Porterhouse Blue, 1987
Porterhouse Blue was a four part mini series adapted from a novel of the same name by Tom Sharpe.
It featured an all star cast and was seen as a social satire on life at Cambridge College. For the television series the events of the novel were updated from 1973 to 1986, with Cornelius Carrington having graduated in 1974, rather than 1938, as in the novel.
Since it’s broadcast the series has gained something of a cult following.
Summary
It’s late-1980’s Britain and Porterhouse College, Cambridge is seen as an anachronism, its students uniformly male and (in the vast number of cases) privately educated.
When the incumbent Master of the college dies (from a stroke brought on by overeating) the government decides to take it’s revenge on Porterhouse by appointing as his successor an old graduate, the politician Sir Godber Evans.
Evans is one of the tiny minority of state-school students the college has had forced on it over the years and he returns to his alma mater determined to drag this bastion of privilege into the twentieth century.
This becomes a task more difficult than he anticipates as the elderly academic staff cease their bickering and close ranks against him. However Evans finds his most unstoppable and unscrupulous opponent in Skullion, the college porter.
Clips
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Cast
David Jason – Skullion
Paul Rogers – Dean
Ian Richardson Sir Godber Evans
John Woodnutt – Senior Tutor
Harold Innocent – Bursar
Barabara Jefford – Lady Mary
Ian Wallace – Praelector
Willoughby Goddard – Professor Siblington
Lockwood West – Chaplain
Bob Goody – Walter
Roy Evans – Arthur
Details
Channel: Channel 4
Written By: Tom Sharpe
Adapted For TV By: Malcolm Bradbury
Original Run: 3rd – 24th June 1987