If you haven't seen it on the big screen, you haven't seen it. Lawrence of Arabia is an experience that was never meant for television, it's an epic in every sense of the word and is a shadow of its true self on anything less than a cinema screen. Go and put it in your diary now, I'll wait here until you get back...

Ok, you've booked it in? Good. We can move on then.

T. E. Lawrence (O'Toole) was an officer serving in the British army in the Middle East during World War I. An eccentric man not particularly well suited to army life, Lawrence found his calling when assigned to Arabia, where he was to assist the Arabs in their rebellion against the Turks. Here in the desert this unlikely hero became a character almost of legend - charismatic, intelligent, strategic and powerful - somehow uniting the disparate Arab tribes and leading them to unlikely victories.

While it is undoubtedly a long film, it never drags - despite having a clean, simple plot. It is the story of one man, his rise to glory and fall from it, worthy of Shakespeare, shot in breathtaking style and painted on a harsh but beautiful canvas. O'Toole did not win the Oscar (though the film did win seven), perhaps because the true leading actor here is the desert locale itself (though Gregory Peck WAS pretty damn good in To Kill A Mockingbird). There are moments in Lawrence of Arabia which will stay with you for years after you leave the cinema, I hope to see you there. What am I saying, it's already in your diary!