Gentlemen and Players (TV series)

Gentlemen and Players
Series 1 title screen
Genre	Drama
Created by	Dram Associates
Written by	Chris Roose Dennis Abey Guy Meredith David Wilks Edmund Ward
Starring	Brian Protheroe Nicholas Clay Claire Oberman Edita Brychta Faith Brook
Ending theme	"Life's A Game" performed by Petula Clark
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	2
No. of episodes	13
Production
Producer(s)	Raymond Menmuir Graham Benson (exec)
Running time	1 hour (including ads)
Production company(s)	TVS
Release
Original network	ITV
Original release	10 April 1988 – 9 June 1989

Gentlemen and Players is a British television series produced by TVS Television for the ITV network. An aspirational late 1980s drama series, Gentlemen and Players dealt with the struggles and intrigues involving two business rivals, Bo Beaufort and Mike Savage, set against a backdrop of high finance, opulent country homes and cricket.

Miles "Bo" Beaufort (Brian Protheroe) is a rich "blue blood" financier who comes from a wealthy upper-class family. Mike Savage (Nicholas Clay) is a self-made businessman from a more modest family background, who likes adventure. The two are old enemies, and when Savage returns from a stay in Africa (fleeing from a coup with a fortune in bonds), he chooses to settle with his wife Sandy (Claire Oberman) and daughters in the affluent Hampshire village of Hunton Magna, in a Georgian mansion that is next door to Beaufort's home. Unhappy about his new neighbour, especially when he joins his local cricket club, Beaufort schemes and uses the old boy network to hamper Savage's plans whenever possible. Rivalry between the two escalates as "old money" clashes with "new money".

Starring

Recurring cast

Two series were made between 1988 and 1989, comprising 13 episodes in total, mostly filmed on location in London and Hampshire. The first series, comprising seven episodes, was screened on ITV on Sunday nights at 7.45pm from 10 April - 22 May 1988. The second series, comprising six episodes, moved to Friday nights at 9pm, and ran from 28 April - 9 June 1989.

The press release for the series by TVS Television described Gentlemen and Players as "A story of money, class and rivalry set in the world of finance and gracious country homes.", with The Guardian newspaper describing it as "a kind of Dallas in Hampshire".

Writing in The Guardian in 1989 (at the end of the second series), critic Nancy Banks-Smith mocked the "yards and yards and yards" of blue and white striped shirt material (a typical garment for 1980s banking and business culture) that many of the characters wear. "Everybody in Gentlemen and Players wore blue striped shirts to show they are something substantial in the city. It is as if the noble blood in their veins were showing through the clear white caucasian of their skins." Commenting on the casting of the series' array of unscrupulous businessmen, she noted "...Every untrustworthy face in Equity was on parade. Some of whom had eyes that operated independently. One [character] had a deeply unreliable moustache."