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VAULTING AMBITION
By Jamie Robinson

GENRE: Drama, Comedy
LOGLINE: Half hour on-going political and social satire centring on a young couple; Sophie Johnson; a hairdresser experiencing a sudden bout of Main Character Syndrome, and Chris Johnson; an autistic man who should perhaps have a little more faith in himself, as she strives to become an MP, despite having no prior interest or knowledge of politics, and he aids her using his position of power as an Administrator, despite not really knowing whether he should but can’t just ignore receiving a prophecy from three hooded woman sitting on a park bench, one of whom might just be Dame Judi Dench.

SYNOPSIS:

The primal focus is on these two as Sophie tries to worm her way into the local by-election by gaining as many candidacy nominations as she can, whilst also getting her husband to pull a few strings at his place of work, and Chris as he tries to help her achieve her dreams, but mainly because three hooded women gave him a prophecy about her possibly becoming Prime Minister… a prophecy that may have come from God. The central conflicts are between Chris and Sophie themselves, due to their completely different jobs and her Main Character Syndrome. Halfway through the series, Chris begins to realise that Sophie isn’t well mentally and therefore shouldn’t be an MP. He knows she’d be better off seeing a therapist than sitting in the House of Commons, but Sophie doesn’t want help as she believes she doesn’t need it. Things heat up close to the end of the first series, when Sophie discovers that Chris knows that disgraced fascist MP Lord Christoph Flooding is interfering with the election, by using the right-wing candidate as a puppet; someone who was previously a member of Christoph’s disbanded Fascist Party. Sophie believes the electorate has a right to know this vital revelation, but Chris is on strict orders from Gordon not to tell anyone. It’s not just Chris who stands in her way of becoming an MP, her colleagues at work think she’s mad for wanting to do it, and her manager Kate will also do everything in her power to make sure she fails. She’s also aware of Sophie’s Main Character Syndrome but is unaware of what it actually is. Chris has other issues at work besides his wife nagging him to help her become an MP. His manager, Gordon Ainsworth, is desperate to elect the right-wing candidate Bernard Wade, a man with known fascist links who plans to make Stratford a living hell for those who aren’t straight, white, neurotypical, cisgendered men under 40. Chris himself believes Rebecca Marshall, the Progressive candidate, would be a better choice. But he is dubious about her desire to turn Avonvale into an oligarchy and her passion for finding a cure for autism. As well as all this, Avonvale is divided when American movie-star-cum-film-reviewer Bob Hunt closes a believed pub and replaces it with a Planet Hollywoodesque restaurant based entirely around himself and his views. Chris and Sophie also come to terms with the mysterious deaths of Sophie’s dad and Chris’ mum, and discover that they were in fact murdered at the behest of disgraced fascist MP Lord Christoph Flooding; Chris’ mum because she was an activist who disagreed with him politically, and Sophie’s dad because of an old rivalry they had at Oxford regarding the true meaning of Stonehenge, which Sophie’s dad was close to revealing in a book, which makes their relationship with him very tense indeed. Vaulting Ambition also pulls back the curtain on today’s society and the absurdity of it, particularly how power affects people, and what the thirst for it drives some people to do. Sophie’s ideal is to quit her job as a hairdresser and become MP for Avonvale, motivated by a desire to be admired and loved by all, a sign of her Main Character Syndrome. Chris’s goal is to get his wife into therapy, and ensure that Rebecca Marshall becomes Avonvale’s next MP, so long as she doesn’t actually develop a cure for autism. But it will not be easy, Sophie has to leap through a few hoops in order to even be a candidate for the election. She hopes Chris will help her skip those hoops, but he really doesn’t want to. It’s also going to be hard for her to get nominations, as most of her potential contacts don’t particularly want to nominate her. Chris has a challenge ahead of him too, he personally has a lack of confidence, and Gordon is determined to get what he wants, as well as Sophie. If Sophie doesn’t achieve her goal, she will become insufferable, and push people away (apart from, perhaps, her doting husband), and may possibly cause more damage to her mental health. If Chris fails to achieve his goal, Sophie will continue to live in a dream world, making it harder for her to get the help she so desperately needs, and Stratford may end up being represented by an ex-fascist. The series has several surreal, absurdist elements and dry humour is used throughout. There are also several allusions to the Shakespeare play Macbeth.

Tasha Lewis

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