Brass (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Brass was a British
television
Comedy-Drama, made by Granada Television
for ITV
.
Set mostly in Utterley
, a fictional Lancashire
mining
town in the 1930s, Brass was a comedy satirising the working-class period dramas of the 1970s (most significantly When the Boat Comes In
) and the American supersoaps such as Dallas
and Dynasty
. Unusually for ITV comedies of the time, there was no laughter track and the humour deliberately kept extremely dry, using convoluted wordplay and subtle commentary on popular culture. Brass is northern English slang for 'money' as well as for "effrontery". The series also gleefully parodied the BBC dramatisation of Dickens' "Hard Times", which also starred Timothy West
.
The series, created by John Stevenson
and Julian Roach, was set around two feuding families - the wealthy Hardacres and the poor, working-class Fairchilds, who lived in a small terraced house
rented from the Hardacre empire. The Hardacre family was headed by the ruthless self-made businessman Bradley (Timothy West
), who espoused Thatcherite rhetoric while coming-up with various harebrained schemes to make his businesses more efficient so he could sack workers and his alcoholic aristocratic wife Lady Patience (Caroline Blakiston
). The head of the Fairchilds was the stern "Red" Agnes (Barbara Ewing
), who spread militant socialist rhetoric around the Hardacre mine, mill and munitions factory and her doltish, forelock-tugging husband George (Geoffrey Hinsliff
- later Don Brennan in Coronation Street
), who is dominated by his wife and his boss. In a twist, Agnes was also Bradley Hardacre's mistress.
Other characters in the series were the children of the families. The Fairchilds had two sons - Jack (Shaun Scott
), a defiant miner and Matthew (Gary Cady
), a sensitive clerk who wrote very poor verse. The Hardacre children were Bentley (deceased; his memorial stone is featured in the first episode), nymphomaniac Isobel (Gail Harrison), innocent budding feminist Charlotte (Emily Morgan), ambitious heir to the Hardacre empire Austin (Robert Reynolds) and Morris (James Saxon
), a gay Cambridge student with a fondness for teddy bears (cf. Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited
). Bentley, Austin and Morris are named after British car manufacturers. Jack and Matt were named after items used in the game of bowls.
Not only were Bradley and Agnes lovers, with Bradley being most likely the father of Matthew but Isobel and Jack were also lovers and afterwards it was revealed that Charlotte was not Bradley's daughter but the result of an affair between Lady Patience and the elderly Lord Mountfast, whom Isobel married. Charlotte married Matthew, to whom Morris Hardacre had at one time been attracted. To complicate matters even further Lady Patience also had a brief fling with Matthew Fairchild.
Despite his wealth and social connections, Bradley had been brought up in the Utterley Cottage workhouse
and had made his money himself, obviously not legally or fairly.
Apart from the Hardacres and the Fairchilds, the most significant character was the idealistic Scot Dr McDuff, satirising Dr Finlay of Dr Finlay's Casebook, played by David Ashton.
Brass ran for two series on ITV, shown between 1982 and 1984 but was brought back for a third series in 1990 on Channel 4
set in 1939. This third series saw the Hardacres move to London
and later to a country mansion called Yonderley but making frequent trips to Utterley or Swarfside, where the Hardacre business empire was still based. The Fairchilds had also moved to London as Agnes was now MP for Utterley.
Some scenes are set at Croydon Airport
, but were filmed at Barton Airport, whose distinctive control tower
shows in the film.
The series is available on DVD in the United Kingdom
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
Comedy-Drama, made by Granada Television
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
for ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
.
Set mostly in Utterley
Utterley
Utterley is the name of the smallfictional town in Lancashire, England that was the main setting for the 1980s and 1990s Granada TV series Brass....
, a fictional Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
town in the 1930s, Brass was a comedy satirising the working-class period dramas of the 1970s (most significantly When the Boat Comes In
When the Boat Comes In
When the Boat Comes In is a British television period-drama produced by the BBC between 1976 and 1981.The series stars James Bolam as Jack Ford, a First World War veteran who returns to his poverty-stricken town of Gallowshield in the North East of England in the 1920s.The memorable traditional...
) and the American supersoaps such as Dallas
Dallas (TV series)
Dallas is an American serial drama/prime time soap opera that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries. Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing...
and Dynasty
Dynasty (TV series)
Dynasty is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 12, 1981 to May 11, 1989. It was created by Richard & Esther Shapiro and produced by Aaron Spelling, and revolved around the Carringtons, a wealthy oil family living in Denver, Colorado...
. Unusually for ITV comedies of the time, there was no laughter track and the humour deliberately kept extremely dry, using convoluted wordplay and subtle commentary on popular culture. Brass is northern English slang for 'money' as well as for "effrontery". The series also gleefully parodied the BBC dramatisation of Dickens' "Hard Times", which also starred Timothy West
Timothy West
Timothy Lancaster West, CBE is an English film, stage and television actor.-Career:West's craggy looks ensured a career as a character actor rather than a leading man. He began his career as an Assistant Stage Manager at the Wimbledon Theatre in 1956, and followed this with several seasons of...
.
The series, created by John Stevenson
John Stevenson (writer)
John Stevenson is a British writer who since 1976 has been a regular script writer on Britain's longest running soap opera, Coronation Street. He was originally a newspaper journalist...
and Julian Roach, was set around two feuding families - the wealthy Hardacres and the poor, working-class Fairchilds, who lived in a small terraced house
Terraced house
In architecture and city planning, a terrace house, terrace, row house, linked house or townhouse is a style of medium-density housing that originated in Great Britain in the late 17th century, where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls...
rented from the Hardacre empire. The Hardacre family was headed by the ruthless self-made businessman Bradley (Timothy West
Timothy West
Timothy Lancaster West, CBE is an English film, stage and television actor.-Career:West's craggy looks ensured a career as a character actor rather than a leading man. He began his career as an Assistant Stage Manager at the Wimbledon Theatre in 1956, and followed this with several seasons of...
), who espoused Thatcherite rhetoric while coming-up with various harebrained schemes to make his businesses more efficient so he could sack workers and his alcoholic aristocratic wife Lady Patience (Caroline Blakiston
Caroline Blakiston
Caroline Blakiston is an English actress who has appeared predominantly in television roles, notably in the series Brass. She also appeared as Mon Mothma in the science fiction film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi...
). The head of the Fairchilds was the stern "Red" Agnes (Barbara Ewing
Barbara Ewing
Barbara Ewing is a UK-based actress, playwright and novelist. Born in New Zealand, she graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a BA in English and Maori before coming to Britain in 1965 to train as an actress at RADA in London.She made her film debut in the horror film Torture...
), who spread militant socialist rhetoric around the Hardacre mine, mill and munitions factory and her doltish, forelock-tugging husband George (Geoffrey Hinsliff
Geoffrey Hinsliff
Geoffrey Hinsliff is an English actor best known for his portrayal of Don Brennan in Coronation Street from 16 August 1987 to 8 October 1997. He had previously played other characters in the same programme, in 1963 and 1977....
- later Don Brennan in Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
), who is dominated by his wife and his boss. In a twist, Agnes was also Bradley Hardacre's mistress.
Other characters in the series were the children of the families. The Fairchilds had two sons - Jack (Shaun Scott
Shaun Scott
Shaun Scott is a British television actor, who appeared in the popular long-running series of The Bill where he played DI Chris Deakin. He also appeared as deputy lock keeper Tom Pike in the 1989 BBC TV comedy The River with David Essex...
), a defiant miner and Matthew (Gary Cady
Gary Cady
Gary Cady is a British actor. He has appeared in the television series Brass , Fairly Secret Army Leaving and Doctor Who , as well as a number of TV miniseries.-Restaurant business:...
), a sensitive clerk who wrote very poor verse. The Hardacre children were Bentley (deceased; his memorial stone is featured in the first episode), nymphomaniac Isobel (Gail Harrison), innocent budding feminist Charlotte (Emily Morgan), ambitious heir to the Hardacre empire Austin (Robert Reynolds) and Morris (James Saxon
James Saxon
James Saxon was a British character actor. He often played aristocrats or middle class characters.Having trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he made a career on screen with leading parts in television series such as the BBC adaptation of Vanity Fair , the ITV comedy Brass , the brief...
), a gay Cambridge student with a fondness for teddy bears (cf. Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. Waugh wrote that the novel "deals with what is theologically termed 'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by...
). Bentley, Austin and Morris are named after British car manufacturers. Jack and Matt were named after items used in the game of bowls.
Not only were Bradley and Agnes lovers, with Bradley being most likely the father of Matthew but Isobel and Jack were also lovers and afterwards it was revealed that Charlotte was not Bradley's daughter but the result of an affair between Lady Patience and the elderly Lord Mountfast, whom Isobel married. Charlotte married Matthew, to whom Morris Hardacre had at one time been attracted. To complicate matters even further Lady Patience also had a brief fling with Matthew Fairchild.
Despite his wealth and social connections, Bradley had been brought up in the Utterley Cottage workhouse
Workhouse
In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...
and had made his money himself, obviously not legally or fairly.
Apart from the Hardacres and the Fairchilds, the most significant character was the idealistic Scot Dr McDuff, satirising Dr Finlay of Dr Finlay's Casebook, played by David Ashton.
Brass ran for two series on ITV, shown between 1982 and 1984 but was brought back for a third series in 1990 on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
set in 1939. This third series saw the Hardacres move to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and later to a country mansion called Yonderley but making frequent trips to Utterley or Swarfside, where the Hardacre business empire was still based. The Fairchilds had also moved to London as Agnes was now MP for Utterley.
Some scenes are set at Croydon Airport
Croydon Airport
Croydon Airport was an airport in South London which straddled the boundary between what are now the London boroughs of Croydon and Sutton. It was the main airport for London before it was replaced by Northolt Aerodrome, London Heathrow Airport and London Gatwick Airport...
, but were filmed at Barton Airport, whose distinctive control tower
Control tower
A control tower, or more specifically an Air Traffic Control Tower , is the name of the airport building from which the air traffic control unit controls the movement of aircraft on and around the airport. Control towers are also used to control the traffic for other forms of transportation such...
shows in the film.
The series is available on DVD in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
External links
- Brass at British TV Comedy