An intoxicating black comedy adapted from Ann Oakley's novel about love and sexual politics.

Bill Nighy, Harriet Walter, Amanda Redman, Charlotte Cornwell and James Aubrey star in this BBC drama, first shown in 1991.

Charity Walton seems to have everything she could want: a husband, four children, a lovely house in London, and a successful career as a sociologist.

Then she meets Mark Carleton, the incoming Head of the Sociology Department where she works: clever, handsome, and interested. Having devoted herself for years to her family, Charity finds herself surrendering to Carleton's charisma.

Their sex is frequent, passionate and sometimes violent; their feelings for each other consuming and volatile. And Charity, having abandoned all she has known, realises that love isn't guaranteed. Mark is energetically unfaithful, a serial womanizer, and the torturous disintegration of their life together is both comical and poignantly sad.

This hard-hitting five-part serial, set during the Thatcher years, launched Bill Nighy's career.

First released: Monday 20th May 2013

• DVD