Gentlemen and Players

Gentlemen and Players, produced by TVS Television for the ITV network, is one of those intriguing late-1980s drama series that now feels like a time capsule of its era—an aspirational, glossy, slightly outrageous look at British high finance and the social hierarchies that buoy (and distort) it. With only 13 episodes across two series, it never attained the cultural longevity of its American cousins, but it carved out a distinct niche: a drama of money, class and rivalry in an unmistakably British register, where the battlefield is as often the cricket pitch as the boardroom.

At its core, Gentlemen and Players is a classic feud. Miles “Bo” Beaufort, played with patrician ease by Brian Protheroe, is the archetypal blue-blood financier: wealthy, well-connected, and fiercely protective of the old order. His nemesis is Mike Savage (Nicholas Clay), a self-made adventurer returning from Africa with a fortune in bonds and a knack for unsettling the status quo. When Savage moves into the affluent Hampshire village of Hunton Magna—conveniently into the Georgian mansion next door to Beaufort—their simmering antagonism reignites with a delicious sense of inevitability.

The series treats their rivalry almost as a sport in itself, mirroring the cricket matches that punctuate village life. Beaufort uses his influence and the “old boy network” to obstruct Savage at every opportunity, while Savage, less privileged but more enterprising, refuses to yield. The clash between old money and new money—tradition vs. dynamism—was a resonant theme for late-1980s Britain, and the show leans into it with gusto.

At the time, The Guardian described the series as “a kind of Dallas in Hampshire,” and it’s a comparison the show seems to embrace. There are country estates, dramatic confrontations, luxurious interiors, and a general sense that someone, somewhere, is always scheming. Yet, unlike American prime-time soap operas, Gentlemen and Players maintains a distinctly British restraint. The tone is less sensationalist and more social commentary wrapped in silk shirts and estate-car glamour.

This brings us to one of the most memorable contemporary critiques: Nancy Banks-Smith’s delightfully sharp 1989 review in The Guardian. She skewered the sartorial excess of the characters—“yards and yards and yards” of blue-and-white striped shirts, the uniform of 1980s City finance. In one of her best lines, she joked that it was “as if the noble blood in their veins were showing through the clear white Caucasian of their skins.” She also took playful aim at the casting, noting that “every untrustworthy face in Equity was on parade,” complete with independently moving eyes and an “unreliable moustache.” Her remarks capture exactly what makes the show so charming today: its earnestness, its stylised world, and its occasionally unintended camp.

Brian Protheroe (known for his first single, "Pinball", released in August 1974) brings a steely, patrician precision to Beaufort, a neat contrast to Nicholas Clay’s energetic, rough-edged Savage. Claire Oberman as Sandy Savage adds warmth and grounding to the story, and the ensemble of supporting businessmen and local characters fills the world with just the right blend of authenticity and caricature.

The production makes strong use of real locations in London and Hampshire, giving the show a sheen of realism even when the storylines veer into melodrama. The theme song, “Life’s a Game,” performed by Petula Clark, is a surprisingly sophisticated touch—a smooth, reflective piece that plays over the end credits and captures the slightly bittersweet tone of the series.

One of the ironies of Gentlemen and Players is that it has effectively vanished. There has been no domestic commercial release in the UK on any format, largely due to the tangled rights issues following the collapse and subsequent takeovers of TVS after it lost its ITV franchise in 1992. Much of the production documentation was lost, complicating the release of not only this series but much of the TVS catalogue. As a result, Gentlemen and Players exists in a kind of limbo: remembered fondly by some, nearly inaccessible to many.