The Cappuccino Years – Nostalgia Central

2 0 0 1 (UK)
6 x 30 minute episodes

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (Aged 13¾) had proven to be an enormous success, both as a book and a TV adaptation. However, both it and its follow-up, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, were very much products of the early 1980s, satirically railing against the Conservative government of the time.

With Adrian being a lifelong socialist, the landslide victory of New Labour in 1997 provided a perfect backdrop to a new story, in which Adrian’s eager devotees could see how much he had grown and changed since he was a frustrated teenager.

The answer was not very much – he was still living a life of vague discontent, working as an offal chef in a trendy restaurant.

His long-term muse. Pandora was one of Blair’s Babes, an ambitious political animal with a career and social circle that far outshone anything Adrian could aspire to.

The Cappuccino Years cleverly reflected a malaise that seems to affect men in their early thirties – that all of the hopes, promises and expectations of childhood never really seem to amount to much.

Sadly, the TV version of The Cappuccino Years failed to capture the imagination of either critics or viewers as the original adaptation had years before.

Joseph O’Conor, who played Archie Tait, died at the age of 90 on 21 January 2001, twelve days before the series premiered.

Adrian Mole
Stephen Mangan
Pauline Mole
Alison Steadman
Dr Pandora Braithwaite
Helen Baxendale
George Mole
Alun Armstrong
William Mole
Harry Tomes
Tania Braithwaite
Zoë Wanamaker
Ivan Braithwaite
James Hazeldine
Nigel Hetherington
Roderic Culver
Glenn Bott
Alexander De’Ath
Rosie Mole
Melissa Batchelor
Justine
Lynn Lowton
Brick Eagleburger
Sam Douglas
Mrs Parvez
Jamila Massey
Archie Tait
Joseph O’Conor
Eleanor Flood
Pooky Quesnel