The Characters
Hugh Abbot - Minister for Social Affairs (Chris
Langham)
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Recently parachuted in by the PM when the previous Minister was abruptly
sacked.
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Confused about his role in his new job. Constantly trying to figure
out, with the help of his team, the conflicting messages/agendas.
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Policy Co-ordinator Malcolm Tucker tells him he has carte blanche, a
fresh slate, the chance to take the department by the scruff of the
neck and take it in a new direction. But also that he must put every
single idea he is even considering through him. He wants to know everything.
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Abbot owes his position to being a malleable flack-catching yes-man.
But his vanity lets him believe he has been
ear-marked for greater things.
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Malcolm Tucker - Policy Co-ordinator (Enforcer) from Number
Ten (Peter Capaldi)
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Scares the hell out of the Minister.
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Thinks the PM's appointment of Abbot is probably a huge mistake.
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Split up from his partner - and now lives for his work. Angry and frustrated.
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His scorned partner is a time-bomb - preparing her deadly diary for
Channel Four's J'accuse programme.
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Glenn Cullen - Senior Special Advisor (James Smith)
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The Minister regards him as 'my guy'. They go back a long way and are
even slightly homoerotic in the degree to which their careers and lives
are bound together.
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Has the feeling that they're living on borrowed time - is insecure.
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Contemptuous of Oliver Reeder and his easy path to power - has never
seen opposition. Never worked anywhere else. Thinks he's shit hot, but
isn't.
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Sees himself as the source of all good common sense. Believes he instinctively
knows how 'the man on the street' thinks. He doesn't.
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Oliver Reeder - Junior Policy Advisor (Chris Addison)
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Came straight out of Cambridge and into a think tank and into Government.
Never had a 'real' job.
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Thinks he knows what's going on but doesn't. Too theoretical to ever
really understand the workings of PR and spin.
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Thinks he's cynical when he's not - thinks he knows the game but isn't
very good at it.
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The most reckless/ideas-driven/enthusiastic of the group. 'Who cares
what they print?'
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Terri Coverley - Civil Service Press Secretary (Jo
Scanlan)
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Was appointed by Number Ten in a new drive to make Government operate
more like a business. But now Tucker has decided she's shit - and she's
on borrowed time.
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Has authority and nous but has to cave in to the Minister. 'If that's
what you want to do, who am I to stop you?'.
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She was the 'anti-spin' appointment. Part of a 'new' thrust from Tucker
for transparency and trust. Her brief was to 'think the unthinkable.'
In media terms, now: 'She's thinking the unthinkable - stop her!'. They
ask her to break difficult stories to the papers: 'They'll believe you.'
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Ex-press officer from Waitrose. People defer to her sometimes because
of this business background. (Even though maybe she oversaw a PR disaster?)
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Angela Heaney - Sympathetic Journalist (Lucinda
Raikes)
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Career relies upon her good relationship with the party and the Department.
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Has sold out any interest in digging beyond 'the line' she is fed from
the Department
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Has had/is having romantic relationship with junior policy advisor?
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