Promoted To Glory (ITV1 2003, Ken Stott, Kevin Whately)

Promoted to Glory is a moving, life-affirming and often humorous tale of the power of love, loss and redemption in the inner city, written by by Rob Heyland (Ultimate Force, Between the Lines)

Mike (Ken Stott – The Vice, Messiah, Shallow Grave), a homeless, threatening drunk sees a vision among a throng of Christmas shoppers. She’s Annie (Lesley Manville – All or Nothing, Secrets and Lies), a Salvation Army captain.

He lurches across the street to her and is hit by a bus. Miraculously he survives but apparently with no memory of his past. All he remembers is Annie and instantly falling in love. Determined to turn his life around for her, he commits himself to the detox centre that she runs with her disapproving fiancé Major Nigel Hurst (Kevin Whatley – Inspector Morse, Auf Wiedersehen Pet, The English Patient).

But in order to win Annie, Mike needs all the determination, charm and cunning he can muster. The path to true love is never easy, and Mike’s quest for Annie is a unique odyssey with an ending both happy and not so.

But did Mike really survive the bus accident or is the whole experience a product of his imagination as he lays dying. The clue is in the title which in Salvation Army parlance refers to death.

production details
UK / ITV-1 – Thames / 1×100 minute episode / Broadcast 21 December 2003

Writer: Rob Heyland / Executive Producer: Chris Parr / Producer: Kenith Trodd / Director: Richard Spence

cast
Ken Stott as Mike
Lesley Manville as Captain Annie Walsh
Kevin Whately as Major Nigel Hurst
Adrian Scarborough as Arnold
Sally Hawkins as Lisa
Joe Renton as Colin
Tanya Moodie as Clem
Jacqueline Tong as Bizzy
James Fleet as Michael Prendergast
Stephanie Turner as Brigadier Angela Octraras
Souad Faress as Psychiatrist
Tanya Wiles as Mike’S Mother
James Hayes as Phonetician
Charlie Eva as Young Mike