[1] It stars Kenneth Branagh as Guy Pringle, lecturer in English Literature in Bucharest during the early part of the Second World War, and Emma Thompson[2] as his wife Harriet.

Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson met filming the TV series and married in real life.

[3] Other cast members included Ronald Pickup, Robert Stephens, Alan Bennett, Philip Madoc and Rupert Graves.

Newlyweds Guy and Harriet Pringle arrive in Bucharest, as does the impoverished Prince Yakimov, who takes a temporary job as a journalist for a British newspaper to save himself from destitution.

Their life is interrupted by the assassination of the Romanian prime minister Călinescu and Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland.

Rumours fly of a German invasion of Romania and Guy, though absorbed in his work and organising social events, is concerned about the family of a Jewish student of his, Sasha Drucker, given the antisemitic Romanian regime.

When Guy and Harriet spend a weekend in the mountains, the feckless Yakimov is left looking after their flat, with tragic consequences.

In the midst of chaos, British academic Lord Pinkrose arrives to give a lecture on Byron.

They find employment at the British Information Office but when Pinkrose begins to work there, the mood turns sour.

She considers having an affair with him but as she is going to his hotel room on the final afternoon before he must leave, she sees Sasha Drucker on the stairs.

Simon doesn't understand until he, Harriet and Mortimer, a female soldier, visit a live sex show, at which he is disgusted.

Harriet leaves Guy at the zoo to get on the boat alone, but at the last minute sees Mortimer and begs her to take her to Damascus.

As Guy struggles to cope with his presumed loss of Harriet, Simon Boulderstone starts his painful and slow road to recovery.

On their return, Castlebar collapses and dies later in hospital; Angela is desolate when Bill's wife takes on the funeral arrangements.