Les Nuits Revolutionnaires

This 7-part drama series is based on the life and works of the French writer Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne, nicknamed The Owl, because it was his custom to walk the streets of Paris at night during the Revolution. He recorded events, but so embroidered with his imagination that they form only a background to his fantastic stories. Charles Brabant's dramatisation of Restif's writing brings to life the characters he encountered and the turbulent arena of the city's shadowy backwaters. To this is added the drama of The Owl's own nocturnal life. Michel Aumont as Restif heads a fine cast of French actors, and magnificent sets reconstruct, in faithful detail, quartiers of eighteenth-century Paris.