A man spent 17 years curing the common cold. His reward? Bureaucratic oblivion.
It is the mid-1980s. The economy has not improved. For 17 years Professor Frank Merrick has been ensconced in a research lab of a provincial university working on a cure for the common cold. He is very near success. Can he avoid becoming yet another victim of the eternal cutbacks?
Acting
Daneman's simmering dignity as decades of work face the shredder.
Direction
Blake captures beige corridors as sites of genuine tragedy.
Writing
Dialogue so British it hurts: rage delivered through tea breaks.
Director
Gerald Blake
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during Thatcher's Britain, it captures the death of public-sector idealism with surgical precision.
Paul Daneman was primarily a stage actor; this rare screen lead was nearly his last.
GB
