Clive Morgan, managing director of self-styled avant garde advertising agency, Morgan St Leger Ramirez, receives a telephone call late one Saturday evening inviting his agency to pitch for a twenty five million pound account. He summonses key management to a meeting on Monday morning to discuss the opportunity which has a seven day deadline attached and which if successfully realised would double the agency's turnover. The meeting proves vexatious with outbursts of brittle bickering between over-inflated egos.
Morgan charges his key directors Wynona Ramirez, Jeremy St Leger and Bryan Cosgrove with the task of devising departmental outlines for subsequent development into a full scale presentation. There follows an eventful all-nighter where tensions run high with two main players going AWOL and Wynona engaging in sexual relations with agency wastrel Harry Hall.
On examining the concerted outcome the following morning Clive Morgan decides that three departments have succeeded in their mission while two others are in default. He castigates chief copywriter Jumbo Sowerby for an abysmal submission and hands over the assignment to a junior; marketing services manager Dendy Thorpe-Willows who has failed to produce anything is put on one month's notice.
Of the two defaulters Sowerby appears to come out best with an offer of assistance from Morgan to set up on his own whereas Thorpe-Willows embarks on a mission of revenge.
Wynona treats Harry to a sample of her lavish lifestyle in the shape of afternoon tea at Claridges, which provides her with an eye opener; Bryan Cosgrove's submission was not his own work but that of his assistant. The revelation infuriates her.
As presentation day looms creative director Jeremy St Leger undertakes a dry run at which the key players are flushed with feelings of impending success such is the quality of work the agency has produced.
Clive Morgan, Wynona Ramirez, Jeremy St Leger and Bryan Cosgrove arrive at the client headquarters quietly confident of an agreeable outcome but are faced with a mixed reception to their pitch; most worryingly from the main man who remains a model of inscrutability throughout the proceedings.
Next morning Clive Morgan receives a telephone call conveying the thumbs down on their presentation and an air of gloom pervades the agency. However, despair is rotated all the way back to renewed hope with a second call reneging on the decision and inviting the agency to re-present the following day.
They are awarded the account and at a celebration soiree that evening Clive Morgan reveals the background to a chain of mischief and skulduggery that initially cost them the prospect of this valuable new business but in a mysterious way reopened the door to acquisition.
Bryan Cosgrove becomes heavily intoxicated at the party and Wynona Ramirez takes him home to her luxurious flat. What looks like shaping up to be a happy ending and a union at last between Wynona and Bryan fails to materialise.
Wynona Ramirez has other plans…
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