The Norman Conquests - The Complete Series (DVD)

This masterly adaptation of Alan Ayckbourn's celebrated trio of plays encompasses a remarkable range of talent - from multi-award-winning producers Verity Lambert and David Susskind, to a cast that includes Tom Conti, Penelope Keith, Richard Briers and Penelope Wilton. Employing a typically inventive device (which Ayckbourn would further explore in 1999 with the simultaneous staging of the two-act House & Garden), the trilogy presents a comically fraught weekend from three different perspectives, as family and in-laws gather at the decaying country home of their bedridden mother, the drink flows, and hidden enmities, intimate secrets and uncomfortable truths emerge through the veneer of jollity and civility. The Norman Conquests was phenomenally successful both in London's West End in 1974 and on Broadway the following year, and this Thames production similarly triumphed at the BAFTA Awards in 1977, earning Keith an award for Best Actress and a joint nomination for Best Drama Series for Lambert and director Herbert Wise.