After Bill and Jo escape from the maurding pack of blind people, they find a place to hole up for the night. After enjoying a good meal and a decent mug of wine, they both learn a little more about each other – although Jo says, “but all that, all the details of my life, they were yesterday. It’s the same with you. I think I’d like to know you from today and you know me from today. You might not like what I was yesterday. I might not like what you were”. The sense that yesterday is a closed book and that the future starts today is a theme that is picked up again later in the episode.
They then discuss what to do next. Bill is keen to get out of London as he tells Jo that soon, “the city will begin to stink like a great sewer. There are already corpses lying around. Soon they’ll be more. That may mean cholera, typhoid. God knows what”.
But a light in the distance changes their plans and the next morning they meet a group of thirty or so survivors who all have sight. They see another sighted man, called Coker (Maurice Colbourne), who’s leading a group of blind people. He asks the others for help in finding food, but they refuse. This is a debate that has cropped up before and Bill and Jo discuss it again shortly afterwards. Bill says that Coker is right and wrong. “We could show some of them where to find food for a few days or for a few weeks. But what happens afterwards?”.
They then meet the leader of the sighted group, Beadley (David Swift). He proposes moving out of London and establishing a community that will isolate itself for a year (in order to protect against disease). One of the other members of their ad-hoc committee explains how the community will function.
The men must work. The women must have babies. We can afford to support a limited number of women who cannot see, because they will have babies who can see. We cannot afford to support men who cannot see. In our community, babies will be more important than husbands. It follows from this that the one man/one woman relationship as we understand it will probably become an illogical luxury.
As for the Triffids, they only appear in a single scene (where they attack an old couple who we’ve never seen before). As their appearance (although it’s very nicely shot at night) is divorced from the main narrative, it seems to have been put in simply to remind the audience that they’re still out there. And since they don’t feature much in this episode, it helps to make their sudden reappearance in episode four even more striking
At the end of this episode, Bill and Jo (along with the rest of the potential community members) are settling down for the night when a fire alarm is raised. Bill rushes down the stairs, trips over and awakes to find himself tied up …..
After leaving Dr Soames in an office, Bill tells him that he’ll go and find some help. Soames knows there’s nothing to be done and he’s right – everyone else in the hospital is blind. Along the way, Bill meets a patient in one of the wards who asks him to draw the curtains and when he has, the man tells him to stop playing about and draw the curtains.
This is another scene taken directly from the novel, although it might have been a good idea to omit it. It’s impossible to believe that somebody couldn’t tell the difference between it simply being dark and being blind. Even in the dark, it’s possible to distinguish shapes and outlines.
Elsewhere, he sees groups of people milling about anxiously and when he returns to the office he finds Dr Soames has jumped to his death. As Bill ventures out onto the streets he finds no better news, until he spots a girl who can see. He follows her into a house and meets her father, John (Stephen Yardley). John and his wife are blind, but their daughter can still see.
John vacillates between believing that the problem is only local and temporary and pondering the implications if the majority of the population are now permanently blind.
Well, everybody will be like us at first. They won’t know what’s happened. They’ll be too frightened to move. Then they’ll get hungry and start looking for food. I mean this town’s nasty at the best of times. In two or three days it won’t just be hooligans, it’ll be people you thought butter wouldn’t melt killing each other for scraps of food.
There’s a great deal of truth in this, as we see pockets of the blind fighting each other for food, whilst one woman sits on the ground with a packet of washing powder in the mistaken belief that it’s edible. Elsewhere, a group of football supporters are led by a sighted man and they grab a woman. Their intentions are obvious and although Bill tries to intervene, it’s probable that his attempt was fruitless (we don’t see the conclusion). As we witness other examples of people in distress, how will Bill decide which ones to help and which ones to leave?
Earlier in the episode, Josella (Emma Relph) was captured by a blind man and forced to be his eyes. Bill discovers them and frees her. Together they seek refuge in a pub and when she decides to find her father, Bill asks if he can come with her. Jo agrees instantly and tells him it’s “not because I’m afraid of getting caught again. I’ll watch out for that. It’s just the dreadful sense of loneliness, being cut off from everybody else”.
Jo’s father is dead, killed by a Triffid and Bill and Jo only manage to escape after Bill kills another. This the first major Triffid attack scene in the story and thanks to some tight framing and intense acting from Duttine it works well. Whilst they’re not the most mobile of creatures, the occasional glimpse of them (as well as the eerie sound they make) is quite effective.
The episode has already discussed how the vast majority of the population could, because of their blindness, be turned into a mob – and this looks like it’s coming true at the end. Bill and Jo’s car is surrounded by a group of blind people and whilst none of them are intrinsically evil, their desperation to hold onto any sighted person is somewhat disturbing.
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was born in 1903 and began his writing career in the 1930’s under a variety of names. Following the Second Word War he started writing again and produced his first novel as John Wyndham. That was The Day of the Triffids which was published in 1951.
The Day of the Triffids was an instant success and it established Wyndham’s reputation as one of Britain’s top science fiction writers. It was faithfully adapted for the radio in 1957 (and the same script was re-recorded in 1968). There was also a film version in 1962 which deviated substantially from the original book (as did the 2009 BBC adaptation).
In-between those two was this 1981 BBC adaptation by Douglas Livingstone. It was directed by Ken Hannam and comprised six 26 minute episodes which were re-edited into three 52 minute episodes for overseas sales. Livingstone did a remarkable job of faithfully transferring Wyndham’s novel to the small screen. There are some changes (the action is moved from the 1950’s to the 1980’s and some minor characters are different) but overall there’s a great deal of fidelity to Wyndham’s original book.
In Livingstone’s teleplay, as in the novel, the thrust of the story is concerned with how the survivors of a global catastrophe will be able to survive after the technological infrastructure they’ve taken for granted has been destroyed. The later BBC adaptation was much more of a straightforward adventure yarn, pitting the survivors against the Triffids. But here, like in the book, the Triffids only pop up from time to time and they aren’t the most pressing problem.
The story opens with Bill Masen (John Duttine) recovering in hospital after an operation on his eyes. He works at a Triffid farm and was stung by one of them – hence the operation. Hopefully, once the bandages are removed he’ll be able to see again, but nothing is certain.
One annoying side-effect of his temporary blindness is that he was unable to witness the remarkable light-show the previous evening. The precise origin of this natural display which lit up the night sky for hours (visible all over the world) was a mystery, but the morning after things feel different. Where there should be noise and bustle (as befits a busy hospital) there is only an ominous silence …..
Both the novel and Livingstone’s adaptation open with Bill in hospital and work back from there to explain the history of the Triffids. In Wyndham’s novel, Bill is writing the whole story to explain to those who were born after the catastrophe exactly what happened. In the television version, Bill narrates how the Triffids came to exist onto cassette for his colleague Walter, who’s planning to write a book about them.
This is a decent framing device as it allows Bill to narrate over various scenes which explain where the Triffids came from and precisely the danger they pose. Walter (Edmund Pegge) works with Bill at the Triffid farm and in one of the flashbacks he discusses with him some of his theories.
Look at when they attack. They almost always go for the head. Now a great number of people who have been stung but not killed have been blinded. That’s significant of the fact they know the shortest way of putting a man out of action. If it were a choice of survival between a blind man and a Triffid, I know which I’d put my money on.
One interesting change by Livingstone is that to begin with, Bill still believes it’s the middle of the night – but we can clearly see the daylight streaming through the window and the time on the clock (the novel opens with him instantly aware that things aren’t right). This means that the viewers know more than Bill and so are aware, before he is, that something is seriously awry.
John Duttine spends the majority of the episode alone in his hospital room with his eyes bandaged. It needed a good actor to make the character come alive, with so little to work with, and Duttine certainly delivers. As time goes on, and still nobody comes, his self control begins to crack – until he decides to take off the bandages himself.
The irony that he’s now able to see whilst the majority of the world have gone blind isn’t something that’s overtly stated, but it’s obvious nonetheless. As the episode ends, he meets the blind Dr Soames (Jonathan Newth) whilst the Triffids start to prowl …..
Many of the best sitcoms feature a disparate group of people who, for one reason or another, are trapped together. Porridge is an obvious example, but it’s a theme that also runs through the work of Jimmy Perry and David Croft.
Dad’s Army and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum both had a diverse set of people thrown together by WW2 and in Hi-de-Hi! the characters are bound together because of their job. It amounts to pretty much the same thing though – as we see people of different attitudes, ages and classes all forced to work with each other.
If there’s one thing that’s notable about most of Perry and Croft’s sitcoms (and also the ones that Croft wrote with other people) it’s the fact they tended to go on far too long. When something is successful, the obvious thing to do is to continue – few writers are able (like John Cleese and Connie Booth with Fawlty Towers) to decide early on that all the comic potential has been mined from a certain idea.
But for now, let’s take a look at the first episode of He-de-Hi!, transmitted on the 1st of January 1980. It has an extended running time of forty minutes and is probably best seen as a pilot – since it would be more than a year before the first series proper began.
What’s interesting is the feeling of melancholy that hangs over many of the characters. Whilst all of them are professional with the holidaymakers, behind the scenes there’s a sense that for many, Maplin’s Holiday Camp is something of a prison for their thwarted dreams and ambitions.
For example, Fred Quilley (Felix Bowness) was a jockey who, it’s implied, threw races – so he’s washed up at Maplin’s, teaching holidaymakers to ride a selection of clapped-out nags. And Mr Partridge (Leslie Dwyer) is a Punch and Judy man who has an intense dislike of children, something of a handicap in his job. Dwyer was a veteran actor with a list of credits stretching back to the 1930’s (In Which We Serve and The Way Ahead were two notable early film appearances). He’s rarely a central figure in the stories, but his pithy bad temper were always worth watching out for.
Perhaps the most dismissive of the whole Maplin’s environment are Yvonne and Barry Stewart-Hargreaves (Diane Holland and Barry Howard) and Yvonne’s disdain for the common holidaymakers is never far from the surface. Their marriage is also intriguing, since Barry acts so incredibly camp it’s possible to wonder whether theirs is a marriage of convenience. There’s this exchange, for example.
BARRY: You’ve got your weight on the wrong foot, you silly cow. It’s like dancing with an all-in wrestler.
YVONNE: Well you’ve more experience with that kind of thing that I’d have.
There are some positive people though. Spike (Jeffrey Holland) is young, keen and eager to please. But it’s possible to wonder if Ted Bovis (Paul Shane) is the sort of person that Spike will become in twenty five years if the breaks don’t come his way. In the little world of Maplin’s, Ted is King – although the fact he’s still stuck in the holiday camps after all this time implies that his big break never materialised.
Given how Peggy (Su Pollard) came to define the series, it’s surprising that she hasn’t got her face in the opening credits. Peggy is the most positive person of all, desperate to become a yellowcoat and eager to do anything that will advance her cause.
The person charged with bringing order to this group of misfits is the new Entertainments Manager Jeffrey Fairbrother (Simon Cadell). Jeffrey is the real fish-out-of-water – formally a professor at Cambidge, he’s thrown that up because, as he tells his mother, “I’m in a rut. My wife’s left me because I’m boring, my students fall asleep at lectures because I bore them. And worst of all, I’m boring myself”.
Cadell is perfect as the indecisive, diffident, but decent man who’s completely out of his depth. This is highlighted when he meets Gladys Pugh (Ruth Madoc) for the first time. For Gladys, it’s clearly love at first sight. For Jeffrey (whilst he’d have to be blind not to see the signs she’s giving off) there’s little more than exquisite embarrassment.
This opening episode has done enough to suggest that the differences between the characters will provide plenty of comic potential in the years to come. And towards the end Jeffrey is visited by a couple who are about to leave. The old man’s words help to explicitly state the series’ agenda – whilst the employees of Maplin’s might sometimes be at each others throats, ensuring that the holidaymakers enjoy themselves is something they can all take pride in.
It was wonderful. Just sheer fun, and we haven’t had a lot of that in our lifetime. It’s grand being daft and forgetting all your troubles for a little while. I was telling Doris here, I said if the whole country could be run like a holiday camp then we’d be alright. We’d have Joe Maplin as prime minister and never mind that Harold Macmillan. He’s always telling us we’ve never had it so good. We’ve never had it. We’ve had a grand holiday and you were marvelous. You joined in the fun, supervising in your own quiet way and you didn’t make a lot of palaver. You just did it and we’d like to thank you, young man.
The last in a four-part thriller for the electronic age featuring Richard Griffiths
Episode 4: Printout Urgent
Henry is at bay. His home in ruins, his allies and hard-won evidence all destroyed. Face to face with the gathering strength of ‘Le Pouvoir’ and the grandiose scheme of its protégé – Euro MP Hugo Jardine.
(Radio Times Listing, 13th May 1982)
With Henry believing that one of the explosions from the end of part three killed Anne (instead it was the unfortunate Tomkins who perished) he moves into attack mode. He substitutes himself for Jardine’s chauffeur and drives him to an abandoned warehouse. His original plan is to kill Jardine and then make as much trouble as he can for Jardine’s organisation before his own death – but when he learns that Anne is still alive he agrees to a swop.
There’s no denying that Henry’s abduction of Jardine stretches credibility as it’s difficult to believe that such a powerful man would travel with no protection at all. Jardine (Christopher Logue) is a good example of the banality of evil, which makes his confrontation with Henry very interesting.
When Henry first speaks to Jardine he believes that Anne is dead – but Jardine professes not to know about her death or any of the others. He tells Henry that “I know nothing of the names you mention. I have people imposed upon me. I have no say in their methods. Because your heart is broken does not license you to stop mine”. How much of a pawn Jardine is in other people’s plans is a matter of conjecture, but it does highlight that there never seems to be a single person sitting in total control at the top of the pyramid – everybody always seems to answer to somebody else.
Elsewhere, Bridgnorth explains to Hendersly exactly what Jardine’s scheme is, in a scene that would be an unbearably egregious info-dump if it wasn’t for that fact that Nigel Davenport was such a good actor well able to rattle off such exposition-heavy dialogue with great aplomb.
Jardine, along with the shadowy Italian conglomerate, has tabled a bid to build a deluxe Channel tunnel. Bridgnorth says that it will create “125,000 new jobs in construction and engineering. 50 or 60 thousand new service and retail jobs. Only Jardine has the political will and the financial clout to stitch a deal like this together. Road and rail links side by side. The Rolls Royce solution to the Channel link”. With a potential fortune to be made, trouble-makers like Henry would appear to have a very limited life expectancy.
The hand-over between Jardine and Anne goes ahead – although not quite as some of the players might have expected. Henry and Anne are safe though, but their future seems less certain. Henry was able to broker a deal with Rome – he agreed not to release the files he has on them and in turn they pulled out of the Channel bid. And if Henry doesn’t input a counter-instruction code every three months, the files will be released to every government computing centre across Europe.
This will keep Henry and Anne safe for now, but he’s well aware that they’ll try to break his code and if they do then their lives will be rather short (which sets us up nicely for the sequel Bird of Prey II).
Overall, this is a very decent thriller. Although trailed in the Radio Times as a story for the electronic age, computers really don’t feature very significantly at all (except for the ending, where it’s the information contained within the computer that’s keeping Henry and Anne alive). Production-wise, it’s typical of the era – VT interiors and film for exteriors. If it had been all-film (like an increasing number of serials during the early to mid 80’s) then it might have been more stylish. As it is, the direction is workmanlike but rather flat, with only the odd moment standing out. Instead, it’s the actors (rather than the camerawork) which makes the story.
Richard Griffiths shines as the undemonstrative Henry and Nigel Davenport is impressive as his main rival. As the DVD was deleted some time ago it now tends to sell for silly money – but if you can track down a reasonably priced copy then it’s certainly worth a look (particularly if you like drama of that era).
Network’s Charley Says is a DVD that I find myself returning to on a regular basis. Partly because it’s television nostalgia in bite-sized pieces, but there’s also a fascinating wealth of British cultural history contained within these short films.
The Central Office of Information (COI) was founded in 1946 as the peace-time successor to the Ministry of Information (MOI). Post war, the battered and weary nation was drip fed the encouraging message that Britain would rebuild and restore itself to her former glory. Yes, all good propaganda – but skilfully presented.
By the 1960’s, the COI found itself creating shorter films for television. These covered a wide range of subjects, some were animated and others live-action. Ans since many of them were repeated for several decades, they became firmly lodged in the public consciousness.
For those who want to watch online, the National Archive has many of the public information films produced between 1945 and 2006 available on their website.
But for any newcomers to the wide world of PIFs, here is my own personal top five –
Number Five – When in the Country (1963)
This is longer than the normal television PIF and that fact it was made in colour suggests it was intended for cinema release. It’s nicely animated and whilst, like many PIFs, it does tend to state the blindingly obvious, it’s rather charming nonetheless.
Number Four – Splink (1976)
The Splink campaign was never as popular as the long-running series with Dave Prowse as the Green Cross Man, for the simple reason that the Splink drill was so incredibly difficult to remember! Still, the appearance of Jon Pertwee is something of a consolation.
Number Three – Dad’s Army – Pelican Signals (1974)
Familiar faces were very often used in PIFs in order to sell the message to the viewers and this one is no different. The incongruous sight of the Dad’s Army cast on a 1970’s street is strange, but since they didn’t have Pelican Crossings during the war it’s fair enough.
Number Two – Protect and Survive – Action after Warnings (1975)
This is frankly terrifying,whilst the suggestion that you can survive a nuclear attack by jumping into a ditch is a bit difficult to swallow as well! The Protect and Survive films, in addition to a handy booklet, were designed only to be used when the government decided that an attack was imminent. Thankfully this never came to pass, so the films were never broadcast – but several, like this one, later surfaced and they’re all fascinating viewing.
Of course, if there was a nuclear attack then the only thing left to do would be to die – but whilst the tone of the PIF is bleak, there’s still a sliver of hope offered to the survivors.
For further reading, in 2007 BBC published a transcript of a radio message that had been drafted for broadcast in the event of a nuclear attack. It can be read here.
Once the Protect and Survive booklet became public knowledge, the government were pressured into releasing it – so it was eventually published in May 1980. It can be read here.
Number One – Cycle Safety Song – Get Yourself Seen (1978)
And after thoughts of death and destruction, let’s end on a lighter note with a PIF that has a song so catchy I still find myself humming it to this very day!
The Three Degrees The Krankies Brandy Di Franck Bill Haley and the Comets Martin and Sylvia Konyot Ronnie Hilton
The first turn up on stage tonight are The Three Degrees who perform I Like Being A Woman. The group had formed in 1964, although the 1974 incarnation didn’t include any of the original members (over the years the line-up would see quite a few changes – some fifteen women have been one of the Three Degrees at one time or another).
The 1974 line-up consisted of Fayette Pinkney, Valerie Holiday and Sheila Ferguson. Shortly after this appearance, When Will I See You Again would top the UK charts for two weeks and it would herald a run of successful singles which would continue for a number of years. It’s a pity then that their Wheeltappers appearance wasn’t later in the year, as I Like Being A Woman is nice enough, although fairly forgettable.
There are two points of interest though, first is at 1:35 when they all bump into each other (they won’t be the only act to find performing on that tiny stage to be a bit of a problem!) and the second is the interesting spoken-word section, which must have gladdened the hearts of a certain section of the audience.
You know, women’s liberation is cool.
I mean, it had it’s good points and it’s bad points.
But you know sometimes… I just want to be loved,
And that’s why I become your slave.
I don’t want to be your equal, I just want to be a part of you.
All you gotta do is treat me like you treat yourself.
Next up are The Krankies. They’d spend the 1970’s working clubs like the Wheeltappers before moving onto mainstream television in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. They always seemed to be a staple fixture on Crackerjack (CRACKERJACK!!) at one time, for example.
Even though wee Jimmy Krankies’ cross-dressing antics only has a limited amount of comic potential, you have to admire the career they were able to build out of it. This Wheeltappers appearance is fairly typical of their comic shtick – Ian Krankie is attempting to tell a few jokes and sing a song but he’s prevented from doing so by a small boy in the audience. This is our Jimmy, who clearly has the audience’s sympathy as he tells them his mother doesn’t love him (awwww). The closing part of their act (where Ian treats Jimmy as a ventriloquists doll, swinging him around) is quite impressive and does raise a few laughs.
After somewhat fading from view, the revelation that they used to be swingers put them back into the spotlight a few years ago – and the fact that the likes of The Telegraph reported it is an example of how times have changed (it would be hard to imagine them running showbiz stories like that a few decades earlier).
Following the stripper Brandy Di Franck (yes really!) there’s the main treat of the show – Bill Haley and the Comets. Although Haley’s time at the top was quite short (his main chart success came between 1954 and 1956) his influence was far-reaching and thanks to a handful of classic singles he remains a significant figure in the development of rock and roll.
He gave the audience at the Wheeltappers exactly what they wanted – two of his biggest hits (Shake, Rattle and Roll and Rock Around the Clock). The only mystery about his appearance is why he wasn’t the headliner – c’mon it’s Bill Haley!
Next act on stage are Martin and Sylvia Konyot, who attempt to provide a touch of class with their dancing, although this is somewhat sabotaged by the fact the one of them is usually face-down on the stage. Not a bad spesh act which obviously took a good deal of training in order to execute the moves.
Tonight’s headliner is Ronnie Hilton, who rather cruelly (but accurately) is introduced by Bernard like this. “Ladies and gentleman, if there’s ever a nuclear attack then it’s all round to the next artist’s house. Because he’s never had a hit for years”.
Ronnie Hilton had a successful recording career in the 1950’s as a middle-of-the-road crooner. He built his career on recording cover versions of successful American songs. Hilton wasn’t the only artist to do this as back in the fifties it was the song – not the singer – that was king. His biggest hit, No Other Love (originally recorded by Perry Como) made number one in 1955, but by the early 1960’s the hits had dried up – so like many others before him, he took to touring the club circuit.
On the evidence of this appearance, he had become a decent club singer – although as he never had any particularly identifiable songs it does mean that the show ends with a bit of a whimper. Alas, if only they’d put Bill Haley on last!
A four-part thriller for the electronic age featuring Richard Grifiths
Episode 3: Process Priority
One name recurs in Henry Jay’s single-handed investigation into the affairs of ‘Le Pouvoir’ – Euro MP Hugo Jardine. With British Intelligence now implicated in the cover-up, Henry has a story to sell – if he can stay alive long enough.
(Radio Times Listing, 6th May 1982)
Generally, the third part of a four part story is a bit of a problem. You’ve set up the plot and characters in the first two parts but you’re still one away from the conclusion – so part threes generally involve a good deal of running on the spot.
While it’s true to say that Process Priority does conform to this rule, on the plus side it introduces an interesting new character, Rochelle Halliday (Ann Pennington). Rochelle runs a commercial intelligence consultancy and she had contact with Henry when he was drafting his report on computer fraud.
She’s a playful, irreverent character, which is highlighted when she asks Henry to read the notes she made about him after their previous meeting. “First impressions are that he would be out of his depth in a car park puddle, but first impressions may be deceptive. Give him a couple of months then try sex or straight cash. Say five hundred. He shouldn’t be expensive”.
Ann Pennington is a major reason why this part three doesn’t feel too draggy. It’s a pity that this is her only episode – but as has been mentioned before, many characters in Bird of Prey have a very short shelf life.
Rochelle sends Henry off to speak to Julia Falconer (Mandy Rice-Davies). Julia is the proprietor of a high-class call-girl agency which has links to Hugo Jardine. She’s able to fill in a few blanks, but these scenes are of primary interest due to Mandy Rice-Davies herself, since along with Christine Keeler she will be forever remembered for her role in the Profumo affair. It could be regarded as stunt-casting, but since she’s a decent actress I wouldn’t say so.
Elsewhere, Hendersly (Jeremy Child) is starting to have his doubts about Bridgnorth (Nigel Davenport). It’s been a fairly thankless role for Child so far, as his character has been drawn as a colourless, yes man. But now the worm turns and he tells Bridgnorth that he’s compromised his career “to protect Hugo Jardine, who you advised me is risking his life in a long, drawn out and elaborate intelligence operation. On a need-to-know basis, you’re the only person I’ve had any contact with. As this operation staggers from one blunder to the next, I’ve just kept my head down and assumed that you’ve known what you’ve been doing. I find myself questioning that now. And even more seriously, questioning who it is that I’m ultimately working for and with whom your loyalties lie”.
After a speech like that (and given what we’ve already seen) it’s interesting to ponder what his life expectancy will be …..
As the end of the episode approaches it’s clear that matters are building to a head. The cliffhanger is certainly arresting – as we witness two separate explosions (although the second is admittedly a little weedy). Both explosions help to thin out the cast a little more but Henry is still unscathed and he appears to be heading for a showdown with Jardine.
A four-part thriller for the electronic age, featuring Richard Griffiths.
Episode 2: Mode Murder
Murder and the power to subvert officialdom: Henry Jay has good reason to believe in ‘Le Pouvoir’ and its link with the growing evidence of a financial conspiracy. A dead detective’s legacy is a file pointing to a Euro MP and a girl in Brussels – which leaves Henry no option but to pick up the trail.
(Radio Times Listing, 29th April 1982)
Henry needs answers – so he sells his stamp collection and uses the money to rent a room under an assumed name and also buy a computer. It’s the latest model and the salesgirl informs him that it has “64K memory, disk drive main, storage for 120,000 characters”. Which was cutting edge stuff in 1982! Henry’s computer hacking also raises an eyebrow – since it consists of him ringing up various people and asking for their passwords.
Whilst this will either seem charmingly naive or rather clumsy (depending on how forgiving you are) it does allow Henry to track down Hannah Brent (Sally Faulkner). Hannah was the girlfriend of Louis Vacheron (a crook murdered in episode one) and Henry hopes she’ll have a lead that will lead him closer to the heart of the conspiracy, so he flies out to visit her in Brussels. Before DI Richardson was murdered, he left a file for Henry (inside were clippings which mentioned a European MP and businessman called Hugo Jardine). Hannah doesn’t recognise the name but promises to try and find out what she can.
A hallmark of a good conspiracy thriller is that nobody can be trusted. Hannah Brent would have known about a simple code that Vacheron taught her (the Owl and the Pussycat in French). The girl with Henry doesn’t, so he knows she’s not the real Hannah Brent.
This revelation moves us to the heart of the episode as we’re introduced to Charles Bridgnorth (Nigel Davenport). Bridgnorth works for British Security and the faux Hannah Brent works for him. As for the real Hannah? Bridgnorth surmises she’s “in the foundations of a Brussels office block most likely”.
Bridgnorth tells Henry that Jardine works for them and is part of a project stretching back several years – and that both his and Richardson’s investigations may have compromised Jardine’s safety. He also explains to Henry a little more about the Power (the mysterious force alluded to by Vacheron).
The Power is more a loose federation of people than a solid structure. People who temporarily find it an advantage to work with each other to repay each other for favours past and future. There’s a grey area in this sort of business, Henry. Terrorism shades into organised crime, into police undercover operations, into how the state security apparat responds to the chaos which mobile internationally-minded crooks and politicos have been creating since the early ’60’s, especially in Europe. Even those who did the killing may be unaware of what favour they are repaying to whom.
Henry doesn’t find this particularly comforting – so Richardson and Vacheron may have been killed by criminals or possibly by members of the police and security services. Bridgnorth is pretty non-committal, but tells Henry that his involvement is over.
Get out of here, civilian. This is where the dirty work gets done. Dirty work that means that people like you can catch the 8:15 every morning and lead your boring little lives. Be thankful for the 8:15, Henry. Be thankful for your boring little life and the fact that we allow you to go back to it in one piece … or at all.
It’s a convincing story, but as it’s only the end of episode two there must be more revelations to come. Henry knows they’re lying to him and explains to Anne that “an exceedingly elaborate construct has been made up of all the bits and pieces and odds and ends they know I know about. It concerns one of the many branches of Intelligence claiming Jardine for their own. They lied about Richardson going to Brussels. I had a computer agency check the relevant flight listings and he never made it”. It’s only a small point, but Henry has to go on – he has to know if that was the only lie or if the whole story was false.
The episode ends with a few more bodies – DS Eric Vine (Richard Ireson) and the Department’s security officer Trevor Chambers (Trevor Martin) have been waiting for Henry to return to his rented flat. Chambers is killed by someone who calls him Mr Jay, which adds another layer of mystery. Bridgnorth has been keeping close tabs on Henry, so he knows exactly what he looks like. Therefore it appears there are new players in town.
Henry Jay: Civil Servant, mid-30s, good head for detail
Prospects: Steady promotion. Index-linked pension
Hobbies: Philately, Hi-fi
Current Project: Computer Fraud Report for Whitehall Trade Ministry.
Altogether a seemingly puny obstacle to a massive financial conspiracy – with the bureaucratic clout to silence the inquisitive.
(Radio Times listing, 22nd April 1982)
Bird of Prey, written by Ron Hutchinson, was a four-part conspiracy thriller broadcast in 1982. It starred Richard Griffiths as Henry Jay, who is a mild-mannered, middle-aged civil servant and therefore just about the last person you would expect to be caught up in the middle of a vast and dangerous conspiracy.
That, of course, is one of the reasons why it works so well – had Henry been a more conventional hero (either in looks or approach) then the dramatic tension would have been far less. But since Henry seems so ill-suited to the role of a crusading hero, it creates an interesting dynamic. Whether the story manages to keep a sense of credibility as the bodies start to pile up, we’ll have to wait and see – but let’s start by taking a look at the first episode.
Henry Jay works for the Department of Commercial Development and has a special interest in computer security. At the start of the story he has the following info-dump speech which he delivers to his boss Hendersly (Jeremy Child).
The Americans are considering restricting the publication of research into cryptography – code breaking. Well, you see, telephone networks are now, more or less, computer networks, as are modern office accounting and money transfer systems, and the Americans have only just woken up to the security aspects of the unregulated publication of research into cryptography because it offers ways of breaking into those networks.
Since Bird of Prey is commonly regarded as a computer thriller, it’s noticeable that we don’t see a single computer in the first episode. Henry’s office, which he shares with Harry Tomkins (Roger Sloman), is computer free – instead there’s just typewriters and plenty of conventional files. It’s certainly a window into a vanished world, where computers were still something of a rarity.
But if the possibility of everyone either owning a computer at home or using one in work was still a slightly alien concept in 1982, there certainly was a feeling that computers were beginning to have an increasing influence on people’s daily lives – hence Bird of Prey came out at the right time (even if the technology we’ll see in later episodes now looks rather quaint!).
The opening and closing titles are rather nostalgic for anybody of a certain age, since they mimic the computer graphics common at the time. Dave Greenslade’s title music and score is also very evocative of the era.
It’s Henry’s report, “Fraud And Related Security Problems In The Age Of Electronic Accounting”, which is the catalyst for all of his problems. He’s been liaising with Detective Inspector Richardson (Jim Broadbent) who shares his concerns about computer fraud and Richardson has been passing him information to use in the report. One piece of information concerns a recent attempted bank fraud centered on Turin and London.
Louis Vacheron (Nicholas Chagrin) was caught at the London end, but he tells Richardson that he’s confident he’ll be released in a matter of months as their organisation has connections at the highest levels. He mentions le Pouvoir (the Power) but when Vacheron is killed, it’s clear that the Power has silenced a weak link. And Richardson believes that the Power will also remove any other links (which is a problem for Henry, since there’s a reference to this fraud in his report).
Of course, nobody, especially Henry’s wife Anne (Carole Nimmons), believes him at first. Their marriage is best described as frosty and she spells this out quite succinctly.
I do a routine and boring job as well, only I don’t have to manufacture drama and excitement out of it. Some are born civil servants. Others achieve being civil servants. Others have being civil servants thrust upon them. You were born. Now after seven years of marriage, I accept that and the fact that you will never change or be anything else, so if you’re trying to make your job sound desperately important and exciting for my sake, don’t bother. When I said yes to you, I settled for cocoa, not champagne. Now I’m prepared to live with that. Sourly at times, mostly with mute acceptance.
Shortly afterwards, Henry is accused of soliciting an underage boy, although it’s clearly a set-up (which is confirmed by the two police officers as they leave Henry’s house). Henry sees this as a warning – leave well alone or the next time they’ll make the charges stick. Unfortunately for the shadowy conspiracy, they then send another policeman along to tell Henry that a woman at his office has made a complaint that he’s been following her. But as Henry says –
So, how was I fitting in my importuning of young boys in public toilets whilst pursuing Miss Callaghan? I mean, how common is this condition I’m suffering from, that renders me such a menace to young people of either sex indiscriminately?
The first episode ends with the murder of Richardson at Henry’s office (Bird of Prey and its sequel does have a pretty high body count – so it’s best to get used to the idea that many characters won’t last the series out). Quite why he was murdered isn’t clear at present – although the fact that they can strike at Henry’s office means that he’s not safe anywhere.
So Henry is literally on the run, armed with only a few files from the office as he tries to stay one step ahead of the people who want his head.
Peter Barkworth as Martin Hewett in The Case of Laker, Absconded by Arthur Morrison
Adapted by Philip Mackie. Directed by Jonathan Alwyn
Martin Hewitt (Peter Barkworth) and Jonathan Pryde (Ronald Hines) have a new contract. They’ve been retained by the City Guarantee Society, an insurance company who guarantee the integrity of bank employees. So in the case of fraud or theft, the City Guarantee Society are naturally keen for the culprit to be apprehended as quickly as possible. And so are Hewitt and Pryde (they earn no fee, but collect a percentage of the monies recovered).
The case of a junior bank clerk called Laker seems to be open and shut. Laker is a walk-clerk, responsible for collecting money from various banks during his round and then returning it to his own bank – Messrs Liddle, Neal & Liddle. But after collecting fifteen thousand pounds, he disappears.
His fiance, Emily Shaw (Jane Lapotaire), remains convinced of his innocence and she begs Hewitt to help her. When the evidence of his guilt starts to pile up, even she starts to doubt him. But Hewitt wonders if some of the trail is just a little obvious – it’s almost as if he wanted to be tracked. Emily tells Hewitt that Laker is a clever man, so why has he acted in such a careless way, throwing clues about?
The Case of Laker, Absconded was the third and final Martin Hewitt story by Arthur Morrison to be adapted for the first series of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. The original story appeared in The Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, published in 1895, and it can be read here.
Jonathan Pryde, the Hewitt substitute from The Case of the Dixon Torpedo appears briefly, but this is very much Hewitt’s case. He spends the majority of the episode in the company of Emily Shaw and together they attempt to prove or disprove Laker’s guilt. Barkworth is his usual solid self and Jane Lapotaire impresses as a woman who remains unswervingly devoted to her finance – even though all the evidence suggests that’s he’s jilted her and run away to the continent with a horde of stolen money.
There’s two possible solutions to the story and it quickly becomes clear which is the more likely. So this isn’t a complex or surprising tale – instead the enjoyment comes from the lead performances of Barkworth and Lapotaire, as well as some of the supporting cast.
Chief amongst these are Leslie Dwyer and Toke Townley as two lost property men at the local railway station. Laker’s lost umbrella (which Hewitt recovers) is a minor plot point, but the main pleasure in these scenes is the comic timing of Dwyer and Townley.
Toke Townley isn’t the only connection to Emmerdale (he played Sam Pearson from 1972 to 1984) as Mr Wilks himself, Arthur Pentelow, appears as Inspector Plummer. Like many of the other policemen in the series, he’s always a couple of steps behind the private detective but Plummer doesn’t seem to mind – especially since with Hewitt’s help he manages to round up a dangerous gang of crooks.
The Case of Laker,Absconded brought the first series of The Rivals to a close. Overall, it was a very consistent run of episodes with some strong central performances from the various detectives. The series would return for a second, and final, series – which promised new detectives and more baffling cases for them to solve.
Robert Lang as Bernard Sutton in The Ripening Rubies by Max Pemberton
Adapted by Anthony Skene. Directed by Alan Cooke
When an ex-con called Jaffe (Ron Pember) attempts to sell a valuable ruby necklace, he makes the mistake of taking it to Bernard Sutton (Robert Lang). Sutton was the jeweler who made the necklace in the first place and he’s well aware that it was recently stolen from Lady Faber (Lally Bowers).
Jaffe insists he didn’t steal the necklace – he bought it from a Dutch sea captain with a wooden leg. It seems an implausible story, but that’s only part of the problem. London society has been gripped by a wave of jewel robberies recently – and this is the first piece to have been recovered.
Sutton returns it to Lady Faber and she insists that he attend the grand ball she’s throwing that evening. Everybody who is is anybody in polite society will be there – and it seems certain that the thief will strike again. Sutton tries to demur, insisting that he’s a jeweler and not a detective, but Lady Faber is used to having her own way and reluctantly Sutton agrees.
The Ripening Rubies was written by Max Pemberton and was one of ten short stories featuring Bernard Sutton that were published in the book Jewel Mysteries: From a Dealer’s Notebook in 1894. It can be read here.
As Sutton says, he’s not a detective and can’t claim to have any special knowledge of crime or criminals. However, in Pemberton’s short story of The Ripening Rubies he does explain a little about what motivates him.
I have said often, in jotting down from my book a few of the most interesting cases which have come to my notice, that I am no detective, nor do I pretend to the smallest gift of foresight above my fellow man. Whenever I have busied myself about some trouble it has been from a personal motive which drove me on, or in the hope of serving some one who henceforth should serve me. And never have I brought to my aid other weapon than a certain measure of common sense. In many instances the purest good chance has given to me my only clue; the merest accident has set me straight when a hundred roads lay before me.
Robert Lang gives a steadfast performance as Sutton. He’s quite prepared to pull a gun on Jaffe to stop him leaving his shop and at the end of the story he confronts the gang with steely determination. It’s interesting that Inspector Illingworth (Windsor Davies) seems to suspect that Sutton himself has a hand in the robberies. Given some of the corrupt detectives we’ve seen in the series, that wouldn’t have come as a surprise – but Sutton proves to be totally honest.
Since the identity of the villains isn’t much of a shock, it’s fair to say that the majority of the pleasure in this one comes from the journey, rather than the destination. Lally Bowers is good fun as the autocratic Lady Faber and Richard Hurndall is his usual dependable self as Lord Faber.
Moira Redmond as the charming Mrs Kavanagh catches Sutton’s eye at the party. She has an impressive collection of jewels, which Sutton takes a keen interest in, and her witty byplay helps to keep up the momentum in the middle of the story. She’s not all she seems though – and events come to a head to provide a suitably dramatic finale.
There’s a terrible use of CSO right at the start (the background behind Sutton’s shop is CSO, but it stays static as the camera zooms in on the real shopfront – it’s astonishingly inept) but that apart, this is a pretty decent story with Robert Lang and Moria Redmond both on top form.
Ukranian Cossack Brotherhood Lambert and Ross Barbara Law La Vivas Freddie Garrity Tessie O’Shea
Wheeltappers is a fascinating series for several reasons. Although the club was a studio mock-up, by all accounts it’s a pretty accurate recreation of a typical club of the era – and therefore it gives a good impression of the sort of environment that the majority of the Wheeltappers acts would regularly perform in.
Many up-and-coming performers honed their skills in clubs like these, appearing on the bill alongside popular acts from the 1960’s (like, for example, Roy Orbison), who found success harder to come by in the 1970’s and were therefore happy to find regular employment in the numerous clubs dotted up and down the country.
I can’t put my hand on my heart and claim that everything in the Wheeltappers is good, but there’s certainly some gold there. Alas, there’s plenty of god-awful singers and unfunny comedians as well – but for those hardy souls prepared to sift through the series, there’s quite a few nuggets of interest.
And for those who lack the stamina to watch it all, and because Network rather annoyingly don’t list the performers on the DVD sleeves, I’ve decided on this rewatch to put an artist listing on each entry, as well as highlighting those acts who are worth seeing (or are best avoided).
The Ukranian Cossack Brotherhood were quite good fun, although I’m not sure whether they were actually Ukranian or not – seems a long way to come just to appear on the Wheeltappers. Their performance is particularly impressive considering the small stage they have to perform on – one false move and they’d be sitting in somebody’s lap!
Lambert and Ross were certainly no Morecambe and Wise – or even Little and Large. Their’ USP seemed to be that one (Ross) was camp and one (Lambert) wasn’t. Sample gag: “We could appear in a film. What film? Ben Hur, I’ll play Ben. And I’ll play Her”. Although there’s little evidence of it here, Willie Ross would go on to have a successful career in television, on the stage and in films such as Rita, Sue and Bob Too, Riff Raff and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, before his death in 2000.
Barbara Law belts out her song quite well. It’s worth watching the man directly behind her at the start – was he a plant or was he genuinely that drunk? La Vivas indulge in some knife-throwing, roping in a lady from the audience and Bernard for good measure.
Freddie Garrity has plenty of energy – that’s for sure. The former lead-singer of Freddie and the Dreamers would return to the Wheeltappers in the future and he’d be even more deranged – so this performance, by his standards, is fairly restrained.
Headliner Tessie O’Shea was something of an entertainment legend. Born in Cardiff in 1913, she was a popular music-hall act during the 1930’s – 1950’s and she’d go on to pick up a Tony award in 1963 for her appearance in Noel Coward’s musical The Girl Who Came to Supper. Another notable American appearance was on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, where she shared the bill with a young up-and-coming beat combo from England called the Beatles.
On the Wheeltappers she plays a paper bag and invites the audience to join her in a good old fashioned sing-along. It’s the sort of thing that we’ll see a lot of at the Wheeltappers (the sing-along that is, not playing with a paper bag).
Donald Sinden as Romney Pringle in The Assyrian Rejuvenator by Clifford Ashdown Adapted by Julian Bond. Directed by Jonathan Alwyn
Sergeant Hawkins (Victor Platt) calls on Romney Pringle (Donald Sinden) to ask for his help – a conman called Henry Jacobs (Derek Smith) is selling a potion called the Assyrian Rejuvenator. He claims it’s a remarkable tonic that will restore their lost youth, but it obviously does no such thing. Hawkins can’t proceed until somebody makes a complaint and he concludes that nobody will – since they’re all too embarrassed to admit they’ve been conned.
When Pringle asks why Hawkins has come to him, the policeman’s answer is straightforward – “set a thief to catch a thief”. Pringle’s office door might declare him to be a private detective, but it’s clear that he’s more than happy to break the law when it serves his best interests – and he quickly sees how to turn the affair of the Assyrian Rejuvenator to his own benefit,
Romney Pringle was created by R. Austin Freeman and John Pitcarn (writing as Clifford Ashdown) and the character appeared in a series of stories written at the turn of the twentieth century. The Assyrian Rejuvenator was included in the book The Adventures of Romney Pringle and it can be read here.
Pringle is a rogue, very much in the mould of Horace Dorrington, and he’s quickly able to deal with Jacobs (by scaring him out of town). He then proceeds to take over Jacobs’ operation, which also means inheriting Doris (Alethea Charlton). Pringle’s an arch manipulator and he quickly has poor Doris hanging on his every word.
Donald Sinden gives a typically ripe performance as Pringle, although he never manages to make the character even remotely likeable. Peter Vaughan’s Dorrington was similarly unscrupulous, but he had a certain charm, thanks to Vaughan. Also, whilst Dorrington never quite managed to pull of the big con in either of the two stories adapted for The Rivals, here we see Pringle make a tidy profit from Jacob’s operation – and he shows little remorse when both Jacobs and Doris are caught by the police and charged with running the whole operation. Which isn’t, when you consider how he manipulated Doris to serve his own interests, a very admirable trait.
Jo Rowbottom
It also doesn’t help that the story is a little mundane, although there are a few compensations such as Jo Rowbottom as Suzy Shepherd, Music Hall artiste, and Michael Bates as Colonel Sandstream, an elderly duffer who’s somewhat smitten with her and will try anything (including the Assyrian Rejuvenator) to improve his chances to, as it were, satisfy her. Rowbottom is rather alluring and Bates (star of It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum and Last of the Summer Wine) has a nice line in comic bluster.
They both help to compensate for an episode which is one of the less engaging from the first series.
Peter Barkworth as Martin Hewitt in The Affair of the Tortoise by Arthur Morrison
Adapted by Bill Craig. Directed by Bill Bain
Martin Hewitt (Peter Barkworth) visits Miss Chapman (Cyd Hayman) to inform her that she stands to inherit a considerable fortune, following the death of a distant relative. As Miss Chapman lives in genteel poverty, this is very welcome news.
When Hewitt is talking to her, he hears a dreadful din coming from elsewhere in the house. Miss Chapman explains that the noise is made by one of the other residents – Rameau (Stephan Kalipha). He’s a very strange fellow, he favours sliding down the bannisters, is frequently drunk and makes the life of Goujon (Timothy Bateson) a misery by playing practical jokes on him.
When Rameau’s latest practical joke results in the death of Goujon’s beloved tortoise, Goujon declares that he’ll kill him. And shortly afterwards, the maid Millie (Cheryl Hall) discovers Rameau on the floor of his rooms, covered in blood, with an axe beside him.
It’s a clear case of murder – but when the police enter the room, Rameau’s body is gone. Goujon has also left and he’s obviously the prime suspect – but Miss Chapman isn’t convinced and she commissions Hewitt to investigate. Another resident, Captain Cutler (Esmond Knight), tells Hewitt that he’s seen a man hanging around for a while, watching for Rameau. The discovery of a voodoo doll in Rameau’s rooms and the knowledge that the man lived in fear of strangers are enough to convince Hewitt that there’s more to this case than meets the eye.
Like The Case of the Dixon Torpedo, this was written by Arthur Morrison and appeared in the collection of stories entitled Martin Hewitt, Investigator which was published in 1894. The book can be read here.
But unlike the Dixon Torpedo, Martin Hewitt appears in this adaptation and he’s expertly played by Peter Barkworth. One of the pleasures of watching archive television on a regular basis is that you tend to see the same faces appear again and again. Recently I’ve seen Barkworth in an episode of Out of the Unknown – To Lay a Ghost as well as an early edition of Public Eye – Nobody Kills Santa Claus. Any performance by Peter Barkworth is worth treasuring since he was such a meticulous, tidy actor and he fits the role of Martin Hewitt (modest, undemonstrative but forthright) perfectly.
Not only was he a first class actor, but he taught at RADA during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s and the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Simon Ward and Diana Rigg were amongst his pupils. He later remarked that “of all the jobs I have ever had, teaching at RADA is the one I should least like to have missed”.
With Barkworth providing a solid foundation as Hewitt, he was supported by a very decent cast of fellow actors. The gorgeous Cyd Hayman had appeared alongside him the year previously in the WW2 drama Manhunt, whilst Timothy Bateson makes a decent attempt at a French accent and Stefan Kalipha is suitably unhinged as Rameau. As neither Bateson or Kalipha have a great deal of screen-time, they have to make a strong impression early on, which they both do.
Cyd Hayman
Inspector Nettings (Dan Meaden) naturally favours Goujan as the murderer, but when it’s proved that he’s innocent, the policeman is in a bit of a quandary. It’s a staple of detective fiction to have the police baffled whilst the private detective runs rings around them, but even allowing for this, Nettings is exceptionally dim. As Hewitt says “I have heard the opinion expressed that Inspector Nettings couldn’t find an omnibus in Oxford Street. But I don’t share that opinion. On the other hand I’m not convinced he could find the one he was looking for”.
Much as I love Barkworth, I’m never quite sure if the scene where he questions a cabman (and adopts a rough approximation of a lower-class accent) is deliberately meant to be unconvincing (to indicate that Hewitt didn’t really go in for that sort of thing) or whether Peter Barkworth just wasn’t very good at accents.
Whilst the solution to the mystery seems clear fairly early on, nothing’s quite as it seems and there’s a number of twists and turns in the story – which could quite easily sit alongside many of Conan-Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tales. With Holmes having apparently faced his Final Problem in 1893, Martin Hewitt proved to be a very acceptable substitute and his stories (prior to being collected in book form) were published in various magazines, including The Strand (which had been the home of Sherlock Holmes). Sidney Paget’s illustrations (like they did for Holmes) also added a touch of class.
It does seem remarkable no series were spun out of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes as many of the stories we’ve seen so far have demonstrated that there was definite mileage in taking the characters further. So a series with Barkworth as Hewitt wasn’t to be, unfortunately, but he’ll return in one more tale – The Case of Laker, Absconded.
Elvi Hale as Lady Molly in The Woman in the Big Hat by the Baroness Orczy Adapted and Directed by Alan Cooke
When a customer is found dead at a tea shop, Lady Molly of Scotland Yard (Elvi Hale) and her faithful assistant Mary Grandard (Ann Beach) are on hand to investigate. As a female detective in a predominately male environment, Lady Molly is something of a pioneer – and certainly she’s the right person to uncover the tangled threads of this baffling murder.
Lady Molly was created by the Baroness Orczy, best known for writing The Scarlet Pimpernel. Lady Molly of Scotland Yard was published in 1910 and contains twelve adventures, of which The Woman in the Big Hat was the tenth. The book can be read here.
Her precise rank in the police force is something of a mystery as she’s only ever referred to as Lady Molly – but since she speaks to Inspector Saunders (Peter Bowles) as an equal, presumably she’s on a similar level. Saunders appears to be on hand to be someone who’s essentially well-meaning but lacks the subtle approach of Lady Molly (for example, he picks up the teacup which held the poison, much to the dismay of Lady Molly, who chides him about fingerprints).
The murdered man was Mark Culledon, a member of a very good family – and it appears someone beyond reproach. Considering Lady Molly’s rarefied status and the fact that the members of the working class we see (such as Katie Harris, played by Una Stubbs) are portrayed as untrustworthy at best and criminal at worst, it does appear at first to be a story that’s sympathetic to the struggles of the upper classes.
But things aren’t so cut and dried and it becomes clear that even behind the most genteel of drawing room doors, passions can run high. However, the first thing Lady Molly needs to to do is to track down the woman in the big hat. Mark Culledon was seen having tea with a woman wearing a rather large hat and after she left, he was found dead. It therefore seems obvious that Culledon was poisoned by the woman.
A prime-suspect is found, Elizabeth Löwenthal (Elizabeth Weaver). She admits that she had a relationship with Culledon in the past and that she visited him after he was married – and she certainly possesses a big hat, but is she the one? Saunders is convinced, but Lady Molly isn’t so sure.
Elvi Hale plays Lady Molly with great gusto. She’s clearly somebody who has to work in rather makeshift surroundings (the sign on her office says “stores”, over which has been hung another sign saying “female department”) but she makes the best of things. She shoots a gun as well as any man and is dismissive when Grandard tells her that Saunders is a great believer in her intuition. Lady Molly counters that he has to call it intuition, he simply can’t believe that a woman can think for herself.
Peter Bowles is on hand to do the leg-work whilst Ann Beach as Grandard is there to take notes, swoon over Molly’s deductions and effectively act as Watson to her Holmes (Grandard was the narrator of the Lady Molly stories).
Elsewhere, Catherine Lacey gives a rather individual performance as Culledon’s aunt, Mrs Steinberg. Catherine Lacey was by this time a veteran actress and had appeared in many notable films, including Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes and Whisky Galore. She gives a rather stagey, unrealistic turn, which might possibly have been what director Alan Cooke (who also dramatised the story) was aiming for – but for me, it’s a little jarring. Francis White is more composed as Culledon’s widow and there’s a nice demonstration of low-cunning from Una Stubbs as Culldeon’s ex-maid, Katie Harris.
Since Mark Culledon is dead when we see him for the first time, the story never gives us a chance to understand what he was like as a character, first hand. Instead, as the story progresses, more layers are lifted away as more people are questioned about him – until finally we see exactly what sort of a man he was and when we know that, the reason for the murder becomes quite clear.
In terms of a whodunnit, it’s probably one of the most interesting yet seen in the series, and this helps to make The Woman in the Big Hat one of the more memorable episodes of The Rivals.
Ronald Hines as Jonathan Pryde in The Case of the Dixon Torpedo by Arthur Morrison Adapted by Stuart Hood. Directed by James Goddard
Jonathan Pryde (Ronald Hines) has been hired by the British Admiralty to keep an eye on a curmudgeonly, but brilliant, inventor called Dixon (Derek Francis). Dixon is working to develop a new torpedo and the Admiralty are worried that it could be acquired by an unfriendly power. And when the unthinkable happens – the plans are stolen – Pryde will need to use all of his ingenuity to solve the mystery.
Arthur Morrison wrote three volumes of stories featuring private detective Martin Hewitt. They were Martin Hewitt, Investigator (1894), The Chronicles of Martin Hewitt (1895) and The Adventures of Martin Hewitt (1896). The Case of the Dixon Torpedo was featured in Martin Hewitt, Investigator and it can be read here.
Series one of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes adapted three Martin Hewitt adventures – this one, The Affair of the Tortoise and The Case of Laker, Absconded. Rather oddly, Hewitt didn’t feature in this adaptation – instead a new detective (Jonathan Pryde) was created. Maybe it was felt that having three stories with the same detective would have been a slight case of overkill.
Ronald Hines gives a low-key performance as Pryde. Unlike some of the other detectives we’ve seen in The Rivals, Pryde doesn’t possess any particular quirks or interesting character traits – he’s simply a dogged, thorough investigator
If Pryde is a bit of a dull fellow, then there’s compensation elsewhere. Derek Francis is full of bluster as the bluff Dixon, whilst James Bolam and Bill Wallis form a decent double-act as Dixon’s employees. Jacqueline Pearce (forever Servalan from Blake’s Seven) has a small part as Pryde’s wife and it’s always a pleasure to see Cyril Shaps (the voice of Mr Kipling).
The Case of the Dixon Torpedo is also notable for featuring a wide array of facial hair (much of it fairly false-looking, it must be said) whilst Dixon’s achilles heel are prostitutes (“two at a time!”). It’s this particular vice that proves to be his undoing and enables the plans to fall into Russian hands (although Pryde is on hand to sort out the mess).
But though the plans are recovered, Pryde is appalled by the way that both the British and Russian governments are prepared to cover up the various deaths that have occurred along the way. When he’s asked if he’d like to take on further cases for Admiralty, he replies “no, I don’t think so. I prefer crime. It’s more honest”. Many future detectives will express similar sentiments.
This story of missing plans may have been influenced by the Sherlock Holmes story The Naval Treaty and it’s interesting to wonder if Morrison’s story was an influence on Conan-Doyle when he wrote the later Holmes tale The Bruce-Partington Plans.
It’s not a particularly complicated story and whilst I’d have preferred to have had Peter Barkworth’s Hewitt in the main role, the quality supporting cast are a major point in this episode’s favour.
John Fraser as Dixon Druce in Madame Sara by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace
Adapted by Philip Mackie. Directed by Piers Haggard
Jack Selby (William Corderoy) approaches private detective Dixon Druce (John Fraser) with a strange story. His new wife Beatrice (Jasmina Hilton) is one of three people who have a chance of inheriting their family fortune (which stands at two million pounds). The other two are Beatrice’s sister Edith (Caroline John) and their step-brother Silva (Roger Delgado).
The capital is held in trust and will go to the last surviving family member. Dixon quickly sees the danger that the sisters may be in – and this seems to be confirmed when Edith dies, poisoned in a most mysterious manner. Silva would seem to be the prime suspect, although Inspector Vandeleur (George Murcell) favours Dixon’s client, Jack Selby. If Selby disposes of the other two, then he (through his wife) will have access to the money.
But what part does the mysterious Madame Sara (Marianne Benet) play in this devilish affair? She’s a friend of both Beatrice and Edith (although Edith seemed to live in fear of her). According to Selby, she’s “a professional beautifier. She claims the privilege of restoring youth to those who consult her. She also declares that she can make quite ugly people handsome”. She captivates Dixon Druce with her beauty and he confesses that he’s somewhat in love with her. But Madame Sara is a complex creature, who isn’t quite all that she seems ….
Dixon Druce tangled with Madame Sara over the course of six short stories which were published as The Sorceress of the Strand in 1902. The tales were written by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace. Although there had been female criminals before (such as “the woman” Irene Adler) Madame Sara is of particular interest since she’s very much in the super-criminal mode, which is much rarer. During the six stories, she appears each time with an outlandish scheme, Dixon Druce gets to hear about it and stops her – but always she lives to fight another day. For those who want to sample the original tale, Madame Sara can be downloaded here.
As Madame Sara was the first story in The Sorceress of The Strand, it made sense to adapt it for The Rivals, since it sees Dixon and Sara meet for the first time. Sara is a strange figure, seemingly ageless (thanks to her many mysterious potions) and there’s no doubt that she captures Dixon’s heart, which makes the fact that he has to hand her over to the authorities something of a wrench for him.
John Fraser is forthright and upstanding as Dixon Druce. To be honest, he’s not the most interesting or charismatic detective we’ve seen so far, so Fraser does sometimes struggle to make an impression (and the somewhat florid dialogue is also a problem at times). Marianne Benet doesn’t act evil, which is a good thing – her Madame Sara is a businesswoman, rather than a cackling villain.
For any Doctor Who fans, there’s two good reasons to watch this one. Caroline John is Edith (a subdued performance) and Roger Delgado, even though he’s confined to a wheelchair, dominates the scenes he’s in (playing the apparently invalided Silva).
Whilst Dixon appears to be more of a thinker than a man of action, he can still make the odd surprising move – such as when he wrenches a tooth from the unfortunate Beatrice with a pair of pliers (it makes sense when you’ve watched the story).
Not the strongest story, but it’s entertaining enough and the further adventures of Dixon Druce and Madame Sara would have made a decent (if short) series.
Peter Vaughan as Horace Dorrington in
The Case of the Mirror of Portugal by Arthur Morrison
Adapted by Julian Bond. Directed by Mike Vardy
A penniless Frenchman called Jacques Bouvier (Michael Forrest) spins Dorrington a strange tale. During the French Revolution his family acquired one of the French Crown Jewels – known as The Mirror of Portugal. The diamond is worth one hundred thousand pounds and Jacques feels that it should be his by right – although at present it’s in the possession of his cousin Leon (Oscar Quitak).
It’s a tale that intrigues Dorrington, although he ejects Jacques from his office and tells him that he wants nothing to do with the case. Afterwards, he explains to Farrish and Miss Parrot that “he wanted me to steal that diamond. He wanted me to do it for nothing and give him three quarters of the proceeds”. Naturally, Dorrington plans to steal the diamond and keep one hundred per cent of the proceeds. But someone beats him to it – and it wasn’t Jacques ….
The Case of the Mirror of Portugal was the second Dorrington tale adapted for the series. It, along with Arthur Morrison’s other Dorrington stories, can be read here.
There’s some, interesting, French accents in this story. Clearly French actors were thin on the ground, so the Welshman Michael Forrest essays the sort of accent that Inspector Clouseau would have been proud of. It certainly helps to liven up the beginning of the story.
A young Jeremy Irons pops up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him role as a silly young ass (“What larks eh?”). There’s a more substantial part for Paul Eddington later on in the story as Hamer and Ingrid Hafner is also very good as Hamer’s wife, Maria.
It turns out that Hamer stole the diamond and it’s currently in Maria’s possession. Dorrington attempt to force them to hand it over, but she throws it into the Thames, rather than give it to Dorrington. If she can’t have it, then she’d sooner that nobody did.
As might be expected, this doesn’t please Dorrington, but he quickly recovers his equanimity. And after Jacques and Leon visit his office and tell him they’ve decided to join forces to recover the diamond, he’s happy to tell them exactly where it is (once they’ve paid him eighty guineas for the privilege, of course).
“At the bottom of the Thames. Approximately in the middle, I’d say, where the steps lead down to the towpath at Richmond lock. How do you get it back? Well, you could buy a boat and try fishing for it. But if that doesn’t appeal, you could wait for some future age until the bed of the Thames is rediscovered as a diamond field, I suppose”
As with The Affair of the Avalanche Bicycle & Tyre Co. Ltd, Dorrington doesn’t get the ultimate prize – although he doesn’t come too badly out of it. Peter Vaughan is, once again, smoothly ruthless as Dorrington. Given that he’s a crook and a swindler, you don’t really want to see him finish on top – but Vaughan is just so entertaining in the role and it’s his charisma that drives this (it must be said, fairly slight) story along.
Brian Clemens, one of British television’s most prolific scriptwriters, has died at the age of 83.
Born in Croydon in 1931, he broke into television in the 1950’s and contributed to series such as The Vise,Dial 999, Interpol Calling and H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. During the 1960’s he was a popular writer-for-hire, scripting stories for Danger Man, Ghost Squad, Adam Adamant Lives!, The Baron and The Champions amongst others, but by far his most enduring work during that decade was on The Avengers.
Clemens wrote several scripts during the early years, but it wasn’t until series four (when The Avengers became a film production) that he was to have a major influence on the programme. Brian Clemens and Albert Fennell took over as producers and they turned the series into an international hit. But not everybody approved of the more outlandish style and after the end of the fifth series Clemens and Fennell were unceremoniously fired and former producer John Bryce was invited back.
Diana Rigg (who had starred as Emma Peel during the fourth and fifth series) had also left, so Bryce’s first job was to cast a new Avengers girl. He selected Linda Thorson and the first few stories went into production. But it quickly became clear that things weren’t working, story-wise, so Bryce was sacked and Clemens and Fennell were reinstated. Clemens understandably felt vindicated that the network had to come, cap in hand, to Fennell and himself to sort out the mess!
During the 1970’s Clemens would write film screenplays for Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad whilst his television work would be dominated by three series – Thriller, The New Avengers and The Professionals.
Clemens had originally planned to take something of a backseat with The Professionals after writing the first one, but when he found that some of the other scripts weren’t up to scratch he was forced to write a number of stories himself (eventually contributing 17 stories across the whole run).
In the 1980’s and 1990’s he split his time between the UK and the US. For American television he wrote episodes of Remington Steele, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Father Dowling Mysteries and Perry Mason. In the UK he created Bugs (1995 – 1999) a series that harked back to some of his past successes, whilst CI5 – The New Professionals (1999) was another show that traded on his past – although this wasn’t as successful and only lasted the one series.
Whilst Brian Clemens will undoubtedly be remembered for a number of key series (The Avengers, Thriller, The New Avengers, The Professionals) his work as a script-writer on other series shouldn’t be underestimated. To take just one example, he only contributed a single script for Bergerac (Ninety Per Cent Proof from series three) but it’s a quality story that pushes Jim Bergerac into a very dark place. It’s atypical in many ways (possibly Clemens wasn’t that familiar with the show) but this is a plus point and there’s certainly no indication that Clemens was simply going through the motions. As ever with Clemens, it’s a tense and exciting story.
Clemens’ son Samuel told BBC News that just before his father died he watched an episode of The Avengers and his last words were “I did quite a good job”. Something that I think we can all agree on.
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