Oh boy are you in for a treat.  If you weren’t around in 1991, or for some reason didn’t get to see Alan Bleasdale’s magnificent GBH, then please, if you set the vid for nothing else, set it for this.  You won’t be disappointed.  Starring Robert Lindsay and Michael Palin, and supported by a uniformly excellent cast, Bleasdale’s epic narrative in seven parts follows the fortunes of the two main characters through betrayal, allegiance, passion and confusion, while at the same time playing out the drama of town council corruption, intimidation, unrequited love and regret on an immense scale.

GBH is, in places, outstandingly funny.  In other parts your tears of mirth will become tears of emotion as the story becomes almost unbearably poignant.  It is quite simply Bleasdale’s masterpiece and the most original television drama of the 1990s.

Michael Murray (Robert Lindsay) is the leader of the Labour council in an unspecified Northern city (and a thinly-veiled characterisation of Derek Hatton from 80′s Liverpool).  After a tortured childhood Murray has become a scheming, corrupt, self-serving serial philanderer who surrounds himself with sycophantic cronies.  In contrast Jim Henson (Michael Palin) is lovingly devoted to his wife and three kids, but on the face of it a quiet shy person who cringes at the thought of confrontation.

Over the seven episodes, the real emotional strength of Henson and the real weaknesses of the overtly strong Murray are wonderfully drawn out as the latter descends into tic-ridden madness in an absolute tour-de-force performance from Lindsay.  Don’t miss it!

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Buy the DVD.

* GBH, More4, 10.15pm Saturday 8 July for seven weeks.