Brass is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for ITV and later Channel 4. Brass was a satire of working-class historical dramas of the 1970s and American supersoaps such as Dallas and Dynasty, set largely in Utterley, a fictional Lancashire mining town in the 1930s. There was no laughter track, which was unusual for ITV comedies at the time, and the humour was purposely kept dry, employing complicated wordplay and subtle criticism on popular culture. Brass is northern English slang for both "money" and "effrontery." The series also mocked the 1977 Granada TV dramatization of Dickens' Hard Times, which also starred Timothy West. The show was produced by John Stevenson and Julian Roach and revolved around two fighting families: the rich Hardacres and the poor, working-class Fairchilds, who resided in a modest terraced house rented from the Hardacre empire. The Hardacres were led by the cruel self-made billionaire Bradley, who advocated Thatcherite rhetoric while devising many illogical plans to make his enterprises more efficient so he could lay off workers, and his alcoholic aristocratic wife Lady Patience. The Fairchilds were led by the stern "Red" Agnes, who promoted militant socialist rhetoric throughout the Hardacre mine, mill, and munitions industry, and her doofy, forelock-tugging husband George, who is ruled by both his wife and his boss. In an unexpected twist, Agnes was Bradley Hardacre's mistress.
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Brass is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for ITV and later Channel 4. Brass was a satire of working-class historical dramas of the 1970s and American supersoaps such as Dallas and Dynasty, set largely in Utterley, a fictional Lancashire mining town in the 1930s. There was no laughter track, which was unusual for ITV comedies at the time, and the humour was purposely kept dry, employing complicated wordplay and subtle criticism on popular culture. Brass is northern English slang for both "money" and "effrontery." The series also mocked the 1977 Granada TV dramatization of Dickens' Hard Times, which also starred Timothy West. The show was produced by John Stevenson and Julian Roach and revolved around two fighting families: the rich Hardacres and the poor, working-class Fairchilds, who resided in a modest terraced house rented from the Hardacre empire. The Hardacres were led by the cruel self-made billionaire Bradley, who advocated Thatcherite rhetoric while devising many illogical plans to make his enterprises more efficient so he could lay off workers, and his alcoholic aristocratic wife Lady Patience. The Fairchilds were led by the stern "Red" Agnes, who promoted militant socialist rhetoric throughout the Hardacre mine, mill, and munitions industry, and her doofy, forelock-tugging husband George, who is ruled by both his wife and his boss. In an unexpected twist, Agnes was Bradley Hardacre's mistress.
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