The Organization

Tells the story of a young executive learning his way through the corporate culture in his first year at the Greatrick Corporation, apparently a soft drinks business, although perhaps with its own PR department, it's actually a conglomerate?

All members of this sect pay obeisance to the unseen chairman, while alternately trying to advance one's own career or just being happy staying in place. The acting is top notch, especially from Donald Sinden as the head of PR and the lovely Elaine Taylor as his ever dutiful, resourceful secretary. The dialogue is witty and the episodes well rounded. Norman Bird is in the first two episodes as an aging exec on his way out, and James Grout, years before becoming Inspector Morse's boss, plays a management psychologist by the name of Dr Ducker ( a clear swipe at Peter Drucker !). At a mere seven episodes, this series definitely leaves the audience wanting more! The restoration is excellent, although the sound could be better, and all and all it is well worth the money! And look out for a cameo by Gareth Hunt in the first episode.

The Organization is a very droll allegory about power politics set in a PR division of a multinational company. It was scripted by Philip Mackie, best known probably for his adaptation of Quentin Crisp's memoir The Naked Civil Servant, and is a highly intelligent and insightful series. The quality of direction and of acting - Donald Sinden, Peter Egan and Bernard Hepton are particularly memorable - is sure throughout. Alas, it's been years since it was last shown on terrestrial TV, as part of Channel Four's admirable but apparently junked policy of reclaiming forgotten masterpieces (though since I first wrote this review it has been released on DVD). It's rather topical though - a clear and very detailed expose of the kind of thinking that goes on at the top. Look out for this on cable - highly recommended.

Probably one of the most cool and concise portrayals of office life ever done - at "Greatrick Co."- The young man one-upping his fellow job-applicants,the fiendish game-playing PR Director, the PR manager who's been sleeping with the Chairman, the bloke who just won't retire, and the fellow who's shuffled off the form the "Greatrick Symphony Orchestra"(Anton Rogers), and of course, the secretary who knows where all the skeletons are hidden. It doesn't get much better. Donald Sinden as the Director, and Peter Egan as the young man infatuated with the secretary who has to learn about life and timing to get his way.

I watched this as a 15 year old and I found it fascinating. The characters were clever and often devious. I have worked in organizations where people were usually putting on an act and they pretended they were smarter than they actually were. However you eventually discovered you could not trust many of them and they were often completely clueless. In that way the Organization was helpful. People were cryptic because they knew nothing and this was just a defence mechanism. I have worked for multi-nationals that have disappeared off the map, mainly because the top management was incompetent. In those organizations it was often about what people thought you knew rather than your actual competence - this is a very British trait. If you go to the schools you must be good. I haven't seen this show since 1972, but I still remember it. Start your business, that's the message I should have learned from watching this stuff.

Excellent. Sharp and clever and always a sting in the tail. It seemed bizarre at the time that we never found out what the corporation did, but as global brands have grown and many organisations have grown beyond all contact with their original business, it seems rather prophetic.

As a teenager at the time, I had no wish to be other than a train driver until I saw "The Organisation" and I was sort of inspired to go into PR which turned out to be a (quite lucrative)mistake. I wanted very much to be the Peter Egan character but ended up as virtually a clone of Rodney Spurling, the downtrodden Press Officer.

Why on earth is all the terrible dross like "Bless this house" repeated all the time on cable while a superb bit of television like this has sunk without trace?