One off Stephen Poliakoff BBC drama Friends and Crocodiles began in the early 1980s. Lizzie Thomas (Jodhi May) is headhunted by Paul (Damian Lewis) for a job as his assistant. He is a radical thinker and has a knack for knowing what will be big in years to come – but he is disorganised and every so often prone to periods of deliberate self-sabotage.
After such an incident they go their separate ways and their individual fortunes wax and wane as we pick up their story at various points in the intervening decades into the late 1990s.
Cast: Damian Lewis (Paul), Jodhi May (Lizzie), Robert Lindsay (Sneath), Patrick Malahide (Anders), Eddie Marsan (Butterworth), Allan Corduner (Marcus), Chris Larkin (Redfern), John Warnaby (Coyle), Paul Hickey (The Albert Brothers), Tim Plester (The Albert Brothers), Isabel Brook (Angela), Sophie Hunter (Christine), Sasha Hardway (Young Rachel), Shannon Murray (Older Rachel), Harry Melling (Young Oliver), Ed Tolputt (Older Oliver), Giles Taylor (Graham), Olivia Poulet (Carol), Rod Arthur (Mr Zack), Ruth Miller (Simone), Philip Battley (Lizzie’s Husband), Karen Staples (Diana), Jake Broder (Management Consultant), Murray McArthur (Soup Man 1), Will Thorp (Soup Man 2), Stewart C. Scudamore (Seafood Surprise Man), Robert Wilfort (Electric Books Man), Steven O’Neill (Virtual Reality Man), Sam Friend (Paul’s Son)
Writer and Director: Stephen Poliakoff / Music: Adrian Johnston / Executive Producers: David M. Thompson, Peter Fincham, Stephen Poliakoff / Producer: Nicholas Brown
UK / BBC One / 1×110 minute episode / Broadcast 15 January 2006
