Perfect Strangers (Stephen Poliakoff 2001) E01

Known in the U.S. as Almost Strangers, Stephen Poliakoff's three-part romantic dramedy is an expansive drama set during a massive family reunion at a West End London hotel. Michael Gambon and Matthew Macfayden play father and son, members of a branch of a large London family that has been alienated from the main tree for two generations. The reunion brings re connection and closure for the father, while the son finds romance with one distant relative (Claire Skinner) and strange business opportunities with another (Timothy Spall). There's plenty of Archiving Fever here as in Poliakoff's Hidden City and Shooting the Past especially in the figure of the family historian, wonderfully portrayed by Anton Lesser.