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The opening section is ‘letterboxed’ to give a cinema effect. We see Michael Palin travelling in business class on a plane. Accompanied by dramatic music his plane lands at Birmingham Airport he efficiently negotiates the Maglev train before getting into a chauffeur driven car. He arrives home to kiss his wife on the doorstep. This dream sequence is followed by the reality showing Palin on a cramped plane, being unable to find a taxi at the airport and arriving home tired and dishevelled to find he has been locked out.
The majority of the film is an interview with Michael Palin (Chair) and Susan Hoyle (Director) about the aims of the pressure group Transport 2000. During the interview there are short extracts of Palin in the character of a stressed man trying to get to a meeting (he also drops his children off at school and struggles to get a Hoover to a repair shop using public transport). There are also slow motion shots of commuters, views of busy roads and motorways including Spaghetti Junction and routes into Birmingham (accompanied by views of American freeways) (cut to ‘The Road to Nowhere’). Palin talks about road safety and the promotion of cars. The plight of the stressed motorist is illustrated with an extract from the car chase in the feature film the French Connection re-cut to include shots of a British Rail train. Palin talks about his hopes for a Channel rail link (an animated promotional video is used as well as a promotional film for the SNCF TGV train). Palin continues to talk about the government’s promotion of road over rail services and the gradual slide towards privatisation. The film ends with Palin’s stressed alter-ego finally arriving too late to make his case in the interview.
Thanks to British Executive Airways; British Rail Eastern Region; French Railways; J. Walter Thompson Ltd; the Knutson Family
Camera: Paul Rudge; Gerry Pinches
Sound: Mel Marr; Steve Phillips; Ray Bragg
Production Assistants: Dolores Shine; Margaret Madison
Research: Victoria Stable
Film Editor: Paul Brown
Producer: Vivica Parsons
Director: John Thornicroft
Production number 1175/88.
There is also an unrelated programme in the Venture series called 'The Chairman'.