, then Daniel Craig's portrayal of the doomed but not defeated Georgie has to be the most powerful in a whole cavalcade of outstanding performances.I can't praise this series enough and would recommend it to any teacher of drama, film studies, general studies, current affairs, or history. All the younger generation should see this. It encapsulates their immediate historical background and provides a context by which they could understand why England is in the state it's in today.

gaz_murfin OFITN, is quite simply brilliant. It is well directed, well filmed and well acted. Basically, combine this with the all star cast it has and you can`t go wrong - definately recommended! I paid over £50 for the originals - and I`m glad I did! :)

mickey dripping This is good gripping stuff which will hold your attention. Realistic characters and storylines based on real life North East scandals are fun to watch.Eccleston is great. Mckee carries it through. David Bradley is the mortar which holds the series together.