The BBC has posted its homepage for its adaptation of Waugh’s Decline and Fall that will begin later this month. This will provide a link to the program for those watching it over the internet on BBC iPlayer. The posting contains a full list of the cast in order of appearance. This includes the announcement of an additional treat for fans of 1980s TV adaptations in the golden age of that genre. The opening scene will apparently have the Junior Dean (Sniggs) and Domestic Bursar (Postlethwaite, misspelled on the BBC site) of Scone College discussing the likely outcome of the Bollinger Club’s activities. These parts will be played by Tim Piggott-Smith and Nicholas Grace, respectively. Piggott-Smith made his name as the creepy Police Superintendent Ronald Merrick in Paul Scott’s The Jewel in the Crown and Grace was the definitive Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited. Both series were produced by Granada TV for the ITV network.
