The Rotters' Club (TV Mini-Series 2005)

An amazing work of art - one of the best TV series of my lifetime. Watching it felt like someone had video recorded my hormonal, self-conscious, awkward adolescence and displayed it to the world. Clement and Le Frenais wrote Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, and this is a very natural successor - the angst and the emotion of male friendship, the fraught attempts to get to know that weird species known as girls, it's all wonderfully depicted. The headlines of the day are folded in to great effect - the Birmingham Bombings storyline in particular is a heartbreaking piece of writing. There is humour in abundance too - for some reason a group of boys earnestly trying to create prog rock will always be funny, whether it's four unknowns in a provincial school common room, or the members of Gentle Giant sweating over a blank page. Prog is yet another wonderful touch - no Tamla (as the cool people claim), no Bay City Rollers, I was the same, Prog and Glam all the way. Very difficult to find, but I managed to grab a Dutch DVD on Amazon. Extras, subtitles etc would have been nice but just being able to see this again is manna from Heaven.