The Organization: Mr Pershore and Ken Grist (ITV 16 Apr 1972, with Philip Stone)

In Mr Pershore and Ken Grist, Richard Pershore is very keen to secure a job with the Greatrick company – so much so that he hires interview specialists Chantry and Blount to help him. He gets the job of course and initially thinks he will be working with Peter Frame in the PR department but is assigned to Ken Grist, who has been with the company since before the war.

As it happens this is Pershore’s first test with the company – it is Grist’s last day and Pershore’s boss David Pulman wanted him to have someone to talk to! It also turns out that Grist has actually been sacked but his allegiance to the company is so ingrained that he carries on as if he is entering into retirement. Mr Pershore at his interview with Greatrick.

Chantry and Blount are a little like Professor Cosmo Saltana and Dr. Owen Tuby from J.B. Priestley’s The Image Men, experts at “social imagistics.” Philip Stone who plays Chantry was a regular at time in fellow Yorkshire series Justice. Gareth Hunt is one of the team working for Chantry and Blount.

classic quote
“Before the interview we will provide you with a black coffee, a suitable necktie, a visit to the lavatory, a copy of The Times with the crossword already solved and a final word of advice.”

production details
UK / ITV – Yorkshire / 1×50 minute episode / Broadcast Sunday 16 April 1972 at 10.15pm

Writer: Philip Mackie / Production Design: Jane Martin / Director: James Ormerod

Series: The Organization Episode 1 (of 7)

cast
Peter Egan as Richard Pershore
Donald Sinden as David Pulman
Anton Rodgers as Peter Frame
Philip Stone as Chantry
John Nettleton as Blount
Patricia Maynard as Chantry’s secretary
Gareth Hunt as First young man
Robert Tayman as Second young man
James Berwick as Wallis
Marilyn Smithwick as Wallis’s Secretary
Mel Martin as Jenny
Elaine Taylor as Veronica
Norman Bird as Ken Grist
Allan Deutrom as Applicant
Giles Phibbs as Man at party
Cyril Varley as Man at party
Geoffrey Russell as Man at party