BBC Two · Ended

The Glittering Prizes

Drama · 1976

Last aired: S1 E6, A Double Life · 1976-02-25

The Glittering Prizes is a series of six teleplays chronicling the changing lives of friends who first meet at Cambridge University. Meeting as undergraduates in the early fifties, the drama explores the hopes and dreams of a group of idealistic young students, following their intertwining lives into the turbulent sixties, and on through the successes and disillusionments of the seventies as they achieve contrasting levels of worldly success.

Cast

Tom Conti Adam Morris

Barbara Kellermann Barbara Morris

Leonard Sachs Lionel Morris

Nigel Havers Denis Porson

Season 1

E1 An Early Life 1976-01-21 · 80 min We first meet Adam Morris in 1953 as he wins a scholarship to Cambridge. ' Cambridge-fame-bridge,' a stepping-stone for those with ambition to build lives and careers. We shall follow Adam and his generation on and off through the next 20 years. In his first year at college he makes several new friends and a few enemies. He sets out to antagonise his upper-class room-mate but soon finds himself in deeper water than he had anticipated.

E2 A Love Life 1976-01-28 · 80 min 1955: in their final year at Cambridge, Adam's friends make their preparation for life in the outside world, some by laying the foundation stones of their careers, many pairing off in the marriage stakes, a few by doing both.

E3 A Past Life 1976-02-04 · 80 min 1960: Adam Morris publishes his first novel, starts to write for movies and decides he wishes to confront a formidable adversary - the brilliant but dangerous Stephen Taylor , one of the main supporters of British fascism in the 30s.

E4 A Country Life 1976-02-11 · 80 min 1964: Alan Parks , now a notorious television interviewer, decides to visit the country with his wife Barbara. They descend on their old Cambridge friends Joyce and Dan Bradley - disrupting their quiet lives.

E5 An Academic Life 1976-02-18 · 80 min 1970. Bill Bourne returns from America to work at a new university where several of his old college friends are now teaching. They find themselves taunted by a new generation of students for their outdated ' Cambridge' approach to life.

E6 A Double Life 1976-02-25 · 80 min 1976. Adam Morris , now a rich and successful writer, has more than his share of the ' glittering prizes.' He is happily married, with two children. Despite all this, Adam is still not satisfied, and he attempts to come to terms with his material success by leading 'a double life.'

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