Crocodile Shoes: The Pitch (BBC-1 1 Dec 1994, with Matthew Marsh)

In The Pitch, with help from New York manager Peter Winsch Ade and Jed head off to Nashville to record some fresh demos but a bar room brawl (which sees Jed standing up for a black man) sees Jed left with an injured hand. Help comes from the unlikely quarter of country star Carmel Cantrell (the guy Jed saved just happens to be the drummer in her band). There is immediate chemistry between Jed and Carmel though and she invites him over to dinner only to have Ade show up drunk.

Later though Ade gets a call from the police in London telling him they have recovered his car and they also need to speak to him urgently on a drugs related matter. Ade agrees to fly home to “help them with their inquiries” before he goes though he arranges for Jed to spend some time with fellow songwriter Andy McDougall who is more than a little eccentric.

More Ade dramas in this episode, he seems hell bent on self destruction even though he is clearly desperate to make a star of Jed (his own ambitions are always uppermost in his mind though) and you do get the feeling that Ade has started to realise that Jed is not going to anywhere near as easy to manipulate as he hoped. This episode also introduces Amy Madigan as country superstar Carmel Cantrell and right from the off it is clear she is interested in Jed.

production details
UK / BBC One – Big Boy – Red Rooster / 1×50 minute episode / Broadcast 1 December 1994

Writer: Jimmy Nail / Director: David Richards

Series: Crocodile Shoes Season 1 Episode 4

guest cast
CHRISTOPHER NICOL as Paul
MICHAEL BOND as Chauffeur (NYC)
JOHN BOWLER as Pep
JOHN SHARIAN as Peter Winsch
HARRY JONES as Jock
JEFFREY KNOX as Omo
PAUL PALANCE as Big Chrissy
JOHN DAVIS as Earl
STUART GREER as Pete
ROYCE CLARK as Bartender
J.D. BLAIR as Chester
BART WHITEMAN as 1st Good Old Boy
DONNIE IAMME as 2nd Good Old Boy
MICHAEL MONTGOMERY as 3rd Good Old Boy
TROY ALLAN BURGESS as Medic
AMY MADIGAN as Carmel Cantrell
BURT YOUNG as Lou Benedetti
PETER WINGFIELD as Danny
MATTHEW MARSH as D.I. Machin
JOHN STRATTON as Andy McDougal