Campaign

This series, along with another called Gems, focused on the emergence of the Yuppie and capitalist entrepreneur during the eighties in London. The episodes followed a tried and tested format, whereby a number of character's are linked to a common situation or place, from which we follow their lives and intimate pastimes. Penny Downie plays Sarah, a high flying single mother, who is a partner in an up-and-coming ad agency. We watch as she struggles with guilt, between her career, and the upbringing of her daughter. She also has a dilemma about choosing between the man in her life at that moment, and her ex-husband played by Gems actor Steven Mann, who seems to drift in and out of her life at inopportune times.

We also get to see the funny and often seedy lives of some of the employees at the agency, including the stressed-out copywriter played by John Fortune (of Bremner, Bird & Fortune), and the ditzy girlfriend of one of the partners, portrayed by the late Charlotte Coleman.

There is a little social commentary, when Sarah has doubts about the way in which a nurse is portrayed in a very important campaign (of the title), which shows the 'Angel' as a confident, highly motivated icon. When in fact, she is demorallised, underpaid, and considering leaving the NHS. This, the partners decide, would cause great embarrassment if it got out to the press. Sarah then seeks out the nurse at her bedsit, in order to convince her to stay at her job. But discovers that she too is a single parent, only without the luxuries that Sarah enjoys.

All in all, it was a well crafted pleasant series, which did not outstay it's welcome. It's a shame that another one wasn't commissioned.