At first glance, there are few similarities between Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh’s classic 1945 novel – later adapted into an equally classic ITV series – of prelapsarian bliss in Oxford and Industry, the BBC’s adrenaline-fuelled show that exposes the dark iniquity at the heart of the financial industry. The one is a languid examination of (discreetly portrayed) same-sex love and Catholic guilt, and the other is a profane, sexually charged and palpitation-inducing dive into hedonistic self-indulgence. Brideshead is plover’s eggs and Meursault; Industry class A drugs and group sex. They would seem as distinct from one another as chalk and (Comté) cheese.  

Yet the continuing appeal of Mickey Down and Konrad Kay’s show, now into its fourth season, is that it has as deep and innate an understanding of British high-end society as Waugh ever did, even if its expression is louder and more vulgar. Down and Kay were (of course) students who met at Oxford, and subsequently hit upon the idea of fictionalising their own experiences in investment banking. Both worked at Morgan Stanley, although that notoriously hard-nosed institution is milquetoast compared to the fiendishly pressurised Pierpoint & Co, the fictitious bank that lies at the dark heart of Industry. The very first episode begins with the death of a young banker who has been popping pills and glugging caffeinated energy drinks in order to keep up with the punishing regime that Pierpoint describes, and it only gets worse from then........

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