User reviews

Once again there is a verve and energy to this episode. In fact it's little ahead of its time.

David Main would put modern corporate lawyers to shame.

Main is engaged to deal with a firm involved in a merger. However they are also fighting a compensation claim against a worker suffering a long term injury. If the worker wins its case it could have devastating consequences. The production line could close and the workers might lost their jobs.

Charles Ian Grady is the professional agitator. He has come up north and is intent to wind people up rather than help them. Even the local union organiser dislikes him.

Grady wants a closed union shop and the personal injury case to succeed. Maybe he intends to benefit himself from it in the long run from the various claims.

Once again Main is in a world where one factory owner is of the old paternalistic kind. He sees his workers as an extension of his family.

It is also notable that Main is willing to listen to an older and wiser voice. He knows when he might be close to overstepping the mark.

A local firm plans a merger, but a union agitator seems determined to kibosh their plans by linking an employee's death with a production process. Anthony Bate as the stirrer is played as a villain, but I suspect every episode will include unresolved moral ambiguities. Main is a kind of anti-Rumpole. John Stride is good-looking, but was that nude (with bath towel) scene really necessary? Verité filming means the dialogue is sometimes inaudible. Did we ever combine big hair with such ridiculously short skirts (and push-up bras)? We did, somehow combining the 1920s and the 18th century.