''The Brief'' is a British drama series produced for

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

Television South Television South (TVS) was the ITV (TV network), ITV franchise holder in the South East England, South and South East of England between 1 January 1982 at 9.25 am and 31 December 1992 at 11.59 pm. The company operated under various names, ini ...

(TVS) at its Southampton studios. The thirteen episodes were broadcast between 26 June and 18 September in 1984. The series was mostly written by Ray Jenkins, produced by Rex Firkin and executive produced by James Gatward. The directors were Frank Cox, Richard Martin, John Frankau and

Mike Gibbon John Michael Gibbon (born 27 January 1942) is an English television producer and Television director, director. He directed and produced the BBC televised soap opera, ''EastEnders''. He began directing the programme in 1985 and began producing t ...

Overview

Ray Lonnen Raymond Stanley Lonnen (18 May 1940 – 11 July 2014) was an England, English stage and television actor. His most prominent roles include Willie Caine in the ITV cult classic Cold War, Cold War-era spy drama series, ''The Sandbaggers'' (1978� ...

played the role of barrister Lucas Hellier, who goes to Germany to defend a British soldier accused of defecting to the East. Other notable characters included Hellier's wife Samantha (

Isobel Black Isobel Anne Gatward ( Black; born 15 December 1942), known professionally as Isobel Black, is a British actress. She is the daughter of the screenwriter Ian Stuart Black. Isobel Black attended Queen Elizabeth's Girls’ Grammar School in Barn ...

) and his mistress Annika Newman (Sabine Postel). ''The Brief'' has never been repeated or released on DVD. This is possibly due to ongoing rights issues after the production company, TVS, lost its ITV franchise at the end of 1992 and subsequently went through a number of take-overs. This problem affects the majority of the TVS programme archive as much of the original production paperwork and sales documentation has been lost during the intervening years. According to

Kaleidoscope A kaleidoscope () is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of these mirrors are shown as a regular symmetrical pattern when v ...

's TV Brain website, the entire series has been wiped from the archives even though the same organisation listed it as existing in full as recently as 2010, in their ''British Independent Television Drama Research Guide 1955-2010''.''Independent Television Drama Research Guide'', page 405, Kaleidoscope Publishing, 2010

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* 1980s British drama television series 1980s British legal television series 1984 British television series debuts 1984 British television series endings English-language television shows ITV television dramas Serial drama television series Television series about prosecutors Espionage television series Television shows produced by Television South (TVS) Lost television shows {{UK-tv-prog-stub