668 Brass

First  viewed  : 1984

This  Granada  comedy  series  was  much  discussed  at  the  time  but  I  only  delved  into  the  second  series  in  a  small  way  and  probably  had  missed  too  much  to  fully  get  into  it.

The  series  was  a  satire  on  the  glut  of   Industrial  Age -set   class-based  dramas   in  the  late  seventies  with  BBC  One's  When  he  Boat  Comes  In   the  most  obvious   target . In  a  star-making  role,  Timothy  West  was  the   ruthless  and  greedy  self-made  industrialist   Bradley  Hardacre  who  dominated  the  town. His  most  implacable  opponent  was  militant  Red  Agnes  Fleming  ( Barbara  Ewing ) who  fired  up  the  workers  apart  from  her  supinely  deferential  husband  George  ( Geoffrey  Hinsliff ). The  catch  was  that  Bradley,  married  to  aristocratic  drunk  Patience  ( Caroline  Blakiston ) , and  Agnes  were  also  lovers  on  the  side.

One  of  the features  that  attracted  most  comment  was  Agnes's  appearance, Ewing  agreeing  to  a  corset  arrangement  that  pushed  her  boobs  up  unnaturally  high  and  gave  her  a  formidable  cleavage.

There  were  two  original  seasons  on  ITV  in  1982  and  1984  then  a  revival, with  one  or  two  cast  changes,  on  Channel  4  in  1990.