isurrendered | New Show: Hell's H.R

Title: Hell’s HR

When: 1973. Made by Thames Television for ITV in the UK.

Genre: 25 minute sitcom.

Synopsis: John Campbell is the boss of J.C Recruitment, an agency situated directly in between a large post-war council estate, the Narnborough Estate, and an industrial park called Birch Lodge in London. Each week he and his trusty secretary, Sophie West, try to match the job seekers from the estate with what the employers on Birch Lodge want with hilarious consequences. There is a running will they, won’t they sub-plot between John and Sophie. The course of true love is destined not to run smooth as John is unhappily married to Louise whose father is the MD of Machin’s Machines the estate’s biggest employer and therefore John’s biggest client.

Reception: Thanks to the show being bounced around the schedules and the weak comedy situations it never caught on and was cancelled after one series. The main draw for the viewers was the relationship between John and Sophie. There was disappointment that after a promising end to the series viewers never found out if the pair got together.

Critical reception: Someone wrote to The TV Times once pointing out it should really be called Hell’s Recruitment Agency.

Characters:

John Campbell (Gerald Harper): Not an old man, but acts like the sixties with all its permissiveness never happened. He always wears a suit. Queenie Thompson reckons he even takes a bath in one. Sophie tries to get him to lighten up and get in to the seventies, but with little success.

Sophie West (Juliet Harmer): Campbell’s girl friday. A lot more laid back than John, a girl of now. Despite appearances she is old fashioned and although she has many offers she is staying single in the hope one day John will come to his senses and split with his wife. The residents of Narnborough prefer to see her than John as he can rub them up the wrong way.

Father Matthew Dann (Jack May). Dann is the Catholic priest of St Neot’s an exceptionally pretty church stuck between two ugly concrete estates and next door to J.C. Recruitment. The other characters often go round to the church and use Dann as a sounding board. Dann comes across as a doom monger, but when someone pours their heart out to them he takes him seriously suggesting he isn’t really a pessimist he just enjoys being gloomy.

Suni Kahn (Nadim Sawalha). Suni is as happy as his name. The other characters go to him to be cheered up, usually after talking to Dann. He runs a take away curry van outside John’s office. He and the Father have a friendly sparring relationship.

Queenie Thompson (Elizabeth Spriggs). One of the agency’s job seeking clients. A salt of the earth type. She often comes into the office carrying at least one of her grand children. She has three grown up sons who always seem to be in one sort of drama or another. One week the episode centred on Queenie accidentally leaving her baby grandson in the office which the inexperienced John and Sophie had to look after.

Louise Campbell (Veronica Strong). John’s wife and daughter of factory owner Frank Machin. Her father worked his way up to the top and spoilt her by giving her everything he never had as a child and then some. She is a demanding wife and can’t understand why John has to spend so long doing dull things like working for a living.

Jack Hesslethwaite (Ronald Radd). Shop steward at Machin’s Machines. A bluff Northerner he is a thorn in both John and Frank’s lives. After being dead set against temps taking work from non-agency staff he tried to start a temps union outside J.C Recruitment once.

I know it's been quiet for years, but I hope nobody minds me posting.