Hot Metal: Story, Cast and Series Facts

Story and premise

The Daily Crucible is facing its final edition; its straight-forward, totally-honest approach to reporting the news has won it much attention, but made it deadly dull and with ever-diminishing sales figures.

Enter Twiggy Rathbone, tycoon owner of Rathouse International who's ready to turn the high-brow paper into a popular, sleazy, high-selling tabloid. He installs editor Russell Spam to do his bidding and 'promotes' the incumbent, Harry Stringer, to the role of 'managing editor' - a largely vanity role but holding what will become an increasingly difficult public face of respectability...

Series details

• Title: Hot Metal
• Format: Scripted
• Language: English
• Genres: Comedy
• Premiere date: 1986-02-16
• Final broadcast date listed: 1988-04-17
• Status in TVmaze: Ended
• Network listed by TVmaze: ITV1
• Network country: United Kingdom
• Typical episode runtime: 30 minutes
• TVMaze ID: 21016
• TVDB ID: 71022

Cast and credited roles

• Robert Hardy — Terence 'Twiggy' Rathbone
• Robert Hardy — Russell Spam
• Geoffrey Palmer — Harry Stringer
• Richard Kane — Greg Kettle
• Geoffrey Hutchings — Max Rutherford
• John Gordon-Sinclair — Bill Tytla
• Richard Wilson — Richard 'Dicky' Lipton
• David Barrass — Jack Thrush
• Caroline Milmoe — Maggie Troon

Seasons in the TVmaze catalogue

• Season 1: premiered 1986-02-16; final listed air date 1986-03-23; episode order: 6.
• Season 2: premiered 1988-03-06; final listed air date 1988-04-17; episode order: 6.

Source and licence

Adapted from Hot Metal on TVmaze. The synopsis is reproduced as plain text; catalogue facts, cast and season records are selected and reformatted. This adapted text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, following the TVmaze API licence. Network and web-channel credits identify the service listed in this source; they do not establish current streaming availability.