Peter Bowles played Flashman on the BBC a couple of years ago, but as the 70-year old Major-General Flashman (retd.) in about 1890, looking back on a dissolute life while playing solo billiards (and no, that is not a euphemism for something else).

I also recall several of George Macdonald Fraser's "McAuslan" stories being condensed into one for TV, "The World's dirtiest Soldier". I can't remember how far back that was; but I do remember that I saw it in black and white.


My suggestions: some of Alexander Cordell's works, especially "The Fire People", or "This sweet and bitter Earth" (except this one doesn't seem to end at all, so somebody would have to write an ending, and what "they" do to endings doesn't bear thinking about).

War story: you could do something with John Masters's "The Road past Mandalay"; this book dealt with a campaign in which British troops had to shoot some of their own wounded so they wouldn't fall into enemy hands (makes the contrived plots of some war epics a little tame).