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Weak at the Top

BBC Radio 4 situation comedy

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 24, 2020
Entity authorityQ268727
Source-derived summary

Weak at the Top is a situation comedy originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005 and 2006. It revolves around a businessman anti-hero, John Weak (Alexander Armstrong), whose main attributes are summed up in the words "randy, sexist, and drunk". Weak is the Marketing Director of Smokehouse plc, a global corporation which turns "food you wouldn't give to your dog" into snacks and other packaged and processed items. Smokehouse's actual products are irrelevant to John Weak, whose objects in life are to have the best car, bed the hottest women, and be top dog.

John Weak's main problem is satisfying Smokehouse CEO Sir Marcus Rigsby (Geoffrey Whitehead), who is liable to demand adoption of the latest management fad "by Friday, John!". Thick-skinned personal assistant Hayley (Clare Perkins) fences with her boss John constantly. When the squeeze is really on, John turns to his "Director of Long Lunches and Work Avoidance", Bill Peters (Ron Cook), who can be counted on to rescue the situation with a brilliant scheme, usually after he is well into the second bottle of claret.

The script is written by Guy Browning who also writes books about management and business. He based the programme on his book of the same name. "Smokehouse" is the name of Browning's own marketing company.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Weak at the Top” as bBC Radio 4 situation comedy. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Weak, Radio and situation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2005, 2006—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Weak, Radio and situation providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Weak at the Top”, the useful work is to connect “bBC Radio 4 situation comedy” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 24, 2020. The linked authority identifier is Q268727. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2005 and 2006.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Weak at the Top” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.