Found books very dull at uni - well, I got about 40 pages in before giving up. Worse than Dickens.

Found the BBC show very self indulgent. All the luvviest luvvies just loving the chance to overact and scream at the tops of their voices. Wholly unconvincing.

The first and most important of the actor's craft is the suspension of disbelief, and some great names just don't do it - Peter Ustinov just plays Peter Ustinov, for example, and I feel the same about Meryl Streep (although she does do accents quite well). David Jason, for example, disappears into the part in about 10 minutes.