Harry Salter is the ruthless owner of a news agency in Darlington who will resort to any under-hand means or exploit anyone in order to get a story that he can sell to a newspaper. He is assisted at his agency by Alice, his secretary/PA, and Snappy, his photographer.
Starring;
Michael Elphick as Harry Salter
Ian Bartholomew as Snappy
Julie Graham as Alice
Tom Hollander as Jonathan
Barbara Marten as Rita Salter
David Roper as Nick
Supplied as a 4 Disc Set, Recorded from VHS, the quality, compared to a retail dvd, is Audio 7 Video 7 (Very Good!)
Disc One (Series One)
Episode 1 - Harry's offices are attacked by someone with a grudge. He hires a young reporter to share his workload. His relationship with his antiques-dealer wife keeps his feet on the ground. He tries to get to the bottom of a mystery involving a nuclear company, a campaigning miner and some very powerful people.
Episode 2 - Harry rescues an ageing driver who is being towed along the A1 at 90mph. Harry puts a spin on the story of a Vietnamese man with a deportation order hanging over him. Out with a police motorway patrol, he witnesses an horrific accident. It is a sobering experience and he has difficulty in writing up the story.
Episode 3 - Three grave robbers open a hermetically sealed coffin and think they've got the plague. An old man with Alzheimer's disease is dumped in a car park. Harry imagines his international horizons are widening when an old acquaintance, Frank Drury, arrives.
Episode 4 - When an ex-army officer is murdered on his patch, Harry goes off in hot pursuit of IRA suspects, intent on selling the story to the national press. He finds the real villain is somewhat nearer home.
Episode 5 - There is dissension in the ranks at News Associates. Harry criticises the team's productivity but they respond in kind. Jonathan and Alice decide to follow up a story about a young girl whose parents are launching a £250,000 appeal to send her to Pittsburgh for a life-saving operation.
Episode 6 - Harry is in deep trouble with the law after interfering in a serious hostage incident. Harry wants to go to trial against his solicitor's advice.
Disc Two (Series One)
Episode 7 - Harry is released from jail and is immediately back on the case with a story about chemical pollution. They follow a police car and witness a crazed man breaking up a glamour photographer's flat. Further investigations reveal a thriving business in pornography and prostitution involving local students.
Episode 8 - Harry gets the chance to impress an important Italian client, and uses a fictional story. At the same time he has an exclusive interview with a top footballer, but has problems making him sound interesting. Meanwhile, Snappy is covering a story about a girl who has a vision and needs to set up a holy shrine, but events spiral rapidly out of control...
Episode 9 - Harry researches for a newspaper article on the death of a well-respected policeman, and finds that he was involved in a murder trial with Masonic entanglements.
Episode 10 - Harry arranges a surprise party to celebrate the broadcast of Jonathan's video diaries, but finds out that he is not portrayed very well in them. His friendship with a policeman is still teetering after Harry discovered he had been involved in a set-up fifteen years earlier. Harry follows a story about a local strike, and finds financial scandal..
Episode 11 - Harry finds out that his local MP is having an affair with the Foreign Secretary and disappears to Spain with a photographer to take pictures of her cavorting with the Minister by a pool.
Episode 12 - Harry and his photographer, Archer, throw a party for Fleet Street journalists to announce his scoop expose of a female MP's foreign affair with her boss. However, he manages to upset his wife and his staff back home in Darlington, and faces the problem of thinking of a follow-up story..
Disc Three (Series Two)
Episode 1 - Harry returns to Darlington to find that his wife has left home and moved in with another man. At the News Associates office, he finds that the ground floor has been let to a Chinese takeaway and that his ex-employees are not keen to have him back. But Harry has a plan...
Episode 2 - Billy Trafford is too terrified to name the man who shot his friend. He collapses in court and is taken to hospital. The boy's parents approach Harry and he finds him a safe house with Cheryl because Harry is too busy involved in a story of a fishing war. Ann Wade and others are protesting about the collapse of the fishing industry but Harry thinks he smells a bigger story...
Episode 3 - Harry investigates a case of blackmail as a clean cut footballer's image is threatened by his wife's past. Snappy has to take photos of a shop cleaner who raises money for her sick child by dancing in her underwear. Jonathan is working on the story of Albert Crewe who is forced to sell his war medals to pay for his funeral.
Episode 4 - Harry gets involved with the story of a soldier with a secret. Meanwhile Snappy and Jonathan are on the trail of a once famous rock star and his liaison with a schoolgirl and Alice's piece on a women's refuge has serious consequences...
Disc Four (Series Two)
Episode 5 - Harry and ex-detective Jack Crow are both on the trail of a local big time criminal who Harry believes is back in town. He tries to throw Cheryl off the scent and gives her a devil worship story, however it turns out to be connected with the criminal after all.
Episode 6 - Snappy and Jonathan are in line for a "Good News" award.Harry wants a reunion with his estranged wife, but she wants a divorce. A young prostitute disappears and her friends think she has been murdered.Harry can find no trace of her at a residential home for troubled kids run by local businessman Paul Collier, Harry suspects that a local judge who is a friend of Paul Collier's may be involved...
Episode 7 - Dean Hawkins breaks out of prison to settle a score with the local police and the politicians who destroyed his father, especially prospective MP Frank Melhouse. Harry has a tip off that Melhouse has been involved in a cover up about water pollution and is determined to investigate despite Melhouse's police minders...
Episode 8 - A child is kidnapped and Alice knows the parents don't want Harry involved, but he smells a scoop. Jonathan and Snappy are at a race track trying to track down the illicit liaisons of a former cover girl...
