Novelist and playwright James Barrie (Ian Holm) meets the two oldest Davies boys, George and Jack, during outings with their nurse Mary Hodgson (Anna Cropper) in Kensington Gardens.

Barrie and his wife Mary (Maureen O'Brien) meet the boys' parents Sylvia (Ann Bell) and Arthur (Tim Pigott-Smith) at a dinner party, and he forms a friendship with the mother and her sons.

He writes a play inspired by them: Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, which is a great success for him and his producer friend Charles Frohman (William Hootkins).

Tired of her husband's indifference toward her, Mary falls in love and has an affair with Barrie's young colleague Gilbert Cannan (Brian Stirner).

Michael spends increasing time with his school friends and chafes at Barries's desire to keep him close; he drowns short of his 21st birthday.

In later years, Barrie suffers loneliness but takes some measure of enjoyment in the company of the young son of his secretary, Lady Cynthia Asquith (Sheila Ruskin).

Each of the boys is portrayed by a series of young actors as the years pass within the story: Writer Andrew Birkin had been hired to work on a musical adaptation of Peter Pan starring Mia Farrow and Danny Kaye.

'[5] Chris Dunkley wrote in the Financial Times, 'It is only very rarely that a television drama comes along in which every constituent manages to provide a flawless contribution.

'[6] The film was cited in several annual round-ups, including Benny Green in Punch: 'Best Original Drama: The Lost Boys, which advanced from competence to brilliance to deep compassion and mastery of touch, and which, for intensity of characterization and economy of writing, was a masterpiece of the televisual form.

[8] The BBC published the full scripts when the series was repeated in 1980, The Spectator calling them 'a priceless addition to a corpus of literature of coherent television drama.