Two quality drama shows filmed in Oxford have won places in a list of the top 100 best TV shows ever, writes Zahra Akkerhuys.

Over the years, countless award-winning TV shows have been filmed in the city and now Brideshead Revisited and Inspector Morse have won places on the top 100 list drawn up by the British Film Institute (BFI).

With its close proximity to London, the city is within easy reach for film and TV companies.

And the impressive Oxford skyline, as well as the almost-mystical world of academia, have provided a haunting backdrop for many programmes.

The TV adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited has been voted number ten on the BFI list.

Although production was severely disrupted by the ITV strike of 1979, it put the city well and truly on the map in the film world.

The drama, which starred the dynamic combination of Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons, fast became one of the best-loved and most internationally successful products of British TV.

The 4m award-winning production was filmed at a string of locations across the city, including Broad Street, Merton Street, Magpie Lane and Christ Church Meadow. Tourists stopped and stared when they chanced upon a film set where Granada TV were shooting scenes. And Jeremy Irons turned heads when he walked along Broad Street, in the city centre, alongside an elegant horse-drawn cab while wearing a gown and mortar board.

The screen adaptation of Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse books proved a popular choice at number 42.

Viewers became accustomed to seeing John Thaw and Kevin Whately sweep through college quads and along the city streets. A total of 66 hours of Morse was filmed the equivalent of two-and-a- half days.

John Cleese's 1970s comedy Fawlty Towers topped the list picked by the BFI and Cathy Come Home, the gritty story of a homeless couple, came second.

**A new BBC drama is set to hit the screens based in and around Oxford. A Likeness In Stone tells the tale of undergraduate Helena Warner who disappears on the night of a party and is found dead.