I watched this at the time and thought it the best thing I had ever seen, as an avid TV buff of many hundreds of programmes from 1950+. I was surprised at how long it took to arrive on DVD in this country (available in US for a while).
I acquired and watched it on DVD recently and I still think, almost 20 years later that it is the best programme I have seen even though television has moved on considerably in that time.
It is a short period drama (3x ITV hours) and probably benefits from being so concise. In no way does this drama look dated like so many 90s drama.