Reluctant Persuaders Trivia Quiz

Answer: Nigel Havers

Nigel Havers is brilliant as the self-obsessed, sexist alcoholic Rupert Hardacre whose days as an advertising legend are at least thirty years behind him but who refuses to face this fact. Largely due to Hardacre's alcoholism and lack of knowledge of how the modern advertising industry works, the agency is far from successful. 'Reluctant Persuaders' is written by Edward Rowett.

Answer: Roger Kennedy

Rupert Hardacre set up the agency with fellow advertising dinosaur Roger Kennedy whose dead body is found in his office at the beginning of the first episode, necessitating the hiring of a new account manager and the changing of the company name from 'Hardacre Kennedy' to 'Hardacre's'.

Answer: Josie Lawrence

Amanda Barnes is an extremely capable, if somewhat short-tempered, professional who is determined to make Hardacre's a success, despite the best efforts of Rupert Hardacre, who is a permanent liability, and the lack of knowledge and experience of the firm's tiny creative team. Amanda had been a high-flying accounts director before she took time off to raise her daughter, meaning that most of her contacts were out of date by the time she returned to the industry. This explains why Hardacre's was lucky enough to be able to hire her and also explains her frustration with the unaccustomed lack of professionalism with which she is surrounded. Amanda's surname was Brook in the first series but was changed to Barnes in the second series without any explanation.

Josie Lawrence has a long and distinguished career on both radio and television and is a regular on the long-running Radio 4 panel show 'Just A Minute'.

Answer: Joseph Starling

Joseph Starling, like the bird, not the dictator, as he is frequently at pains to point out, has a BA in English and an ability to come up with endless puns, these appear to be his sole qualifications. Joe is something of a tragic figure, at thirty he is living in a caravan without running water while he goes through a divorce. To make matters worse he has to work for Rupert Hardacre, the man who contributed to the break-up of his marriage by sleeping with his wife. Additionally, as Amanda points out, Joe's idea of advertising seems to consist entirely of putting a pun next to a picture of the product.

However, despite being naturally pessimistic, Joe is not without ambition or ability and as the second series progresses his skills and confidence increase. Joe is spurred on by Amanda's mixture of encouragement and criticism and by his genuine desire to make a success of Hardacre's. Joe is very close to his fellow creative Teddy Beech, with whom he has been friends since school.

Answer: Kieran Hodgson

Teddy Beech is a very naive but sweet and enthusiastic character. The difference between Teddy and Joe is demonstrated in the first series when Teddy is perfectly happy to sit eating cereal in their office and doing no work while Joe is chomping at the bit to get to grips with some actual advertising work and is determined to read every book on the subject. Despite his lack of skills Teddy is always eager to help and his sunny optimism is a helpful balance to Joe's usually bleak view of the world, often helping to inspire Joe when he is considering giving up on a project.

Kieran Hodgson is a fine young comedy actor who has performed two successful one-man shows in Edinburgh, is a regular performer in the Radio 4 Extra current afairs comedy show 'Newsjack', has hosted a Radio 3 comedy series on classical music called 'Kieran Hodgson's Earworms' and appeared in an episode of the classic Radio 4 sitcom 'Cabin Pressure'.

Answer: Laura

Laura is just the sort of receptionist a firm like Hardacre's would be likely to have. She is completely uninterested in the company and its staff, most of whose names she cannot be bothered to learn, spends most of her time chatting to her friends on the phone and is irritated when she actually has to do any work. Laura can be wickedly sarcastic and has some of the funniest lines in the series.

Answer: Jewellery for dogs

While Hardacre and Joe are somewhat dismissive of the sort of work Amanda is bringing in, thinking the agency should be working on bigger and more exciting projects, Amanda reasonably points out that, given the company's extremely limited skills and resources and non-existent industry reputation, they should take whatever work they can get.

Despite her better judgement, Amanda allows Hardacre to persuade her to join him on a wild goose chase in pursuit of a coveted whiskey account, leaving Joe and Teddy to work on the dog jewellery campaign. With their bosses absent, things go drastically wrong for Joe and Teddy as the toilet in their office breaks, flooding the room, Joe has to use his shirt to mop up the water and a plumber steals their stuff and fails to fix the toilet.

It is at this moment, with Amanda and Hardacre absent and with a flooded office and a shirtless Joe that they are called by the dog jewellery man who is bringing forward his appointment and is on his way. It is up to Joe and Teddy to step up to the plate and prove their worth, even in such adverse conditions.

Answer: Most of the team become trapped in a lift

In a building as poorly maintained as the office block in which Hardacre's is located, it is, perhaps, unsurprising that the lift should break down and that the company responsible for repairing it should have closed down years earlier. Unfortunately, the team only discover this on the day of their important interview when Hardacre, Amanda, Joe and Teddy all become trapped in the lift, leaving Laura to handle the journalist alone.

While this is a funny episode, as the team attempt to find ways to escape the lift and quickly descend into bickering and recriminations, it also gives us an opportunity to find out more about the characters and their lives outside the office.

This episode is an excellent example of what is often called a 'bottle episode'.

This is a common format in sitcoms and usually involves some or all of the main cast being trapped together in an enclosed space and can allow for character and relationship development as well as helping to elucidate characters back stories.

Answer: Can of water

Joe is highly doubtful that anybody would pay for a can of water when you can get it free from a tap. He is also sceptical about the claims made about the water's wondrous properties on the side of the can. Meanwhile Teddy is unsurprisingly very excited about the concept. We learn a lot more about Joe's life in this episode and, unsurprisingly, it is pretty depressing. Also, after spending the episode berating Joe, Amanda finally inspires Joe to come up with an excellent idea for an advertising slogan for the can of water.

Answer: Martin Jarvis

The team from Hardacre's are preparing for the biggest day in the agency's history as they are about to pitch for a big smart phone account. As the team wait nervously to be called in for their pitch, Amanda attempts to calm their nerves by pointing out that just being asked to pitch in an achievement while an unusually tense Hardacre insists that they must win this account. The tension increases when an old advertising nemesis of Rupert's, Charles Blackwell, approaches the group and begins to needle Hardacre. Blackwell runs a much more slick and professional advertising company and is confident about winning the account. His presence thoroughly intimidates and demoralises most of the Hardacre team, especially when he inadvertently scuppers their entire idea for a pitch. With the odds firmly stacked against them, it is up to Joe to put his new found confidence and competence to good use and improvise a new account-winning pitch on the spur of the moment.

Martin Jarvis has been a familiar and much-loved voice on Radio 4 for many years and is particularly known for his memorable readings of the 'Just William' and 'Jeeves and Wooster' stories. In the 1980s Martin Jarvis starred as an advertising executive in the Radio 4 sitcom 'Legal, Decent, Honest and Truthful' so it is appropriate that he should turn up in 'Reluctant Persuaders' in a similar role nearly thirty years later.