Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube
    Nostalgia Central
    • Home
    • Blog
      • Lists
      • Playlists
    • Television
      • TV by Decade
        • TV – 1950s
        • TV – 1960s
        • TV – 1970s
        • TV – 1980s
        • TV – 1990s
      • Comedy
      • Drama
      • Kids TV
      • Variety
      • News & Sport
      • Advertisements
    • Music
      • Music by Decade
        • Music – 1950s
        • Music – 1960s
        • Music – 1970s
        • Music – 1980s
        • Music – 1990s
      • Artists – A to K
        • Artists – A
        • Artists – B
        • Artists – C
        • Artists – D
        • Artists – E
        • Artists – F
        • Artists – G
        • Artists – H
        • Artists – I
        • Artists – J
        • Artists – K
      • Artists – L to Z
        • Artists – L
        • Artists – M
        • Artists – N
        • Artists – O
        • Artists – P
        • Artists – Q
        • Artists – R
        • Artists – S
        • Artists – T
        • Artists – U
        • Artists – V
        • Artists – W
        • Artists – X
        • Artists – Y
        • Artists – Z
      • Artists – 0 to 9
      • Genres
      • Music on Film & TV
      • One-Hit Wonders
      • Online Radio
    • Movies
      • Movies by Decade
        • Movies – 1950s
        • Movies – 1960s
        • Movies – 1970s
        • Movies – 1980s
        • Movies – 1990s
      • Movies – 0 to 9
      • Movies – A to K
        • Movies – A
        • Movies – B
        • Movies – C
        • Movies – D
        • Movies – E
        • Movies – F
        • Movies – G
        • Movies – H
        • Movies – I
        • Movies – J
        • Movies – K
      • Movies – L to Z
        • Movies – L
        • Movies – M
        • Movies – N
        • Movies – O
        • Movies – P
        • Movies – Q
        • Movies – R
        • Movies – S
        • Movies – T
        • Movies – U
        • Movies – V
        • Movies – W
        • Movies – X
        • Movies – Y
        • Movies – Z
    • Pop Culture
      • Fads
      • Toys & Games
      • Fashion
      • Decor
      • Food & Drink
      • People
      • Technology
      • Transport
    • Social History
      • 1950s Year by Year
      • 1960s Year by Year
      • 1970s Year by Year
      • 1980s Year by Year
      • 1990s Year by Year
      • Events
    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Television»Drama
    Drama TV Shows - 1980s 4 Mins Read

    Capital City

    Share
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Reddit Email

    1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 0 (UK)
    23 x 60 minute episodes

    Capital City was really the drama series we had to have. So full of its time, it came drenched in Thatcherite trappings and explored the bright lights of the big city (As in The City, London, England).

    The 13 part series from Euston Films presented the saga of Shane-Longman, an up and coming investment banking house in London.

    Episodes mainly centred around the developing romance between dishy primaries desk trader Declan McConnochie (Douglas Hodge) and Michelle Hauptmann (Trevyn McDowell), a trader for Shane-Longman’s German branch based in England.

    Capital City took viewers into the buzz of the corporate trading room, giving us an insight into the realities of insider trading and of money-fixated high fliers networking and closing deals in the City.

    For all the soap opera packaging, this was television cynically and snobbishly predicated on the basis of giving the people a glimpse of the high octane £100K per annum world that was otherwise inaccessible.

    At a time when the “yuppie” was being demonised in our culture, it was obvious that the likes of Declan, Hudson, Max, Leonard, Sirrka and Chas would fail to win the hearts of the nation.

    Debuting on ITV at the arse end of the glitzy, aspirational ’80s, it was also evident that Capital City had arrived far too late to profitably surf the Trading Places/Wall Street zeitgeist.

    As most 1980s drama became inextricably linked to the trends of the society it reflected, the very rationale for the programme amply demonstrates the state of utter uncertainty that stifled much television drama during that awkward transitional period from one decade to the next.

    Like the BBC’s appalling Trainer, Capital City was inexplicably renewed for a further season and like Trainer, it was a tawdry throwback to a long-gone era, no more than a contrived irrelevance.

    New characters were introduced for the second series, principally the steely, heartless bitch new Head Dealer, Sylvia Roux Tenge (Emily Bolton), the sort of Head Girl who used to strut around school with a dominatrix whip.

    There was also now some external filming in the city of London (which meant we can get to see what a ghastly structure the Broadgate complex is).

    It took programmes such as the blackly comic Making Out – who needs a phalanx of stripe-shirted tossers when you’ve got Margi Clarke ruling the roost? – and the sitcom Get Back (featuring Ray Winstone, Larry Lamb and a youthful Kate Winslet) to tentatively bring the realities of recession, redundancy and retrenchment to an early 1990s audience.

    Indeed, seven years later on BBC2, a depiction of the hedonistic high-flying lifestyles of a bunch of ambitious 20-somethings was finally done right when we made the acquaintance of Anna, Miles, Milly, Egg and Warren and saw exactly what the denizens of Capital City lacked: a touch of basic humanity.

    Capital City deserves recognition in a pantheon of underrepresented programming not because it is a laudable example of popular television but because of its political and pop-cultural literacy, because of its value as a historical document.

    Its glossy production values offset by vacuous characters and storylines utterly bereft of any true intellectual, moral or dramatic substance, this was the ultimate distillation of life for the privileged few during the latter years of Thatcher‘s Britain, set in a London that swung like a corpse on the end of a rope.

    Max Lubin
    William Armstrong
    Leonard Ansen 

    John Bowe
    James Farrell
    Denys Hawthorne
    Jimmy Destry 

    Dorian Healy
    Declan McConnochie 

    Douglas Hodge
    Chas Ewell 

    Jason Isaacs
    Sirkka Nieminen 

    Joanna Kanska
    Lee Wolf 

    Richard Le Parmentier
    Michelle Hauptmann 

    Trevyn McDowell
    Hannah Burgess 

    Anna Nygh
    Wendy Foley 

    Joanna Phillips-Lane
    Hudson J Talbot 

    Rolf Saxon
    Sylvia Roux Tenge 

    Emily Bolton
    Hillary Rollinger 

    Saira Todd

    Related Posts

    • Cimarron City
      Cimarron City
      1 9 5 8 - 1 9 6 0 (USA) George Montgomery was both star and narrator of this saga of…
    • Henderson Kids, The/Henderson Kids II, The
      Henderson Kids, The/Henderson Kids II, The
      1 9 8 5 - 1 9 8 6 (Australia) 24 x 50 minute episodes 1 9 8 7 (Australia) 24 x…
    • Poparound
      Poparound
      1 9 8 5 - 1 9 8 6 (UK) Chirpy Cockney chappie Gary Crowley (well-known to viewers in the London…
    • I Can Do That
      I Can Do That
      1 9 8 8 - 1 9 9 0 (UK) 28 x 30 minute episodes This children's show from Yorkshire…
    • City '68
      City '68
      1 9 6 7 - 1 9 6 8 (UK) 13 x 60 minute episodes This thirteen-episode anthology of self-contained dramas…
    • Traders
      Traders
      1 9 9 6 - 2 0 0 0 (Canada) 83 x 60 minute episodes Overcooked drama about romance and backstabbing…
    • Decoy
      Decoy
      1 9 5 7 - 1 9 5 9 (USA) 39 x 30 minute episodes Patricia 'Casey' Jones (Beverly Garland) was…
    • Rainbow City
      Rainbow City
      1 9 6 7 (UK) 6 x 25 minute episodes Produced by BBC Birmingham, Rainbow City was the first British drama…

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleCannonball
    Next Article Carson’s Law

    Comments are closed.

    Follow us
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    You May Also Like
    • Degrassi Junior High
      1 9 8 7 – 1 9 8 9 (Canada) 42 x 30 minute episodes The […]
    • He & She
      1 9 6 7 – 1 9 6 8 (USA) 26 x 30 minute episodes A […]
    • Life Less Ordinary, A (1997)
      O’Reilly (Holly Hunter) and Jackson (Delroy Lindo) are […]
    • Sweat
      1 9 9 6 (Australia) 26 x 60/30 minute episodes This Australian […]
    • Nightmare Before Christmas, The (1993)
      After another successful celebration in Halloween Town – […]
    • Sam Saturday
      1 9 9 2 (UK) 6 x 60 minute episodes Detective Inspector Sam […]
    Comments Box SVG iconsUsed for the like, share, comment, and reaction icons

    OUR LATEST FACEBOOK POSTS

    edition.cnn.com/2023/01/30/entertainment/cindy-williams-dead/index.html

    More sad news 😢
    ... See MoreSee Less

    Link thumbnail

    'Laverne & Shirley' star Cindy Williams dead at 75 | CNN

    edition.cnn.com

    Cindy Williams, the dynamic actress known best for playing the bubbly Shirley Feeney on the beloved sitcom "Laverne & Shirley," has died, according to a statement from her family, provided to CNN by a...
    6 days ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 1
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 0

    Comment on Facebook

    www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64442824 ... See MoreSee Less

    Link thumbnail

    Television frontman Tom Verlaine dies at 73

    www.bbc.co.uk

    His band rose to fame in the 1970s New York punk scene, scoring UK hits including Marquee Moon.
    1 week ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 0
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 0

    Comment on Facebook

    www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64418847 ... See MoreSee Less

    Link thumbnail

    Mr Blobby costume sells for more than £62,000 on eBay

    www.bbc.co.uk

    The character, made famous by BBC show Noel's House Party, had been in storage since the 1990s.
    1 week ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 0
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 0

    Comment on Facebook

    Put some beefiness into your mid-week menu with these recipe ideas published in a Birds Eye advertisement from the Radio Times on 30 September 1965.

    Put some "beefiness into your mid-week menu" with these recipe ideas published in a Birds Eye advertisement from the "Radio Times" on 30 September 1965. ... See MoreSee Less

    2 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 3
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 1

    Comment on Facebook

    They were awful. An overpowering savoury flavour that lingered in your mouth for hours. Heaven knows what unmentionable parts of a bull went into making them 😳

    More sad news 😪

    ... See MoreSee Less

    Link thumbnail

    US rock legend David Crosby dies aged 81

    www.bbc.co.uk

    Crosby, who co-founded both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash, had been ill for some time.
    2 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 0
    • Shares: 1
    • Comments: 0

    Comment on Facebook

    This is what they promised us when I was a kid. What happened? 

All I have is 700 channels of rubbish on the TV in High Def, TikTok, Facebook and a phone I can take photographs with . . .

    This is what they promised us when I was a kid. What happened?

    All I have is 700 channels of rubbish on the TV in High Def, TikTok, Facebook and a phone I can take photographs with . . .
    ... See MoreSee Less

    3 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 54
    • Shares: 22
    • Comments: 7

    Comment on Facebook

    I thought we would have moving pavements by now when I was a kid 😂

    Totally agree!!!

    The new Tesla, 4.6 next century.

    We got transvestite story hour instead

    We appear to be going backwards

    There's actually a very good David Graeber essay on this very topic: thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit

    The Jetsons strike again.

    View more comments

    Renowned Australian singer Renee Geyer is dead at 69 following complications from hip surgery. Such a fabulous voice. RIP😢

https://nostalgiacentral.com/music/artists-l-to-z/artists-r/renee-geyer/

    Renowned Australian singer Renee Geyer is dead at 69 following complications from hip surgery. Such a fabulous voice. RIP😢

    nostalgiacentral.com/music/artists-l-to-z/artists-r/renee-geyer/
    ... See MoreSee Less

    3 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 0
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 1

    Comment on Facebook

    That is so sad to hear 😥 rest in peace 🙏 🕊 xx

    Gina Lollobrigida: Italian screen star dies at 95
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64292026

    Gina Lollobrigida: Italian screen star dies at 95
    www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64292026
    ... See MoreSee Less

    3 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 5
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 1

    Comment on Facebook

    😍😍😍😍

    Vale Jeff Beck. Dead at 78. 😢

    ... See MoreSee Less

    Link thumbnail

    Jeff Beck: British guitar legend dies aged 78

    www.bbc.co.uk

    One of rock's most influential guitarists, he was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice.
    4 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 1
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 0

    Comment on Facebook

    Hi everyone. Were in the process of moving www.nostalgiacentral.com to new dedicated servers to better cope with the volumes of traffic. Please ignore any SSL security errors you may receive when visiting the site over the next 24 hours while the move completes.

    Hi everyone. We're in the process of moving www.nostalgiacentral.com to new dedicated servers to better cope with the volumes of traffic. Please ignore any SSL security errors you may receive when visiting the site over the next 24 hours while the move completes. ... See MoreSee Less

    4 weeks ago
    View on Facebook
    · Share
    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email
    View Comments
    • Likes: 5
    • Shares: 0
    • Comments: 2

    Comment on Facebook

    Ironically, this post has jumped off the page at me. You'll probably get most traffic today because everyone will want to see what they might be missing!

    Martin Platt

    Load more
    Please note


    Nostalgia Central covers the period 1950 to 1999 and contains some words and references which reflect the attitudes of those times and which may be considered culturally sensitive, offensive or inappropriate today.
    Popular Tags
    1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1975 1976 Action Figures Amicus Arcade games Australia Beach movies Beatles Blaxploitation Board games Britpop Canada Crime Disney Doo-Wop Elvis Presley Girl groups Glam Goth Hammer Heavy Metal Irwin Allen Labels Merseybeat Mod revival Motown New Romantic New Wave NWOBHM Oi! One-hit wonders Power Pop Pub rock Punk Radio Scotland Ska Soul music Sport Surf music
    Search Nostalgia Central
    Copyright © 1998, 2023 Nostalgia Central
    • About Nostalgia Central
    • Contact
    • FAQ

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.