Powerlines: Pride and Fall

Brian Farmer is a young, enthusiastic, talented architect, who loves his job. He wants to get ahead, but there’s a problem: Leonard Stück, his boss. Leonard is famous and flamboyant, and a powerful ‘lion’ in the professional jungle. To get ahead, he has bullied Brian and others for years to satisfy a prodigious desire for fame and success. He has often taken credit for other people‘s work, too. When Leonard is given the chance to work with America’s hottest architect, Hank Nero, he sees another opportunity for yet more, and to help him, he enlists Brian. During a rollercoaster week in Nero’s Los Angeles office, Brian finds he’s an innocent abroad as he comes face to face, not only with his own failings, but also with the effects of fame, and power itself. Brian’s friends, meanwhile, urge him on, and they too make their demands, not least his high-flying girlfriend, who has a successful career of her own. Written in short, funny episodes, ‘Powerlines’ begins with Brian’s New Year resolution to change his life. It reaches a climax when, after a year of frustrations and failed opportunities, he gives his boss a Christmas present he thinks Leonard deserves...