Stars: Timothy West, Caroline Blakiston, Barbara Ewing, James Saxon, Geoffrey Hinsliff, Emily Morgan, Robert Reynolds

Director: Gareth Jones

Summary: Bradley Hardacre, owner of the Utterley brass factory and everything else in town, finds his rule of the town opposed by Agnes Fairchild. Unfortunately for Agnes, her husband, George, is the most loyal of the Hardacre workforce and romance is beginning to bloom between her sons and the Hardacre daughters...

TV comedy BRASS is set in the 1930s. Bradley Hardacre (Timothy West) owns a brass factory, coalmine, shipyard (and most of the Lancashire town of Utterley come to that) and is a ruthless man of luxury and wealth living in the big house on the hill with his wife Lady Patience and his children, sons Austin and Morris and daughters Isobel and Charlotte. At the other extreme are the working-class Fairchilds, who are employed by the Hardacres, live in a tiny house at the bottom of the hill--Agnes and George and their sons Jack and Matthew. Hardacre was once one of them, but has grown rich and self-superior on " 'ard graft" and ruthless cigar-smoking Northern ruthlessness. The soap opera mix of rich and poor, strong and weak, homosexual, nymphomaniacal, feminist and flat-capped characters provides ample situation comedy, and the production budget allowed for great sets, locations, cars and costumes. Contains all the episodes from the first series, first shown on television in 1983.

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Chris Morris' Brass Eyeis a brilliantly funny spoof on current affairs media that carries on where his previous The Day Todayleft off. The show ran for one single, contentious series in 1997, to be followed by an even more controversial one-off in 2001. While these episodes might cause offence to those not versed in Morris' satirical methods, and while one occasionally suspects his work is informed by a dark seam of malice and loathing rather than a desire to educate, Brass Eyeremains vital satire, magnificently hilarious and, in its own way, fiercely moral viewing.

Brass Eyesatirises a media far too interested in generating dramatic heat and urgency for its own sake than in shedding light on serious issues. Morris mimics perfectly the house style of programmes such as Newsnightand Crimewatch, with their spurious props and love of gimmickry. Meanwhile his presenter--an uncanny composite of Jeremy Paxman, Michael Buerk and Richard Madeley among others--delivers absurd items about man-fighting weasels in the East End and Lear-esque lines such as "the twisted brain wrong of a one-off man mental" with preposterously solemn authority. Much as the media itself is wont to do, each programme works itself up into a ridiculous fever of moral panic. Most telling is the "drugs" episode, in which, as ever, real-life celebrities, including Jimmy Greaves and Sir Bernard Ingham, are persuaded to lend their name to a campaign against a new drug from Eastern Europe entitled Cake. The satirist's aim here isn't to trivialise concern about drugs but to point up the media's lack of attention to content.

A response to the ill-conceived News of the Worldwitch-hunt, in the wake of the Sarah Payne affair, the 2001 "paedophilia" special was the most supremely controversial of the series. It followed the usual formula--duping celebs such as Phil Collins into endorsing a campaign entitled "Nonce Sense", urging parents to send their children to football stadiums for the night for their own safety and mooting the possibility of "roboplegic" paedophiles--and prompted the sort of hysterical and predictable Pavlovian response from the media that Brass Eyelampoons so tellingly.

On the DVD:Brass Eyeon DVD includes brief outtakes, such as "David Jatt" interviewing celebrities about breeding hippos for domestic purposes, an hilarious exchange with Jeffrey Archer's PA ("He's a very wicked little man") as well as trailers for the paedophilia special.--David Stubbs

Aspect Ratio:	4:3
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Year:	1983
Release Date:	July 5, 2004
Runtime:	321 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C C D 30077
Keywords:	Comedy, Two, Brass, General, Discs
Genre:	Comedy