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HR: The Complete Series 1-5
HR: The Complete Series 1-5
Aug 14, 2025 9:59 PM

Author:Nigel Williams,Nicholas Le Provost,Full Cast,Jonathan Pryce

HR: The Complete Series 1-5

Jonathan Pryce and Nicholas le Provost deliver first-class performances in this comedy drama series, which charts the misfortunes of a middle-aged HR officer and his trouble-making colleague.

Lazy HR officer Sam (Nicholas le Provost) and his equally useless workmate Peter (Jonathan Pryce) realise they are in trouble: Peter for lateness and abusive phone calls to clients, and Sam for his over-relaxed attitude to errant staff members like Peter. Soon their worst fears are realised when they learn that one of the abusive phone calls made by Peter has been intercepted.

Series 1 sees the duo inflict disastrous injuries on their boss on an away-day, profoundly insult his successor on a train, and rehearse for humiliating interviews for their own jobs. From Series 2 onwards Peter, on a tiny pension, has moved into Sam’s suburban home, where the odd couple continues to play out the curious behaviours developed over a lifetime in work. Together they must face money worries (from pensions under threat to the perils of being rich), and navigate their increasingly complicated love lives.

Written by Nigel Williams

Produced by Peter Kavanagh

Reviews

A deeply moving, powerful, and unforgettable book

—— Michael Ondaatje

A truly astonishing novel – it goes straight to the heart

—— Hilary Mantel

A miracle of a novel which combines prose of bleak, unadorned beauty with a plot that keeps you up all night wondering how it will end... Clearly one of the masterpieces of the century

—— Colm Toibin

A novel of breadth, power and passion… From its poisonous and dramatic opening to its engrossing ending this novel will hold you in thrall throughout

—— Bernard MacLaverty

I believe Death and Nightingales is the finest novel by the greatest living Irish prose writer

—— Alan Warner

Crisp, taut and unsentimental...this tragic tale of gold, prejudice, terrorism, emigration, love and oppression remains an impressive and moving achievement

—— Observer

Death and Nightingales should put Eugene McCabe in the first rank of contemporary Irish novelists

—— John Banville

A work of the highest literary quality...only a master craftsman could bring a novel so smoothly and devastatingly full circle

—— Sunday Independent

The ever-inventive biographer [Ann Wroe] retells the life of Francis of Assisi in deft, lyrical rhyming verse.

—— Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year

The poems themselves are beautiful and cleverWroe is at her exquisite best when directly tackling the most sacred of Christian images.

—— Kate Maltby , Financial Times

[Wroe] captures here the essential spirit of the saint – himself a poet after all, whose work has never died – making this a delight to read. A book not to be missed.

—— Peter Costello , Irish Catholic

This is a book full of complex engagements with the word and the flesh, and the counterpointed rhythms of the sacred and the secular. Wroe’s book is a praise song, vindicating the worlds beyond our rationalist compass.

—— David Wheatley , Guardian

The spiritual is vivid through quality and vitality in this poetry. Wroe’s writing method is incarnational, translating the apparently mundane into rich parables.

—— Martyn Halsall , Church Times

An elegant hardback with ambitions beyond the poetry shelves… Ann Wroe’s unusual and impressive book is less a Life of Francis than a series of…epiphanies and personal revelations inspired by his imagined company.

—— John Greening , Times Literary Supplement

This joyous and thoughtful tribute leaves you wanting more.

—— Sophie Ratcliffe , TLS

By Jove! It's a ripping old yarn... Dashed agreeably close to the master.

—— Daily Mail

A hugely enjoyable caper

—— The Week

There are laughs and admirable ingenuity in Schott’s confection

—— Irish Times

A book that is so close in spirit and style to the PG Wodehouse originals it’s like the real thing

—— The Sport

Top-notch fun.

—— S magazine

Succeeds triumphantly, both as light entertainment and as a tribute to the master

—— Country & Town House

In his first foray into PG Wodehouse homage/imitation/pastiche (whichever it may be) Schott appeared to hit the Wodehouse target dead on.

—— RTE

Jonathan Coe's Middle England is brilliantly insightful on the times we are living in

—— Mishal Husain, Books of the Year , Big Issue

Let me add to the chorus of praise for Jonathan Coe's new book Middle England. Easily my favourite of his since What a Carve Up! Which did for Thatcherism what Middle England does for Brexit

—— John Crace

An astute, enlightened and enlightening journey into the heart of our current national identity crisis. Both moving and funny. As we'd expect from Coe

—— Ben Elton

From post-industrial Birmingham to the London riots and the current political gridlock, it takes in family, literature and love in a comedy for our times

—— Guardian

Coe can make you smile, sigh, laugh; he has abundant sympathy for his characters

—— Scotsman

This book is sublimely good. State of the (Brexit) nation novel to end them all, but also funny, tender, generous, so human and intelligent about age and love as well as politics

—— India Knight

Probably the best English novelist of his generation

—— Nick Hornby

No modern novelist is better at charting the precariousness of middle-class life

—— Observer

An angry and exuberant book

—— Sunday Times on 'Number 11'

Jonathan Coe has established himself as one of the most entertaining chroniclers of our times

—— Tatler

You can't stop reading....I was haunted for days

—— Independent on 'Number 11'
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