'It is funny, exact - and pretty bloody serious' - Observer

It is the summer of 1986 and the cutting, trimming and shrinking of public funds is much in the news. Education, health, the arts - all are being deprived of money. But while the university where the obscure but critically sound writer Henry Babbacombe teaches is having to cut down on staff, a northern television company is having a last spree before the money runs out. And who should they choose for their writer but Henry Babbacombe?

Wrenched from the privacy and seclusion of his garden shed into the spotlight of the media, Henry learns a thing or two about what it takes to be successful in Mrs Thatcher's Britain.