Monday, 16 February 2004 - 3:59 PM GMT

For the reasons you give & the mighty social & cultural changes in the 57 years since it was made, 'Brief Encounter' ought to be risible in the extreme. It ought to be up there with 'Goodbye, Mr Chips' & everything that Norman Wisdom ever consigned to film as a piece of out-of-the-ark whimsy. But there's something in the playing of Celia Johnson & Trevor Howard & in that wonderfully downbeat Noel Coward script that rings with truth. People simply DID behave like that then & for me the film is both moving as a depiction of doomed love & touching as a documentation of a time gone by.

Monday, 16 February 2004 - 9:05 PM GMT

I have a terrible habit of becoming addicted to Noel Coward plays, and seeing the same production several times a week to notice the different interpretations the actors put into their expression throughout the run. So yeah, I know what you mean, but I thought if I didn't sound fashionably sarcastic, Cyn would tell me off. :)

[I could have guessed you were a Coward fan, actually, from your writing style]