Grady (ITV 1970, Anthony Bate, Diana Coupland)

Drama serial Grady focused on the shop steward of the title who has not long been released from prison. He is soon making waves on the shop floor. Grady is a professional agitator, a wrecker who puts his own motives above anything else.

The character of Grady first appeared (also played by Anthony Bate) in the The Professional, the third episode of Edmund Ward’s excellent series The Main Chance in which solicitor David Main crossed swords with him when Grady was trying to bring a factory to its knees. The episode also reveals that Grady is not his real name, this is Charles Ian McClaren and that he also used the names Callaghan and Stuart. He also has multiple convictions and has belonged to at least five different unions.

Ward was very much taken with the character and the idea of one union man holding so much power that when Yorkshire TV gave him carte blanche to create a new series this was the result. It only ran three episodes but could have been a long running series.

Ward was also obviously taken with the concept as he returned to the theme in the fourth season Main Chance episode It Couldn’t Happen Here, this was basically a reworking of The Professional featuring the great Ray Smith as another professional “wrecker” called Joe Holroyd.

The episodes were titled Somebody Else’s War, Pieces on a Board and Look, I’m Nobody.

classic quote
“It’s the system, love. Work your days to get the money to live – spend your nights trying to make the living better.”

production details
UK / ITV – Yorkshire / 3×60 minute episodes / Broadcast Tuesday 24 November – 8 December 1970

Writer: Edmund Ward / Production Designer: Vic Symonds / Executive Producer: Peter Willes / Director: Marc Miller

cast
Anthony Bate as Grady
Diana Coupland as Margaret Grady
Ralph Bates as Joe Larson
Anne Kristen as Dorothy Manton
John Comer as Arnold Smith
J.G. Devlin as Harry Carswell
Leon Eagles as Freddie Gort
Alex Ross as George Drummond
John Bailey as Peter Delfield
Michael Gover as Frank Tabor
Roy Holder as Sammy Brigg
Neil Wilson as Ron Fowler
Terence Alexander as Michael Patterson
Wilfred Pickles as Jack Ramsden