A satirical drama charting the changing fortunes of a group of Cambridge graduates during the Thatcher years.
The serial follows a circle of friends from their graduation at Cambridge into the turbulent political and social landscape of the 1980s. The group includes the earnest academic Mark Golan (Matthew Marsh), the principled Jonquil Vickery (Tessa Peake-Jones), and the ambitious civil servant Dennis Medlam (Robert Bathurst). Guided by a wry Narrator (Simon Cadell), their story charts a decade of shifting allegiances and moral compromises as youthful ideals clash with the realities of Thatcher’s Britain. Their world is further complicated by the arrival of influential figures like the rapacious city financier Julian Holmes-Coppitt (Stephen Fry).
Written by the novelist and academic Malcolm Bradbury, Anything More Would Be Greedy is a quintessential state-of-the-nation satire. The serial is a sharp critique of the avarice and shifting values of the 1980s, using the journey of its Cambridge-educated protagonists as a lens through which to view the decade. Bradbury’s script anatomises the era’s ‘get rich quick’ mentality, charting the erosion of the characters’ youthful principles as they are drawn into the decade’s obsession with money and status. Rodney Bennett’s direction keeps the focus on the tightly constructed screenplay and the strong ensemble performances, resulting in a witty, incisive, and distinctly literary piece of television.
Broadcast: ITV – Anglia, 6 Episodes, Wednesdays, 26 July – 30 August 1989
Written by: Malcolm Bradbury
Director: Rodney Bennett
Producer: John Rosenberg
Main Cast: Matthew Marsh (Mark Golan), Tessa Peake-Jones (Jonquil Vickery), Sharon Holm (Anna Golan), Robert Bathurst (Dennis Medlam), Alison Sterling (Lynn Hart), Martin Wenner (Peter Vickery), Christopher Benjamin (Eric Harmer), Michael J. Shannon (Toby Dehring), Simon Cadell (Narrator), Stephen Fry (Julian Holmes-Coppitt)
