The Promise - Channel 4

Absolutely fantastic 4 part drama..

Would love to see more of them on tv...

Another drama series by the same director is Brits. It's got great reviews as well and could be well worth a watch

I thought this was an excellent series. As indeed did many people. Of course the Zionists didn't but they increasingly follow the Traditional Unionist Voice tactic of screaming "Not an inch!" to anybody who has a view minutely deviant from their own.

The strength of this production was not the storyline itself, which was a little contrived, but how it used the narrative to display the intractable nature of the conflict. The various characters were allowed to show their differing attitudes and points of view and as the majority of them were displayed sympathetically, each was given a degree of legitimacy which enabled the viewer to make up their own mind about where their sympathies should lie.

Best performance, for me, was given by Katharina Schuttler as Clara, the Jewish immigrant girl employed as a hostess by a social club set up to curry favour with British soldiers in mandate Palestine. As the girlfriend of Len, the grandfather of the show's principle character, she plays him like a fiddle but then he was doing the same to her.

Each were serving their side's cause: he, acting under instructions from his intelligence officer, to get close to the Jewish underground; she to glean as much information as she could about British operations against the Irgun. The fact that they were both vulnerable people, as well as being incredibly gorgeous, and that they developed feelings for each other only added to the poignancy of the drama.

The Zionist Federation thinks the program was "unbalanced" but there were few characters who were not treated with at least some sympathy. The Israeli family with whom Erin, the main character, stays are decent, liberal and courageous, if decidedly affluent, people determined to achieve peaceful coexistence with their Arab neighbours.

The old Irgun fighter, grandfather of Erin's friend, is shown as unrepentant for his revolutionary past but as one who harbours no hatred for his former English foes. And who had plenty of justification, he felt, for wanting to build a homeland in Palestine.

Perhaps the only people portrayed overwhelmingly negatively are the Jewish settlers in West Bank Hebron, but then even most Israelis regard them as a bunch of *****. Which of course they are.

I think what is done well is to show how the English girl's natural empathy with her Israeli friends, modern, "Western", secular, affluent interested in shopping, partying and socialising around the pool clashes with her developing sympathy for the Arabs she meets. A journey that mirrors her grandfather's experience of 60 years previously.

An excellent series. Put your money on Schuttler winning a BAFTA for best supporting actress.