Hot Metal is a London Weekend Television

London Weekend Television

London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...

 sitcom about the British Newspaper industry broadcast between 1986 and 1988.

The Daily Crucible, the dullest newspaper in Fleet Street

Fleet Street

Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...

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

Robert Hardy

Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy, CBE, FSA is an English actor with a long career in the theatre, film and television. He is also an acknowledged expert on the longbow.-Early life:...

). Its editor Harry Stringer (Geoffrey Palmer

Geoffrey Palmer (actor)

Geoffrey Dyson Palmer, OBE is an English actor, best known for his roles in sitcoms such as Butterflies and As Time Goes By.-Career:...

) is 'promoted' to Managing Editor, and is replaced in his old job by Russell Spam (also played by Hardy). Spam then takes the paper shooting downmarket and turns The Crucible into a sensation seeking scandal rag, very much in the style of the British tabloids of the 1980s. He is helped along 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

John Gordon Sinclair is a Scottish actor most famous for playing Gregory in Gregory's Girl. He was born as Gordon John but took the stage name 'John Gordon Sinclair' because Equity already had a Gordon John registered....

) gradually uncovering an actual newsworthy story that went to the very heart of government.

Written by David Renwick

David Renwick

David Peter Renwick is an English television writer, best known for creation of the sitcom One Foot in the Grave and the mystery series Jonathan Creek....

 and Andrew Marshall

Andrew Marshall (writer)

Andrew Marshall is an English comedy screenwriter, most noted for the domestic sitcom 2point4 children. He was also the inspiration for Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...

, it is very much a continuation in style from their previous sitcom Whoops Apocalypse

Whoops Apocalypse

Whoops Apocalypse is a six-part 1982 television sitcom by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, made by London Weekend Television for ITV. Marshall and Renwick later reworked the concept as a 1986 movie from ITC Entertainment, with almost completely different characters and plot, although one or two...

. It was produced by Humphrey Barclay

Humphrey Barclay

Humphrey Barclay is a comedy executive and producer.-Career:His first foray into show business was via Cambridge Footlights revues where he appeared alongside Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, David Hatch, Jonathan Lynn, Jo Kendall and Miriam Margolyes...

.

Episode list

In total twelve episodes were made and broadcast. A Comic Relief

Comic Relief

Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief...

 special episode was also broadcast.

Series 1

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Series 2

In the second series, Harry Stringer had left, 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

Caroline Milmoe 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 opera Coronation Street.-Career:Milmoe attended Manchester's Contact Youth Theatre...

).

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Comic Relief Special

In 1989 the show was briefly revived for a 13 minute Comic Relief special "The Satellite Years" (AKA "The Rat Sat on The Cat"), with Hardy and Palmer reviving his role from the first series (though the second series set was used).

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DVD release

Both series of Hot Metal have been released on DVD. A 2-disc set of the complete series has also been released.

DVD	Release date
The Complete Series 1	7 September 2009
The Complete Series 2	19 April 2010
The Complete Series 1 to 2 Box Set	18 October 2010

External links

• Hot Metal at BBC Online Comedy Guide