Edward Hardwicke and Robert Lang star in this four-part comedy thriller

With the House of Commons in recess, it's a chance for all hard-working politicians to take a holiday. So when Conservative MP Vincent Mellors and Labour MP Arnold Sellers discover that they're staying at the same golf hotel in Lytham St Annes, they agree to put affairs of state on the back burner. But they're soon handed a political hot potato in the shape of Sir Bertram Oliphant's parliamentary memoirs. Full of red-hot revelations, the manuscript is diplomatic dynamite - and someone will go to any lengths to get their hands on it...
Then Sir Bertram is found murdered, buried head-first in a bunker and wearing someone else's shoes. Deciding to investigate, Mellors and Sellers find themselves faced with a slew of suspects, including a suspiciously inquisitive Welsh receptionist, a mysterious Baltic businessman with size eleven feet, and an Italian mafioso named Marinello...
Created by playwright, broadcaster and Golden Age crime writer Alan Melville, this light-hearted comic crime drama stars Edward Hardwicke as Mellors and Robert Lang as Sellers.
This programme was made in 1977, and contains language and attitudes from the time in which it was first broadcast.
Production credits
Written by Alan Melville
Produced and directed by John Tydeman
Cast
Vincent Mellors - Edward Hardwicke
Arnold Sellers - Robert Lang
Steward - Geoffrey Collins
Mordecai - Anthony Daniels
Stranger/Zhednev - Peter Woodthorpe
Woman - Shirley Dixon
Inspector - James Thomason
Maid/Ruth - Terri Lang
Golf professional - Fraser Kerr
Miss Parker - Gudrun Ure
Sir Reginald Deane - John Humphry
Lady Heston - Fabia Drake
P - Sean Barrett
Steward/Marinello - Neville Jason
Woman - Anne Rosenfeld
Barman - Leslie Heritage
Mrs Oliphant - Mary Wimbush
O - Alan Barry
Police sergeant - Timothy Bateson
Morris - John Rowe
With Michael Tudor Barnes, Malcolm Reid, Michael Harbour, Jonathan Scott, Peter Craze and Valerie Murray
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 5-26 January 1977
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