Season 1 • Episode 6
LatestFrancis has a confession to make to his family: Vickie is horrified, Fred just laughs. Elsewhere, Sylvia visits Harold Atterbrow in hospital.
During the Suez Crisis of 1956, two young clerks at the stuffy Foreign Office in Whitehall display little interest in the decline of the British Empire. To their eyes, it can hardly compete with girls, rock music, and the intrigue of romantic entanglements.
Writing
Potter's trademark musical fantasy sequences
Acting
Baby Ewan McGregor already has IT
Direction
Surreal transitions between drab reality and dream
Creator
Dennis Potter
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was Ewan McGregor's breakthrough role at age 22, filmed just before his Star Wars audition. Potter specifically cast unknowns to avoid audience baggage.
Potter was writing this during his own final illness; the Suez parallels to Britain's diminished 1990s status were intentional. The BBC nearly cancelled it for being too weird.
GB
