Life after Brideshead

Revisiting Brideshead Revisited was never going to be easy. And when you throw in such traditionalist-baiting elements as a passionate clinch between Charles and Sebastian, a pervasive whiff of incest around the Flyte family, a Gothic trailer more suited to a Hollywood thriller ("She welcomed him into her home/ Into a world of privilege/ Into a life he never imagined...") and, perhaps most crucially, an undefined role for Aloysius the teddy bear, as Julian Jarrold has done in his new feature film, you might expect a bumpy ride.

For Brideshead 2008, which is released on Friday, has not only to remain faithful to Evelyn Waugh's much-loved, though slightly unwieldy, 1945 novel; it must also compete for affections with the even better-loved television series, winner of seven Baftas, two Golden Globes and an Emmy.

The 11-part Granada serial, itself a fine piece of television nostalgia when it first screened on ITV in 1981, now has its own heritage industry. In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up to mark the new millennium in 2000, Charles Sturridge's adaptation took 10th place. As the Hollywood hype machine cranks up around the release of the Miramax feature, there have been breathless paeans to the effete style of its leading men, Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews – cricket whites, stripy blazers, Brylcreem and silk pyjamas are all enjoying a "fashion moment" – and endless photographs comparing them with the new Brideshead boys, Matthew Goode and Ben Whishaw. There is, it seems, far more anxiety about how the new film will compare with the Granada Brideshead than with the original novel.

At least amid the much-reported differences between the two, there is one similarity: a mysterious confusion over who wrote the script. While John Mortimer received a credit in 1981, Valerie Grove's A Voyage Round John Mortimer revealed that his script was never used and the series was actually written by the producer Derek Granger and others. For the new film, Andrew Davies, prime time's preferred purveyor of racy screenplays, was originally credited alongside Jeremy Brock. But insiders claim Davies's script never saw the light of day and Brock wrote alone.

Intrigues aside, Jarrold's Brideshead has its work cut out to surpass Sturridge's masterpiece, which is frequently held up as the pinnacle of the golden age of Granada's television drama. But whatever happened to the original cast and crew? Has Andrews played a memorable role since Sebastian, and what else did Sturridge bring to our screens? In keeping with the halcyon glow which surrounds the series, it appears very few of those involved ever surpassed the work they did on Brideshead. And as for television's most famous teddy bear? Unconfirmed reports have Aloysius down as both a resident of The Priory and living out a lavish retirement in the Cayman Islands.

Where are they now?

Jeremy Irons (Charles Ryder)

1981 was a high point in Irons' career – the year in which he played both Charles Ryder and the leading man in The French Lieutenant's Woman. His status as a dark-eyed, patrician heart-throb was assured. He has enjoyed the most visible post-Brideshead career, winning an Oscar for Reversal of Fortune in 1991 and going on to star in such varied films as Lolita, Elizabeth I, The Lion King and Die Hard: With a Vengeance. In 2006, he returned to the London stage to appear in Embers in the West End, and was most recently seen playing Harold Macmillan in the National Theatre's excellent Never So Good.

Anthony Andrews (Lord Sebastian Flyte)

Simply irresistible as the floppy-haired fop Sebastian, Andrews won a Bafta and a Golden Globe for his commanding and ultimately tragic performance. The stage seemed set for a glittering career and he was swamped with offers, initially choosing to stick with tried-and-tested romantic heroes in Ivanhoe and The Scarlet Pimpernel. Andrews devoted much of the Nineties to burnishing his image as a heartbreaker, playing the male love interest in daytime serials such as Danielle Steele's Jewels. In recent years, he has appeared in My Fair Lady and The Woman in White and, in 2007, in The Letter in the West End.

Diana Quick (Lady Julia Flyte)

Quick captured so many hearts as Lady Julia in Brideshead that a Sunday magazine was moved to put her on its cover with the caption: "Is this the most beautiful woman in the world?" Kenneth Cranham, Albert Finney and Bill Nighy have all thought so at various stages. But Quick has never really had another role like Julia, appearing in odd episodes of Poirot, Kingdom and Morse. She's currently appearing as Maria Callas in Aristo at Chichester Theatre.

Jane Asher (Lady Celia Ryder)

Last year, Asher played the Queen in ITV's The Palace, and the sharp-tongued hotel proprietor Angel Samson in the revival of Crossroads. After Brideshead, she acted again opposite Laurence Olivier's father figure in John Mortimer's A Voyage Round My Father and in Wish Me Luck and The Mistress.

Phoebe Nicholls (Cordelia Flyte)

Nicholls already had the part of Joseph Merrick's mother in The Elephant Man under her belt by the time she was cast as Cordelia. Since then, Mrs Charles Sturridge has enjoyed a varied career, appearing in Gulliver's Travels and Shackleton as well as Spooks, Clapham Junction and Prime Suspect. Recent theatre productions include The Vortex in the West End and An Inspector Calls and Pravda at the National, and she can currently be found on stage in the Almeida's Waste.

Claire Bloom (Lady Marchmain)

Bloom's best-received roles were immediately after Brideshead, in Ellis Island, Separate Tables, Shadowlands and in Philip Roth's adaptation of The Ghost Writer. She later married the writer. Bloom is still working, hoofing around the West End stage in Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks a couple of years ago and recently appearing in Fiona's Story on the BBC.

Charles Keating (Rex Mottram)

Keating went on to appear as Carl Hutchins in the American soap opera Another World between 1983 and 1999. Since then, he has combined Broadway roles with guest roles on Alias and Sex and the City. He has also had roles in Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo and The Thomas Crown Affair.

Robin Sachs (Etonian)

Sachs appeared as "an Etonian" in Brideshead and has since gone on to commendable success in America, taking on the role of Ethan Rayne in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, appearing in Babylon 5 and providing voices for both Fantastic Four and SpongeBob SquarePants. A far cry from Eton, indeed.

Charles Sturridge (Director)

Brideshead made Sturridge's name – and gained him a wife, as he married Phoebe Nicholls (Cordelia Flyte) in 1985. Despite working on several notable television dramas – including Longitude and Shackleton – none has captured the public's imagination as Brideshead did. Perhaps Brontë, his new feature film due for release next year, will do the trick.

Derek Granger (Producer)

Granger continued in his creative partnership with Sturridge for a further decade, co-writing and producing A Handful of Dust in 1988 and an adaptation of Where Angels Fear to Tread in 1991. After that, his career as a producer trailed off, though he reappeared in Graham Lord's snippy biography of John Mortimer in 2005 to claim that "John didn't write a single word of the television series".

John Mortimer (Screenwriter)

For around 25 years, John Mortimer accepted the plaudits that came with his being the sole accredited writer of Brideshead on screen. It has since been revealed that his scripts were disregarded by the series' director and producer. An adaptation of his autobiographical play, A Voyage Round My Father, followed soon afterwards, as did frequent adaptations of his Rumpole series.

Nickolas Grace (Anthony Blanche)

After Brideshead, Grace spent a number of years working in operetta, playing Koko in The Mikado and Joseph Porter in HMS Pinafore. In 1992, he appeared in Princess Ida for the ENO, and last year shared the stage with Elaine Paige in The Drowsy Chaperone in its West End run. He's also a prolific television character-actor, notably playing the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin of Sherwood and appearing in comedies such as My Family and Birds of a Feather.

Stephane Audran (Cara)

Playing Lord Marchmain's pragmatic mistress in Brideshead was one of Audran's rare English-speaking roles. Already famed for her roles in her husband Claude Chabrol's films (they divorced in 1980), Audran went on to win plaudits for her role in Babette's Feast. Her most recent film was this summer's La Fille de Monaco.

Granada Television

Was Brideshead Revisited the beginning of the end for ITV? According to the doom-sayers, it was the last of the truly lavish television dramas, a flagship quality product for Granada. The company went on to produce The Jewel in the Crown in the early 1980s and Prime Suspect, Cracker and Cold Feet in the 1990s. In 2003, it annexed another regional ITV contractor, Carlton, to create ITV plc, and now works mainly under the ITV banner.

Delicatessen (Aloysius)

Now 101 years old, Aloysius lives in peaceful retirement in the Teddy Bears of Witney museum. After Brideshead, Aloysius lived briefly at the Stratford Teddy Bear Museum before being bought up by American collectors, who later sold him to his current owner, Ian Poult, for £25,000. Reports regarding a spell at The Priory and a luxurious bolthole in the Cayman Islands are unfounded.