Pick of the week
Friends And Crocodiles
(Today, BBC1, 9pm)

by Sally Kinnes, The Times Television And Radio, January 15, 2006

Like his last film for television, The Lost Prince, Stephen Poliakoff's new drama works on a big canvas. It is so lavish and leisurely, you almost forget it is about the tricky subject of work.

Damian Lewis plays Paul, whose casual cleverness has earned him an easy fortune and a pampered lifestyle. Jodhi May, playing Lizzie, is a strait-laced secretary who is supposed to bring order to his brain. But as her star rises, his falls, and over 16 years, they circle each other like foes.

At its heart, it is a love story about the irresistible attractions that can develop at work. "I think I've always been fascinated by that," says Poliakoff. "So this doesn't have to turn into Pride And Prejudice and have them go off together."

Friends And Crocodiles has another aim of chronicling how work has changed. "Power has been centralised in the past 20 years and everyone has to conform. That's a recent phenomenon." The result is a fascinating critique of how wasteful the hedonism of the 1970s, and the greed-is-good attitude of the 1980s, really were, and how a mismatched couple survive to try again.