An eight-part adaptation of two classic novels by Nancy Mitford, and starring Judi Dench, Michael Williams, Michael Aldridge, Diana Fairfax and Simon Cadell, Love in a Cold Climate presents the English upper class of the Twenties and Thirties as seen by one of its most gifted chroniclers. The series traces the unconventional lives and loves of the Alconleigh family, dominated by the eccentric, irascible Uncle Matthew - an affectionate and only lightly embellished caricature of the Mitford siblings’ father, Lord Redesdale. With several scenes drawn from Nancy Mitford s childhood memories (not least her father s alarming penchant for hunting his children with a bloodhound), the story also encompasses the economic and political crises of the Thirties and the upheavals of the Second World War, which would ultimately bring to an end the privileged world inhabited by the family. Love in a Cold Climate was adapted by novelist and dramatist Simon Raven, and directed by Donald McWhinnie (Rumpole of the Bailey).