A leitmotif is the commercialisation of higher education in Britain following the government cuts of the early 1980s, with the Vice-Chancellor Ernest Hemmingway (John Bird) trying to woo Japanese investors in the face of resistance from the academic old guard. Hugh Grant made one of his first television appearances as an evangelical preacher; Kathy Burke also had a bit part. In the second series, an American Vice-Chancellor, Jack Daniels (Michael J. Shannon), took over from Hemmingway, continuing the running joke of naming the VC after a famous American (although the whiskey distiller's name was Jack Daniel).