Lytton's Diary (1985)
Peter Bowles gives a memorable performance as Fleet Street's most successful gossip columnist, Neville Lytton. Co-created by Bowles, this highly popular drama started life as a single play in the Storyboard anthology before continuing through two critically acclaimed series. Featuring appearances by Gwen Taylor, Ralph Bates, Pamela Salem, Jean Kent, Elspet Gray and Lee Patterson, this set comprises both series alongside the original Storyboard play. Suave, shrewd and with an instinct for a good story (tempered by a strong sense of fair play and occasional threats of litigation...), Neville Lytton is justly famed for the Gossip Diary that peps up the pages of The Daily News. Society tit-bits often give way to high-profile exposés, however, when Lytton and his colleagues stumble upon shady dealings, corruption at the highest levels, cover-ups and con-artists...
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Episode 1 - The End And The Means
Release Date: 1986-01-08Neville Lytton returns to his desk at the Daily News after a brutal mugging. He is soon involved in investigating a suicide and a Whitehall scandal helps to get him back into the routine.
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Episode 2 - Rules of Engagement
Release Date: 1986-01-15A new journalist at the Daily News is instantly unpopular when it is discovered that she owes her job to the editor's patronage. Lytton sends her in pursuit of a runaway tennis star.
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Episode 3 - The Ancient Regime
Release Date: 1986-01-22A famous sex symbol has a change of heart about on-screen nudity and receives a rich and mysterious visitor. Lytton is onto the story, but is waylaid by his paper's owner and a mysterious lunchtime appointment.
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Episode 4 - The Miracle Man
Release Date: 1986-01-29Lytton investigates why the same well-known faces are always appearing at an American evangelists healing ceremonies, and is also involved in a confused plan to publish his first novel. The behaviour of the young new editor of the Daily News horrifies him.
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Episode 5 - National Hero
Release Date: 1986-02-05Duncan Anderson, a revered public figure and a friend of Lytton's is regarded as just another old fogey by pop columnist Trevor Bates. Meanwhile, Henry is deep ly concerned about midnight meetings in a gazebo.
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Episode 6 - What A Wonderful Life
Release Date: 1986-02-12Lytton is a judge at an international beauty competition that goes wrong, and finds himself investigating his old friend's financial background. Meanwhile, the paper's owner is planning a technological revolution in Fleet Street.