Season 1
The Long Firm is a British television mini-series which is an adaptation of the Jake Arnett novel of the same name and produced by the BBC, which captures the colourful and seedy side of Britian's 1960s criminal underworld.
The mini-series originally aired in the UK on BBC Two, in 2004. There are four 60-minute episodes in the series.
The Long Firm premiered in South Africa on DStv's BBC Prime channel on Friday 18 July 2008, at 20h30.
Synopsis
The dark underbelly of Sixties London is brought into sharp focus in Joe Penhall's adaptation of Jake Arnott's critically acclaimed novel The Long Firm, starting on BBC TWO on Wednesday 7 July at 9.00pm.
Cool, stylish and sexy, Penhall's four-part drama serial captures the colourful and seedy side of the criminal underworld.
It tells the story of Harry Starks, played by Mark Strong, as seen through the eyes of four characters that come into his orbit - a Tory Lord, an actress, a lowlife speed dealer and an academic.
The cast includes Mark Strong as Harry Starks. Sir Derek Jacobi plays Lord Teddy Thursby, a cash-strapped politician whose introduction to Harry Starks is a match made in heaven.
Starks uses the peer's impressive name to give credibility to his shady dealings, while Thursby gets to slum it with the lowlifes and indulge his taste for young men away from the disapproving gaze of his wife.
Fading movie star Ruby Ryder (Lena Headey) is just the kind of person Starks likes to have at his club. Down on her luck, she agrees to help him out and choreograph his strippers, and even give acting lessons to Starks' toyboy Tommy (Joe Absolom).
But she soon learns that you never get something for nothing.
Phil Daniels is Jimmy, a petty criminal and general lowlife who gets caught up in Harry's world. Haunted by his past, he can identify with Harry's quest to find out the truth about a murdered rent boy.
Shaun Dingwall plays Lenny, a young lecturer and radical criminologist who becomes enthralled by Starks when he teaches him in prison, ending up following him to an explosive dénouement on the Costa Del Crime.
George Costigan plays bent copper Detective Sergeant Mooney.
The Long Firm is directed by Billie Eltringham and written by playwright Joe Penhall.