Show Notes
Andy & Martin almost meet their match in the 1975 series Quiller. But once they get past the first 10 dreadful minutes of its opening episode they find much to enjoy in this Bond-on-a-budget BBC spy series starring Michael Jayston in the title role.
However, it would be lazy to say Quiller simply knocks off Bond, because Elleston Trevor's Quiller is quite different to 007. He doesn't like guns or gadgets and doesn't let women distract him from the job in hand. It's not a cheap series either. As well as some inevitable stock footage there's heaps of exotic location filming in Germany, Malta and beyond.
Jayston plays Quiller with a cool and appealing detachment. He is joined by Angus Kinloch (Moray Watson) as the Controller of the mysterious Bureau, and Rosalind (Sinead Cusack) who has more agency than most women on TV in 1975. At one point she even threatens to pinch Quiller's bottom!
The series boasts many familiar writers and directors of the time such as Brian Clemens, Peter Graham Scott, Anthony Read, and Viktors Ritelis. Guest stars are aplenty: Patrica Hodge, Shane Rimmer, Celia Gregory, Ed Bishop, and Lalla Ward to name just a few.
Andy & Martin select 5 of the 13 episodes to review in depth and find much to enjoy in this largely forgotten series that they believe deserves to be much better known.
Next Time: Rockliffe's Babies
More from An A to Z of UK Television Drama
[Spoiler alert! This series is almost 50 years old but we will be revealing - around 90 minutes - in who spectacularly dies in the literal cliffhanger to episode 7. You have been warned!]
After a brief hiatus, Andy and Martin resume the second season of A to Z with the letter V. Admittedly cheating a little, their choice was 'Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton', the second of two autobiographical Dennis Potter plays from 1965 in The Wednesday Play strand. They also cover the first play, 'Stand Up, Nigel Barton'. Both feature Keith Barron as the title character who we follow from childhood, to university, to a reluctant attempt to stand as a Labour candidate in the General Election.
Andy and Martin travel back in time to the summer of 1965 and the adventures of HR consultant Drew Heriot and his sister-in-law Anne as they face up to the machinations of 'Undermind’: aliens who have brainwashed British citizens in order to cause national unrest ahead of their imminent invasion. Their various schemes include: spreading pirate radio misinformation; inciting youth violence in a seaside resort; influencing the works of a popular children’s author; the distribution of suicide-inducing birthday records; interference with the printing of exam papers, and most abominably of all, the assassination of Eamonn Andrews! Yes, really.
This month Andy and Martin review the highly regarded 1987 BAFTA-winning Scottish drama Tutti Frutti, written by John Byrne and starring Robbie Coltrane and Emma Thompson.
Twenty-one years after their first recorded interview on the first Survivors DVDs back in 2003, Andy catches up with Carolyn Seymour who played Abby Grant in Survivors.