It was, without doubt, the most brilliant and talked-about classic serial ever shown on British TV.

 When the BBC adapted John Galsworthy's novels into its epic drama The Forsyte Saga, the nation was enthralled every Sunday night by its turbulent stories of a middle-class, strife-torn family between 1879 and 1926.

 Within weeks, the Victorian/Edwardian drama became a national obsession, making international stars of its lead players Eric Porter, Nyree Dawn Porter, Susan Hampshire and Kenneth More and attracting 160 million viewers in 26 countries.

 Now the BBC, desperate to boost audiences, is to assemble a new cast to remake The Forsyte Saga as a $13 million serial - the most expensive drama it has ever attempted.

The huge popularity of the original black-and-white version - screened over six months 30 years ago - has never been repeated and the BBC is conscious it needs a big costume drama hit after recent disasters Nostromo and Rhodes.

 Earlier this month, it negotiated a deal to turn the novels into 13 episodes, each costing $1 million. Filming is expected to begin in late summer.

 'The Forsyte Saga was the first and without question the most successful BBC costume drama,' a senior BBC executive confided last night.

 'This is a sure way of restoring our reputation in costume drama. It is the nearest there is to a sure thing.'

 Central to the success of the new version will be the casting of Soames - a man of property and passion and a brutal, tortured anti-hero, played originally with chilling accuracy by Shakespearean actor Eric Porter.

 Alan Rickman currently heads the shortlist 'because he would be able to convey the correct degree of menace', said the executive. Jeremy Irons is another star expected to be approached.

 Rupert Graves and Jeremy Northam, although lesser-known actors and rather too young, are also in the running because they have done well recently in The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall and Emma.

 Jennifer Ehle, acclaimed for her role in Pride And Prejudice, is being approached to play Irene, Soames's beautiful but embittered and unhappy wife.

 The couple's loveless marriage is the linchpin of the serial and Rickman and Ehle would have to carry off the infamous and shocking scene which caused an outcry in 1967 when Soames, incandescent with rage about his wife's coldness, rips Irene's blouse and rapes her.

 David Giles, a director on the original, said: 'The combinaton of Nyree Dawn Porter and Eric Porter was very sexual. It was the key to the success of the saga. We were lucky then, but it will be a difficult casting decision.'

 Favourite to be Fleur, first played by Susan Hampshire, is newcomer Emilia Fox, daughter of Edward Fox, who was critically acclaimed for her role in ITV's recent adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. The fourth key part of Jolyon Forsyte, played in 1967 by Kenneth More, could go to Sir Derek Jacobi.

 Last year the BBC tested the appetite for a Forsyte revival by bringing out a video and audio tape with the voice of Martin Jarvis. They sold well. Executives, with the backing of BBC1 controller Michael Jackson and head of drama Michael Gearing, then conducted a fierce bidding war for six months against ITV's Granada Television.

 The television and film rights to the majority of the novels belong to billionaire American media giant Ted Turner who inherited them from the studio MGM.

 The American studio had bought them from the Galsworthy estate in 1937, four years after the death of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist. They paid a one-off fee of $6,500 for the bulk of the novels in perpetuity.

 The BBC confirmed last night that it had sent a group of film-makers to Los Angeles to persuade Turner into letting them remake the serial.

 And Roger Meyer, president of Turner Entertainment said: 'Originally we had some trepidation over getting involved in a deal, even though it was the BBC, as we still own the rights to distribute the original series.

 'Even 30 years on, the original serial is still selling very well - it may be dated, but it is truly a classic. However, we have now noticed with Emma that you can successfully make two versions. There is good reason to remake even an outstanding piece of entertainment like The Forsyte Saga.'

 Although the BBC has promised to remain faithful to the original, the script will be speeded up - critics complained the series sagged in the middle - before the dramatic end when Soames dies after a picture in a heavy gilt frame crashes down on his head.

 The BBC executive said: 'It is a national treasure. We wouldn't be forgiven if we made any fundamental changes.'

PRINCE Edward's television production company, Ardent, is to make a #6 million dramatised biography of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, which will be shown on ITV next year.

 The Prince has consulted his grandmother and received her permission for the eight-part series, which covers the period from her marriage to Prince Albert, Duke of York, in 1923 to the Coronation in 1953.

 The actresses Jennifer Ehle, who starred in the BBC Television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and Helena Bonham Carter are being considered for the central role of the Queen Mother, which has provisionally been entitled Century.

 A spokeswoman for Ardent said that although the Prince would have no direct editorial involvement in the production, "it would be daft to say he has not had influence in the early stages.

 "The Royal Family will not be shown scripts for the serial. It will be a very dramatic account of the Queen Mother's early life.

 "We won't just trawl through the history. The Queen Mother is a well-loved figure and it will be a fascinating story," she said.

 Vernon Lawrence, managing director of MAI Produc tions, which has commissioned the programme for ITV, said: "The series will cover one of the most fascinating periods in our recent history, seen through the life of the Queen Mother.

 "Her place and influence on the great events of this century have never been fully appreciated."

 The series will be scripted by Julian Bond, 65, whose work includes the screenplays for the films The Whistle Blower and The Shooting Party.

 A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: "The Queen Mother and the Queen have been informed and have agreed to the project."

 The programme will be the Prince's second important project about his own family. Ardent Productions has already made a two-part documentary about Edward VIII, called Edward on Edward. The programme will be shown later this spring to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of his abdication.

 Ardent's first drama production, Annie's Bar, a political soap set in the tearoom in the House of Commons that deals with politicians' passions and peccadilloes, had its first showing on Channel 4 last night.

 A television movie has the unexpected bonus of two star actresses - Tara Fitzgerald and Jennifer Ehle - as walk-on extras in its production.

 The two performers were strolling across Barnes Common in South-West London last weekend, not realizing they had walked into a crowd scene being shot for an unidentified drama.

 Ms Ehle and Ms Fitzgerald, pictured here with her fiance and fellow actor Dorian Healy, after celebrating her birthday at The Ivy restaurant (he bought her a ruby ring), became firm friends when they worked together on Peter Hall's TV version of The Camomile Lawn.

 The coming season will be good for Ms. Fitzgerald. She co-stars with Ewan McGregor and Pete Postlethwaite in Mark Herman's funny picture, Brassed Off, as well as the television adaptation of Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

 -- Baz Bamigboye

 Stephen Fry (the presenter): I don't know if any of the following actresses have held on to similar dreams, but they're bloody good at their jobs, and they all deserve a prize.

 (Shots of the various actresses as their names are called.)

 S: They are Helen Mirren for "Prime Suspect"; Juliette Stevenson, "The Politician's Wife"; Jennifer Ehle, "Pride and Prejudice";
(Her name is pronounced eel-ee; she's accompanied by an older gentleman, possibly her father (?), and he's seated between Jennifer, who's on the aisle, and Colin Firth's girlfriend, Livia. Colin's seated next to his girlfriend - who exactly did the seating charts, anyway ?) and Geraldine James for "Band of Gold".

 (Brief film clips of the performances. Jennifer's is the second proposal scene. Stephen opens the envelope.)

 S: And uh, the winner is Jennifer Ehle for "Pride and Prejudice".

 (Audience applauds. Shot of Jennifer, who looks surprised, yet relieved. She quickly looks over with a smile to her companion, and then moves towards the stage. Colin leans over to congratulate her, but she's already out of her seat and up the aisle. She wears a black sequined-looking dress, knee-length, and slit up the side, and black pumps. The dress is sleeveless, and shows what appears to be a nasty looking burn on her upper left arm.)

 Voice Over (during which Jennifer is walking up to the podium): Jennifer Ehle played Elizabeth Bennet in "Pride and Prejudice" who had a passion for Mr. Darcy. In fact she first read the novel when she was ten--twelve--years of age.

 Jennifer: Wow. (pause) I've learned something very important today, and that is to try walking in your dress before you take it home.(audience laughs)
Um...(Jennifer grins; the audience laughs) You can watch me leave. (pause)
Uh, this should really go to my wig, I think - but um, I'm very terrified to accept it on its behalf, and thank you very, very much. I'd also like to thank Simon Langton, and Sue Birtwistle, and Andrew Davies - and Philippa Hall for the wig - and Colin Firth. Thank you very much.
(audience applauds as she exits clutching trophy to bosom)
 
 

 After a decade dominated by remakes, sequels and reruns, the BBC has decided to celebrate the millennium with its most ambitious reworking of all: a multi-million-pound version of the epic Forsyte Saga that will take the family into the 1950s.

The corporation will announce this week that it has secured the rights for a repeat of the upmarket Victorian "soap opera" and will begin filming the tried-and-tested plots of what was a classic of television's black and white era, ready for screening in 1999.

More than 18m viewers were enthralled by the original adaptation of the novels of John Galsworthy, depicting love and betrayal in a middle-class Victorian family. Thirty years ago, dinner parties ground to a halt each Sunday evening as the latest instalment came on air; some churches even rescheduled evensong to accommodate devotees of the saga.

But plans to spend at least #20m on an update of the 26-part costume drama represent a huge critical and financial gamble for the BBC. Opponents of the remake say the BBC should not divert resources from creating new hits, and fear it may struggle to match the appeal of the original.

Critics say that, although Galsworthy won the Nobel prize for literature, his novels are too lightweight to bear a reinterpretation.

One senior broadcaster said: "We are not talking about a new version of a Dickens or Jane Austen here. Galsworthy wrote little more than high-class soap. At this rate we will be reshooting Crossroads next."

There are also concerns that characters may be altered to appeal to the tastes of American cable television viewers. Bradley Adams, managing director of Union Pictures, which will produce the show for the BBC, said at least one character might be portrayed as an American.

Plans for the new Forsyte Saga, to be announced by Alan Yentob, director of television at the BBC, follow the corporation's victory in a protracted bidding war with ITV to secure the rights from Ted Turner, the billionaire media mogul.

The original saga stretched from 1879 to 1926, but the new version will continue until the Coronation of 1953. The narrative will be speeded up, to compress the story lines from the original 26 episodes into 13 instalments. The additional 13 programmes will be based on three unscreened Galsworthy novels and a sequel book, written in 1994 by Suleika Dobson.

The tension between Eric Porter, as Soames Forsyte, and Nyree Dawn Porter, as his beautiful but estranged wife Irene, was the emotional crux of the 1960s drama. The rape of Irene by Soames broke contemporary taboos, and caused a furore because Galsworthy covered the incident in one sentence. The final episode culminated in the death of Soames.

The additional story lines are equally melodramatic. The old family feud between rival branches of the Forsyte clan is reignited at the outbreak of the second world war when Fleur, now the wife of a prominent MP, still longs for the love of her cousin, Jon, and takes advantage of his wife's death to rekindle an affair with him.

A glittering cast is being assembled. Jennifer Ehle, who starred in BBC1's adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, has indicated she would be interested in taking on the role of Fleur. Sir Paul Schofield is being mooted for the part of Old Jolyon, and James Cellan Jones, who directed nine episodes of the original series, thinks Serena Scott Thomas should play the part of Irene.

The sequel may, at last, bring some consolation to Galsworthy's surviving relatives, who have not benefited directly from his small-screen success. MGM paid his estate a one-off fee of #6,500 for the film and television rights in 1937. Pat Graham Gardiner, 81, one of the principal beneficiaries of the estate, said: "We have been told to expect a substantial fee."

 Jennifer Ehle gets up close and indecent with Trainspotting aluminus Kevin McKidd in a new film called Bedrooms and Hallways. It's being made by New York 'in your face' gorilla film-maker Rose Troche, who made the alternative sexuality film Go Fish. Ms Ehle, of course,was in Pride & Prejudice and then Melissa on television recently, while, aside from Trainspotting, Mr. McKidd will be seen soon opposite Patrick Stewart in Dad Savage.

 Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher, usually dubbed one of pop's bad boys, said he would attend a star-studded Downing Street reception hosted by the Prime Minister - after his mum told him to go.

 The star earlier said he had decided not to attend the event, but his should.

 He told cable TV station Channel One: "I wasn't going to go at first because I thought we would get slagged off for going. But I rang my mum on Sunday and my mum said it was a great honour for her to say one of her sons was going to see the Prime Minister and she told me to go."

Comedians Eddie Izzard and Lenny Henry, actress Jennifer Ehle, pop group the Pet Shop Boys and EastEnders actor Ross Kemp are among the stars attending the party, intended to promote the arts in Britain.

 Earlier, Oasis record company chief Alan McGee, a former drug addict, attacked politicians over what he claimed was their "hypocrisy" about drug taking.

Creation head McGee said he agreed with Noel Gallagher's comments earlier this year about drugs and would be telling the Government so.

The rock star sparked a storm of controversy after saying taking drugs was as normal as drinking a cup of tea for many of today's youngsters.

 McGee commented: "I don't know if any of them (politicians) take cocaine or heroin, but I bet you loads of them drink alcohol, take Temazepan to get to sleep, or valium or beta blockers before they give a speech.

 "The whole thing is founded on hypocrisy."

McGee is also on the guest list for the reception hosted by Mr Blair and his wife Cherie.

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