''Hot Metal'' (1986–88) is a British

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

produced by

London Weekend Television London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 un ...

about the newspaper industry. Written by

David Renwick David Peter Renwick (; born 4 September 1951) is an English author, television writer, actor, director and executive producer, best known for creation of the sitcom ''One Foot in the Grave'' and the mystery series '' Jonathan Creek''. He was awa ...

and Andrew Marshall, it is very much a continuation in style from their previous sitcom '' Whoops Apocalypse!''. It was produced by Humphrey Barclay.

Synopsis

The ''Daily Crucible'', the dullest newspaper in

Fleet Street Fleet Street is a major street mostly in the City of London. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary with the City of Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was n ...

, is suddenly taken over by media magnate Terence "Twiggy" Rathbone (

Robert Hardy Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy (29 October 1925 – 3 August 2017) was an English actor who had a long career in theatre, film and television. He began his career as a classical actor and later earned widespread recognition for roles such as Sieg ...

) (an obvious parody of real-life magnates, especially

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

and

Robert Maxwell Ian Robert Maxwell (born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch; 10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovak-born British media proprietor, Parliament of the United Kingdom, member of parliament (MP), suspected spy, and fraudster. Early i ...

). Its editor Harry Stringer ( Geoffrey Palmer) is 'promoted' to managing editor, and is replaced in his old job by Russell Spam (also played by Hardy). At first Stringer is convinced that Spam is in fact Rathbone in disguise, until he sees the two of them together (via split-screen). In a later episode Stringer meets the paper's board of directors, all of whom are also played by Hardy. Spam takes the paper shooting downmarket and turns the Crucible into a sensation-seeking scandal rag, very much in the style of the British

tabloid Tabloid may refer to: * Tabloid journalism, a type of journalism * Tabloid (newspaper format), a newspaper with compact page size ** Chinese tabloid * Tabloid (paper size), a North American paper size * Sopwith Tabloid The Sopwith Tabloid an ...

s of the 1980s, in particular '' The Sun'' and The Mirror. In one episode, the ''Crucible's''

Page 3 Page 3, or Page Three, was a British newspaper convention of publishing a large image of a topless female glamour model (known as a Page 3 girl) on the third page of mainstream red-top tabloids. '' The Sun'' introduced the feature, publishi ...

is spiced up by the invention of "Wobblevision", a method of animating nude glamour photos by means of special printing techniques and 3D-style glasses with moving filters. This idea has to be dropped due to medical evidence that it causes migraines and vision problems; following this revelation Stringer tells a user, "stop it, you'll go blind". Spam is helped in his popularising campaign by his ace gutter journalist, Greg Kettle (Richard Kane), who intimidates his tabloid victims by claiming to be "a representative of Her Majesty's press" and produces stories such as accusing a vicar of being a werewolf. Throughout the first series, a running plot involved cub reporter Bill Tytla (

John Gordon Sinclair John Gordon Sinclair (born Gordon John Sinclair; 4 February 1962) is a Scottish actor, voice actor, singer, and novelist. He is best known for portraying Gregory in the 1981 film '' Gregory's Girl''. There was a Gordon Sinclair already register ...

) gradually uncovering an actual newsworthy story that went to the very heart of government (Tytla appears to be named after animator Vladimir "Bill" Tytla). In the second series, Harry Stringer had vanished in a "mysterious aircraft accident", to be replaced as Managing Editor by former daytime chat show host Richard Lipton ( Richard Wilson). The cub reporter investigating the running plot this time was Maggie Troon (

Caroline Milmoe Caroline Milmoe (born 11 January 1963) is an English stage, film and television actress best known for playing Julie in the first two series of Carla Lane's Liverpool-based BBC sit-com ''Bread'' and Lisa Duckworth in ITV's long-running soap ...

). The show's opening title sequence depicts the titles apparently being printed by metal type blocks; in the closing titles, blocks spelling the main title are seen melting in

time-lapse Time-lapse photography is a technique in which the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than the frequency used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus ...

behind the credits.

Cast

as Russell Spam, Terrence "Twiggy" Rathbone and ''Daily Crucible'' board members * Richard Kane as Greg Kettle * Geoffrey Palmer as Harold Stringer (series 1) *

as Bill Tytla (series 1) * Geoffrey Hutchings as Max Rutherford (series 1) * John Horsley as Father Teasdale (series 1) *

Sarah Mortimer Sarah Mortimer is a British actress. She has worked extensively in both television and theatre. Life Mortimer trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and her stage career includes Peter Hall's production of Coriolanus with ...

as Sharon Chandler (series 1) * Richard Wilson as Richard "Dicky" Lipton (series 2) *

as Maggie Troon (series 2) * David Barrass as Jack Thrush (series 2)

Episode list

In total, twelve episodes were made and broadcast. A

Comic Relief Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension. Definition Comic relief usually means a releasing of emotional or other tension resulting from a comic epis ...

special episode was also broadcast.

Series 1

Series 2

Comic Relief special

In 1989 the show was briefly revived for a 13-minute

special "The Satellite Years" (AKA "The Rat Sat on the Cat"), with Hardy and Palmer reviving their roles from the first series (though the second series set was used).

DVD and streaming release

Both series of Hot Metal have been released on DVD. A 2-disc set of the complete series has also been released. In March 2022 the series was added to UK streaming service

BritBox BritBox is an online digital video subscription service, founded by BBC Studios and ITV plc, operating in nine countries across North America, Europe, Australia and South Africa.

References

External links

*. *.
''Hot metal''
at BBC online comedy guide. *{{Epguides, HotMetal, Hot Metal. ITV sitcoms 1986 British television series debuts 1989 British television series endings 1980s British sitcoms English-language television shows London Weekend Television shows Television series by ITV Studios