History Series / Brass

Most of the characters were members of two families in the fictional town of Utterley, in the [[OopNorth industrial north of England]]; the wealthy Hardacres, who owned the local mine, mill, and munitions factory, and the working-class Fairchilds. The Hardacre family was headed by comedically ruthless self-made businessman Bradley (Timothy West). His aristocratic wife Lady Patience (Caroline Blakiston) was an alcoholic; their (surviving, supposed) children were the nymphomaniac Isobel (Gail Harrison), innocent Charlotte (Emily Morgan), ambitious but frequently incompetent oldest-son-and-heir Austin (Robert Reynolds, later Patrick Pearson), and a gay [[UsefulNotes/{{Oxbridge}} Cambridge]] student Morris (James Saxon). The Fairchilds were militant UsefulNotes/{{socialis|m}}t "Red" Agnes (Barbara Ewing), her idiotic, subservient husband George (Geoffrey Hinsliff, later Geoffrey Hutchings), and their (supposed) sons Jack (Shaun Scott), a defiant working-class political idealist, and Matt (Gary Cady), a sensitive soul who wrote ridiculously bad, plagiaristic poetry ("Thou are more lovely and more interesting/Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May but that's quite another thing"). Because of various clandestine affairs that took place in the series backstory, ''actual'' parentage for some of these characters often turned out to be a surprise. The most significant other character was the idealistic young Scottish Dr. [=McDuff=] (David Ashton).

* MeaningfulName: "Hardacre" and "Fairchild" seem indicative, and the name of minor character and habitual pessimist [[Literature/BookOfJob Job]] Lott is a multi-way pun. Also, though it isn't particularly meaningful, Austin, Morris, and their deceased brother Bentley are named after British car manufacturers, and Jack and Matt are named after items used in the game of bowls.

* CorruptHick: Bradley epitomises the northern English version of the trope, parodied to the extreme and successful enough to run a moderately substantial town.

* QuestionableConsent: The presence of this trope might sometimes be considered an issue here --the series shows its age in this respect. [[spoiler:Jack's sexual relationship with Charlotte is very dubious by modern standards, and there's some messing about with a sort of LovePotion that turns characters into rampant sex maniacs in other episodes.]]

* QuestionableConsent: The presence of this trope might sometimes be considered an issue here -- [[SocietyMarchesOn the series shows its age]] in this respect. [[spoiler:Jack's sexual relationship with Charlotte is very dubious by modern standards, and there's some messing about with a sort of LovePotion that turns characters into rampant sex maniacs in other episodes.]]

* MeaningfulName: "Hardacre" and "Fairchild" seem indicative, and the name of minor character and habitual pessimist Job Lott is a multi-way pun. Also, though it isn't particularly meaningful, Austin, Morris, and their deceased brother Bentley are named after British car manufacturers, and Jack and Matt are named after items used in the game of bowls.

''Brass'' was a British television comedy-drama, created by John Stevenson and Julian Roach, which initially ran for two series on Creator/{{ITV}} between 1982 and 1984; it was subsequently brought back for a third series in 1990 on Creator/Channel4, with some changes to the cast. It was primarily a [[{{Parody}} parody]] of the sort of [[KitchenSinkDrama "gritty"]] [[{{Melodrama}} melodramas]] of British industrial town life which had been popular in literature from the Victorian period through to the 1930s, and as [[HistoricalFiction period dramas]] on British television in the 1970s. ("Brass" is northern English slang for "money" and also for "effrontery".) It also parodied American "[[SoapOpera supersoaps]]" such as ''Series/{{Dallas}}'' and ''Series/{{Dynasty}}'', not least in its [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGro3n2X9dY opening title sequence]]. The writers had a very clear view of the dominant tropes in their various sources, and [[PlayedForLaughs played them all for laughs]] at every opportunity.

* HelloNurse: Most of the female characters have good figures, and some of them wear more tight or low-cut tops than is strictly necessary -- and most of the male characters are easily distracted.