Supply & Demand (TV series)

Supply & Demand is a British television crime drama series, written and devised by Lynda La Plante, first broadcast as a single feature-length pilot on ITV on 5 February 1997. The series follows the work of ESUS (Elite Specialist Undercover Squad), a crack team of detectives tasked with investigating some of the country's biggest criminal importers and smugglers. The pilot was written in 1996, the year that La Plante's most notable television series, Prime Suspect, went on hiatus. Adé Sapara, Eamonn Walker, Benedict Wong, Juliet Aubrey and Ramon Tikaram were credited as principal cast members for the pilot.

ITV subsequently commissioned a full series of six hour-long episodes, which were filmed and broadcast in 1998. These were three two-part stories. Sapara, Walker and Wong returned to the series, alongside new principal cast members Miriam Margolyes, Larry Lamb, Stella Gonet and Martin Kemp. Paul Brodrick and Christine Harmar-Brown co-wrote scripts for the series alongside La Plante. Despite the series achieving a steady viewing audience between 6 and 7 million viewers, La Plante felt that the series had reached a natural end and decided not to write any further episodes, thus meaning the last episode was broadcast on 6 October 1998.

The complete series was released on DVD on 23 July 2007.

Cast

 * Adé Sapara as DI Carl Harrington
 * Eamonn Walker as DS Jake Brown
 * Benedict Wong as DC Frankie Li

Pilot

 * Juliet Aubrey as DCI Alex Chomsky
 * Freddie Starr as Lance Izzard
 * Ramon Tikaram as DC Irwin
 * Fintan McKeown as DCI Smith
 * Colin McCormack as Supt. Les Harper
 * Ron Donachie as Supt. Brent

Series

 * Miriam Margolyes as Chief Supt. Edna Colley
 * Larry Lamb as Detective Supt. Simon Hughes
 * Stella Gonet as DCI Jane Leyland
 * Martin Kemp as DI Eddie McEwan
 * Terry O'Neill as DS Peter Harper
 * Christopher Simon as DC Mikey Da Souza