HE eased his 24 stone weight into a chair. “The fat man will disappear from the earth in the next 30 years,” said Willoughby Goddard.

“I think it’s a certainty, because the doctors are getting far too clever at reducing people’s weight.”

Goddard, one of the great British character actors of TV and films, with a status in Hollywood, too, plays Assistant Police Commissioner Sir Geoffrey Norton in Friday’s The Man in Room 17.

He mopped his brow with a huge red handkerchief. “I’m lighter than I have been for months,” he said. “I was 30st. on Broadway last year.” He played Bumble, the Beadle, in the British musical “Oliver!”

“I had to give the part up. I couldn’t stand another New York summer.” But didn’t New Yorkers flee the city in the humid months? “They do,” he said, taking a mighty draught of lime juice from a tankard, “but the place is swarming with tourists. There is hardly room to stand on the pavements.”

Goddard, well known on TV for his performance as Gessler in William Tell, sheds up to 6st. by going on a “savage diet” every 18 months.

He said: “I punish myself for three months, then eat heartily for the next 15. My life would be miserable if I watched my figure all the time.

“I’ve been lucky, really. I earn a good living from the theatre because I’m enormously fat. It’s the only way that one can cash in on obesity.

“There are plenty of fat extras, of course, but the poor dears can’t act. We are all cast according to our physique, but fat is no use to you unless you can act.

“And even as a fat character actor you are no use until you can play a man of 50. You have to be seething with age and decrepitude. It’s ghastly.

“If you are young and fat you play Billy Bunter, and then there’s nothing else. It takes years to decay sufficiently for an agent to take interest in you.

“I’ve been fortunate in that I entered the theatre in the middle of an era of fat villainy. It started in the early part of the century, and people like myself and Robert Morley have carried it on.

“As long as we’re about, I think fat men will be reasonably fashionable on stage. It’s not a promising future for newcomers, though, because as doctors find new methods of weight reduction there’ll be few fat men about.

“The playwrights will find less work for us to do, and only period parts will be available. That won’t bother me. I shan’t need work by then.”

Goddard, who lives with his wife and six-year-old son in Barnes, Surrey, has played all the classic fat roles, and Falstaff many times.

Without padding? “No,” he said. “The real thing doesn’t look as impressive. Anyway, no fat man should ever be asked to play Falstaff. There’s too much running around.

“Fat men should always play lovers and do nothing but lounge about elegantly. But always the writer sees the fat man as a character who must dash around to make the audience laugh — much to our discomfort.

“That’s the way it is in the theatre today. Fat men run, thin men lounge.”

Would he have done so well in show business if he had not been so fat? “I think so. You’ve got to be able to act as well. I didn’t begin to put on weight until I was 25.”

Did he worry about his weight? “Not any more. I’ve come to terms with myself over the years.

“But if my son shows the slightest sign of obesity, I shall put him on a diet instantly.”

The post Willoughby Goddard sees a THIN future for FAT actors appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WHEN Hugh David and Wendy Williams, the stars of Granada’s Knight Errant Limited, have any free time they climb into their car and point its nose towards Wales — towards the land of their fathers.

In private life they are Mr. and Mrs. David Hughes, but David altered his name to avoid confusion in the world of entertainment with singer David Hughes.

At the Manchester studios, where they were rehearsing for the Thursday adventure series, Hugh told me: “My mother came from North Wales and my father came from the south. I was born in Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire.”

Green-eyed Wendy was born in Surrey, of a Welsh father and an English mother.

“But,” she told me, with pride in her voice, “I went to school in Colwyn Bay in Denbighshire, and I adore Wales. When I hear the anthem The Land of My Fathers it always brings tears to my eyes. My father’s family live in Anglesey and I’ve got hosts of relatives there.

“Hugh’s parents are settled in Cardiff, so it’s natural for us never to think of going anywhere but into Wales when we have time off from the studios.”

“Not always to visit our families,” Hugh added quickly. “Sometimes we go just for the scenery, for the sheer pleasure of driving through the beautiful hills and valleys.”

What is it, I asked them, that makes the Welsh so patriotic?

“Well,” replied Wendy, “I think there is a sense of belonging in all of us.

“People with Celtic blood seem to me to have this feeling more strongly than others. Welsh people seem to be even more patriotic when they are away from home.”

This brought a smile to her husband’s face. “That’s very true,” he said. “I remember a friend telling me about a Welsh stationmaster who was in Manchester a long time ago.

“He wrote beautiful nostalgic poetry about Wales while he was in Manchester, but as soon as he left England and went home he gave up writing.”

Hugh and Wendy first met in Wales. They appeared together in a television play at Cardiff, in February, 1959. A mutual friend, the Welsh actor Clifford Evans, introduced them. They got engaged on St David’s Day last year.

Their marriage service at Surbiton, Surrey, took place only six days before the beginning of the present series of Knight Errant. It was conducted by Hugh’s father, the Rev. J. Williams Hughes, a Baptist minister who was formerly principal of the North Wales Baptist College at Bangor.

I asked Wendy if Welshmen are more romantic than Englishmen. With one of her infectious chuckles she said:

“In my limited experience they are not.

“At least, not in the sense that they shower a girl with flowers and whisper sweet Welsh words in her ear. I didn’t even get a bunch of leeks on St. David’s Day.”

The post Knights errant take to the hills appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

DIRECTOR Chris McMaster was placing chessmen in position on a plan of the set for “The Conspirators,” Thursday’s episode of Knight Errant Limited, when I called to see him at the Manchester Television centre.

“I’m not playing games,” he explained. “I’m just working out some camera moves. These chessmen represent people standing round the bar in a village pub in Ireland.

“And there,” he added, indicating some pencilled squares on the plan spread over his desk, “is the village street. We’re going to have somebody riding down there on a bicycle and a couple of women with shawls and baskets and a donkey to give the place atmosphere. It’s going to be great fun.”

Not so funny, however, for publisher Stephen Drummond (Hugh David) who, with secretary Frances Graham (Wendy Williams), finds himself in an Irish seaside village trying to sort out the ownership of a piece of land and gets involved in some of the local shenanigans.

Chris McMaster is Dublin-born and theatre bred. And this is the first time in the four-and-a-half years he has spent in television that he has worked on a show with an Irish setting.

“We’re going to have a real hooley (that’s Irish for party) with this one,” said 32-year-old Chris, who joined his father’s theatre company in Dublin when he left school at 16.

“To make this as authentic as possible we are using film shot in Ireland,” he added, “and half the cast are Irish, or have a strong Irish connection.”

One is 47-year-old, Omagh-born Patrick McAlinney, who plays barman Sian Kelly. Pat, an actor in Dublin, on Broadway and in London’s West End for the past 25 years, describes Kelly as “a cynical sort of chap, typical of Irish barmen, I suppose.”

Dublin born Harry Hutchinson, who will play publican Joe O’Kelly, has not been home since 1955 when he played in Sean O’Casey’s The Bishops Bonfire, in Dublin

Says Harry, who is 68 and has lived in England for 30 years: “Irish publicans tend to be very friendly, hospitable people. They are well-endowed with the gift of the gab, too, of course.”

The other Irish members of the cast are Michael Golden, Tony Quinn, Howard Lang and Alan Barry.

The post It’s Knight Errant’s move appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

BACK to the television screen next Thursday comes Granada’s Knight Errant Limited, the firm that specialises in solving other people’s problems — and rescuing damsels in distress.

The head of the old firm, Adam Knight, had to rush off to Canada to manage his uncle’s farm after the series ended last June. The new boss is publisher Stephen Drummond, a friend of Adam.

He took over because he thought the project too worthwhile to let die. Helping him are his secretary, Frances Graham, and a member of the “old firm”— “Daily Clarion” reporter Liz Parrish.

Drummond, who, according to the scriptwriters, is 32, intelligent, observant, a ski-ing and Judo enthusiast, is played by actor Hugh David, who is 35.

He matches up well, for, like Drummond, he went to university, took a degree in physics and mathematics and is keenly interested in modern history.

Hugh, his black hair flecked with grey, has the good looks and grooming demanded by the role. He points out that there are other facets of his character which agree with those of the TV hero he will be playing.

He told me: “Ski-ing for instance. Fve been ski-ing on holiday in Austria for about four years. I think I can say I’ve got past the stage where a broken leg is imminent — though I realise it could happen any time. But I don’t fall over so much now, so I suppose I’m progressing.”

Drummond, more interested in people than in books, is the sort of person who wants to help. It was this trait in his character that led him into Knight Errantry.

“That’s me,” said Hugh. “After qualifying as a physicist I worked in industry and did some research on jet engines. But I wanted to work with people rather than machines.

“In 1946 I became a teacher. I enjoyed that very much, but gave it up after two years. I felt there was too much restriction on the individual approach to the task.”

Three years at drama school in London resulted in Hugh winning a gold medal. That was in 1951 and, after a year in repertory at Whitby, he joined the Old Vic in London for three months, then went to Bristol.

Since 1952 he has made countless TV appearances — “playing parts ranging from a Borstal boy to Lord Nelson” — and has scripted schools programmes for television and radio.

His experience of helping people? It was his wife, actress Wendy Williams, who answered that question. Wendy plays the part of Frances Graham, Drummond’s secretary, She said: “He’s a smoother-out of trouble for everybody. People are always coming to him with problems.

“He has a sympathetic approach which makes them want to confide in him.”

But when Wendy and Hugh first met, nearly two years ago, it was Wendy who did the smoothing out! She explained: “We were working together in a TV play and Hugh was playing a love-sick 18-year-old boy. I played the part of his brother’s fiancee, who helps him to come to terms with his problem.”

What sort of girl is Frances Graham? The official description goes like this: Aged 26, gay, vital impulsive, very feminine, has violent enthusiasms which don’t last long.

She looked thoughtful, then said: “Well, I’m 25 and the rest of the description isn’t so far out, either!

“I’m impulsive — most women are, it’s a more feminine characteristic than masculine — and I can’t bear insincerity or incompetence. I’m the sort who must have things right. If they’re not, I want to know why.

“I like to have good things about me — clothes, furniture, food, everything. Enthusiasms? I don’t swing about. If I become enthusiastic about something I usually stay loyal to it.”

Blonde Canadian actress Kay Callard, back in the programme to give a helping hand to the new owner of Knight Errant Limited, married actor-director Jack McNaughton two months ago.

Her role, too, ties in with her own background. Before she became an actress, Kay worked on a small newspaper in Canada as a reporter.

While the show has been off the screen she has been able to spend more time on her hobbies … sculpture, gardening and collecting fine glassware.

Said Kay: “The garden is only the size of a pocket handkerchief, but it had become a little overgrown so we had to chop down the weeds and rescue a grapevine that was being choked.”

The post A new knight for the old firm appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

OF all the things I dabble in, drawing cartoons gives me aa much fun as any — probably because of a knack I have of isolating a person’s most telling characteristic.

Now, in trying to single out a clue to my own character, I cannot do better, I think, than borrow the immortal words “Sometimes I sits and thinks; sometimes I just sits.”

There it is in a nutshell. The fact is I have an inexhaustible capacity for doing nothing. I am lazy about anything that smacks of work. But acting, because it was something I once did for fun, is excluded.

I was a member of three amateur dramatic societies while still at school in Nottingham. Since then, I have never thought of acting as anything but fun.

My family having no theatrical connections, however, (my father was in the decorating business until he started teaching), it never occurred to me to take up acting professionally.

The idea of my doing so came from Leigh Crutchley, then Drama Adviser of Nottingham Council. He started me working for my Royal Academy of Dramatic Art scholarship, giving me unlimited coaching and encouragement.

Until then, my fondness for animals had made it seem more natural for me to try to become a veterinary surgeon. But as Latin did not come naturally to me, I gave that idea up. Figures baffled me, too. Science interested me at school (and astronomy still does) but the maths involved, the theories and principles, have always been a stumbling block.

I am also rather impractical, and the combination of all these drawbacks seemed to rule out all the usual jobs.

I suppose I could have become a photographer — I have always enjoyed getting an unusual picture. The snag was that I knew I should never have the application to master the technicalities, or cope with the routine work.

Once I decided to go on the stage, though, I knew for certain that it was the only job for me — the only one where I could be wholeheartedly happy.

I realise now that long before this I had been unconsciously conditioned to my present way of life. We lived in London until the outbreak of war when my father took up a teaching appointment at the Nottingham School of Arts.

My memories of those early days are a bit disjointed, but it was undoubtedly as a child that I assimilated from my father a great deal that was to give me tremendous satisfaction. For instance, I developed a feeling for texture, and an eye for line and colour.

I like to see good design in common household things like pots and pans, tables and chairs. And — right in character – the line of a motor car means much more to me than what is under the bonnet.

Recently, however, I did paint our old cottage near Stratford-on-Avon. Mind you, it was only my anxiety to see a job finished that kept me at it. Another time I would be only too glad to hand over the interminable business to an expert.

But we would still do the designing ourselves. Thisbe and I (my wife is a Stratford girl and named after Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream) have a lot of fun with colour schemes.

The simple lines of the cottage called for white walls, dark floors and white rugs. Our soft furnishings are in plain, light colours and we like to vary contemporary furniture with what I believe to be the only antique that goes with it – Elizabethan.

For ornament I am fond of brass, particularly old telescopes. I have several 18th century ones and they make pleasant decoration. I also use them to look at the stars.

When I was working in London we used the cottage only for occasional weekends. It might happen again but Stratford will remain our permanent home.

We both know Stratford well. Thisbe was brought up here — her father was born in the adjoining cottage — and as a schoolboy I often visited the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. Then after leaving the Academy I joined the company, and the three years I was there cemented my liking for Warwickshire — the heart of England. From Stratford I returned to Nottingham — this time as a professional actor in the repertory company. In 1955 I went to London, and later to Moscow, with Peter Brook’s production of Hamlet. I had already toured Australasia with the Stratford company.

After this came two plays in London — with our marriage sandwiched between them. One of these, No Time For Sergeants, ran for 18 months.

It was then that I did a lot of drawing. Flatteringly, people sometimes ask why I never try to sell my drawings. But, even if I thought there was a market for them, I should never have the necessary drive and ambition.

With music it is the same. I wish I played some instrument, but I know I would never practise. Oh, I tinkle away at the piano sometimes, but nothing much comes out. So I have to get my music — jazz preferably — from the gramophone.

But to make a professional job of anything one’s heart must be in it, and acting is the only thing that really counts with me — the one really constant and absorbing interest.

The post Self portrait appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

LEARNING to drive a motor car can be a nerve-shattering experience in itself but, when Richard Carpenter takes to the road with L plates, he finds he has an additional hazard to overcome.

Hazard? “Yes,” says 28-year-old Richard. “I keep hearing the Voice of Conscience. But it sounds so much like part I play of Peter Parker, Adam Knight’s assistant in Knight Errant ’60, that I could swear he’s sitting in the back seat, chunky grey sweater and all.”

Or perhaps it is just that Richard, who for six days a week is Peter Parker as he rehearses for the show at the Manchester studios, finds it difficult to forget him … Anyway I went along with Richard on one of his driving lessons to get the whole story.

As he drives away from the motoring school, he explains: “I start off brimful of confidence. But by the time I’ve turned a couple of corners and made three or four gear changes it happens.”

It? As he pulls up to allow a pretty redhead right of way on a pedestrian crossing, Richard gives a demonstration. He bawls: “Keep to the left, man! You’ll get us all killed!” And explains this is what nosey-Parker conscience says.

There is an immediate but unexpected reaction.

The redhead stops. Obviously she has heard. She stares. Obviously she is scared. She rushes on. Obviously thinking she is lucky to get away.

“See what I mean?” says Richard, looking unhappy and jerking his head in the direction of the fleeing female. “She thinks I’m a nut case. And when I’m out driving I almost convince myself.”

But there is nothing crazy about Richard when he is off duty at his flat in Hampstead, London where he lives with his actress wife Annabelle Lee.

He admits he is a handyman around the flat and enjoys painting, decorating and assembling electrical gadgets.

His collection of jazz records ranges from the early discs of King Oliver and Louis Armstrong to the latest issues of Duke Ellington. On the serious side, he likes Bach and Vaughan Williams.

There are some interesting sounds coming from the gear box as Richard juggles with the lever and returns to the subject of Peter Parker.

“It’s difficult coping with the gears when you’ve got a pest like Parker nagging at you. The trouble with him is that he knows all there is to know about the theory of driving a car, but put him behind the wheel and he would probably go speed mad or something.”

Richard glances out of the window. It is a sympathetic glance. An L driver has stalled his engine at the traffic lights and is being driven to distraction by the blast of hooters from other cars.

There is a thoughtful look in Richard’s eyes as he turns and says: “Hear that? Parker would be one of those people who are making all the noise. He regards car ownership purely and simply as a means of getting quickly from one place to another.

“My interest goes further. When I’ve passed my test — if I ever do with Parker breathing down my neck — I shall use every spare moment to drive out into the country to explore.”

Richard is particularly interested in architecture, and likes to visit churches and old buildings.

He was a painter in oils before he turned to acting, went into repertory at Chiswick, Dundee and Chesterfield, and toured the Middle East with the Old Vic. Now, he paints a word picture of the failings of Peter Parker…

“His head is like a junk shop of knowledge that needs sorting out. Each new thing he becomes interested in absorbs him completely for a time. For instance, he was writing a book on ‘What’s Wrong With Britain Today.’

“What happened? Why, it petered out, of course. Now he’s engaged on ‘An Analysis of Human Behaviour’.”

And Richard Carpenter, the motorist, gets tangled up in it?

“I don’t know about that,” says Richard as we pull up outside the driving school. “But I do know this: Parker gets tangled up in my motoring — and it’s driving me round the bend!”

The post The back seat voice of conscience appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WHEN I met John Turner at the studios he had just finished an episode of Granada’s Knight Errant ’60, the series in which he plays Adam Knight, champion of the wronged.

“How does it feel to be a modern St George?” I asked.

I expected his eyes to shine with fervour. They did not.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “but I believe it’s not a bit of use dashing to the rescue of the modern maiden in distress. For instance, if you give up your seat in a bus to a woman, the odds are that she will refuse it. You insist. She still declines. And before you know what is happening, some unscrupulous male slips into the seat.”

A good talking point. Before I could reply, we were joined by Richard Carpenter, who plays John’s assistant, Peter Parker, and Kay Callard, Liz Parrish in the series.

Said Richard, taking up the theme: “Chivalry has been dead for years. Old women tend to expect it, probably a cause they were brought up during a period when life was more leisurely and there was more time for gallantry.”

Kay decided it was time to put a woman’s point of view.

She said: “Surely, the original meaning of chivalry, if you forget the romanticism of the writers, was the strong and idealistic individual fighting the battles of the weak and oppressed and rescuing the unfortunate and wrongly persecuted?”

“But the knights of old were men who went about the country simply looking for trouble,” said John. “They fought for milady’s honour just for the sake of fighting.”

Richard backed him up. “If you tried to do that now you would find yourself in jail. Really, the knights have been replaced by the police.”

Kay agreed that there were fewer damsels in distress. But she still thought there was a lot to be said for the old-fashioned male. “He treated women as the weaker sex and was much more thoughtful than the young man of today,” she said.

John wasn’t going to let her get away with that. “That’s just a lot of nonsense!” he said as he went into the attack.

“The modern young man is every bit as thoughtful as those in the days of old. Women are always the same. They expect chivalry and then demand equality.”

Kay countered with: “Why not? There are still parcels to carry, doors to open and chairs to set to the table. Aren’t men gallant enough for these courtesies?”

Said Richard: “These courtesies, as you put it, Kay, are just basic good manners not chivalry.”

But Kay was not going to be put off. “According to my dictionary the modern definition of chivalry is ‘Gallantry of spirit, bravery and courtesy.’ Men can be chivalrous by being courteous. Aren’t you courteous at home?”

Richard retorted; “If my wife is working, I do the housework. If I’m working she does it. But let’s get back to Knight Errant ’60. We’ve done a lot in the name of chivalry in this series, John. What would you say are the modern dragons?”

John thought hard, then said: “The physical dragons are people like the blackmailers, confidence tricksters and thieves from whom we’ve rescued Sally Smith, Shirley Laurence, Carol Wolveridge and Marianne Benet in the programme. But some of the dragons were in our own minds. Or they were disguised.”

The mention of disguise appealed to the Peter Parker in Richard. He suggested that Moira Redmond, who appeared in the Mediterranean cruise episode, was an example of the dragon in disguise.

“Do you mind,” said Kay, “if I come I back into this discussion? What it amounts to is that there are still just causes to be fought, if not by knights in armour then by scientists and politicians.”

John agreed, with the reservation that there were still many dragons at large in the community, perhaps not so important, but which ought nevertheless to be put to the sword. “For instance, overbearing matrons who charge to the front of the queue at the shops,” he said. “What is a mere man do?”

Kay sympathised. “Put it down to bad manner. I‘m ashamed of my own sex I when I see things like that.”

“Good for you, Kay,” said Richard.

John was more cautious. “Not so fast,” he said. “What Kay would like to see is every man falling over himself to dance attendance. Call it the Continental touch if you like, but really, it’s just a paradeof little tricks and flattering phrases.”

“Continental men tend to put women on a pedestal more than Englishmen do,” replied Kay. “And that makes a woman feel good. But I wouldn’t say women are fooled by it.”

It was time, thought Richard, to call a halt. “How about coming down off that pedestal you’ve just been talking about? Then we can all go for a drink.”

Said Kay: “Good idea. And if I may I say so, very chivalrous of you gentlemen.”

The post Says Knight Errant ’60 – there are still dragons to slay appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A COUPLE of super-intelligent master sleuths are caught up in a web of international espionage, violence and corruption in The Man in Room 17 which starts on Friday.

The series runs the gamut between comedy thriller and pure adventure. “What it definitely is not,” director-producer Dick Everitt told me. “is neurotic or kinky.”

“The Man” is an immodest ex-Oxford type with a superior IQ whose mind is trained to devour information like a computer. He rose to eminence during the planning of the Allied invasion of Europe on D-Day. His name is Oldenshaw.

His partner — a man in his forties — is Dimmock. Dimmock is more direct — Oldenshaw’s red-brick equal. Together they pull the strings which make the undercover world dance.

Answerable only to the Prime Minister, they use their power ruthlessly and are generally accepted as infallible in the held.

Room 17, situated somewhere in Whitehall, is the secret centre of operations for the Department of Special Research. Oldenshaw and Dimmock handle cases which have baffled the security services.

Each case is treated by Oldenshaw as an intellectual problem. It is purely mental deduction that allows the two men to reach their conclusions. But they can also call on a legion of friends on the “old boy” network.

Richard Vernon, who plays the bearded Oldenshaw, told me: “We’re a couple of sparkling English amateurs. Our reasoning powers are almost limitless, and our knowledge is like two halves of a vast reference library ”

Dimmock is played by Michael Aldridge, and another regular in the series will be Willoughby Goddard, as Assistant Commissioner Sir Geoffrey Norton.

Because Oldenshaw and Dimmock are never seen outside Room 17, the series has been made using a split drama technique. One team of actors, writers, directors and designers produced the stories outside the Room, and a second team produced the scenes inside it.

Dick Everitt said: “There arc two distinct ingredients in the series — Room 17 and the world outside. Therefore, the mood has to be different.

“The most effective way to sharpen the contrast between the two was to separate them. The Room is fantasy. It is the remote, analytical centre of operations which exerts its influence on the outside world.

“The action takes place out side the Room, but I think viewers will come to relish the humour in Room 17 as much as the colour outside.

“Men like Oldenshaw and Dimmoek could not exist in real life, but the outside scenes certainly could.”

The post Spy-catching by remote control appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A SERIES of six one-hour plays, each with savage undertones and a bitter twist in its sardonic tale, starts on Friday under the over-all title Six Shades of Black.

The plays are based on an intriguing new drama technique exploited by author-producer Peter Wildeblood. The hero of one play will be the villain of the next.

You will see the character’s good and bad sides and be able to draw your own conclusions on which is the dominant side of their personality.

The first play, “The Good Woman of Chester Square,” at 9.40 on Friday, shows social reform worker Lady Masterman (played by Pamela Brown), being toppled from her public pedestal.

Lady Masterman, a parliamentary beauty, is celebrated for her humanitarian principles. A leading Queen’s Counsel, she refused to become a judge because of her opposition to capital punishment.

But young reporter B. J. Skipwith (played by Barry Warren), thinks her reputation is too good to be true.

You’ll have to wait until next week to see Wildeblood’s new drama technique at work. Then it will be the reporter’s turn to face moral disapproval.

In Friday’s play, Thorley Walters plays Lionel Sparrow, an ex-prisoner looking for a job, and Fredric Abbott plays Swithin, Lady Masterman’s chauffeur, who holds the key to this week’s intrigue.

The post Drama break-through appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IT was a moment that few but the brave would have relished. I was face to face with that impregnable fortress of the law, Chief Inspector Rose, in his own den.

“Why,” I began boldly, “are you such a swine to your subordinates?”

Expecting something like the lash of a kid glove across my cheek, I stepped back a pace. I needn’t have bothered.

The Rose mirage faded quickly and I was left with the actor. Jolly, home loving, family man William Mervyn.

Only similarity between William and the iceberg-cool Rose he portrays so majestically in Friday’s new series of the twilight thriller, It’s Dark Outside, is his careful attention to dress.

“Don’t be too hard on Rose,” he said. “He’s really quite an amiable fellow when you get to know him.

“People are always telling me to take it easy on those poor old sergeants of mine, but Rose niggles with a purpose — to draw people out.

“You have to needle some folk to find out what they’re really like. With policemen, you’ve got to see if they can take it.

“Rose is a pompous old thing, but he’s not a fool. He’s impeccably honest and on top of his job. His verbal duels are really for sharpening the wits.”

Well, Rose may not be the ogre we suspected, but he’s parted company with Sgt. Swift.

In the new series we find him searching for a new assistant and he has earmarked Det. Sgt. James McKenzie Hunter, played by 29 year old Anthony Ainley, a newcomer to television.

Will he get his man? Well, he doesn’t get off to the best of starts, because Hunter, a sort of wild colonial boy from Kenya, detests Rose and his pomposity.

New female lead in the series is Veronica Strong, a bubbling, vivacious redhead, who plays Claire Martin, a 24-year-old fabric designer.

Claire is engaged to Sgt. Hunter, but has a weakness for lame dogs like Fred Blanc (played by John Stratton), a hard-drinking, wild-living newspaper reporter.

Veronica, who started in rep 10 years ago at the age of 16, sees Claire Martin as a very “with it” bachelor girl, rather like her own life, I gathered.

She comes from Brighton, has a flat in London, drives a mini, but would love a big Bentley. Veronica has a passion for classical music and spends most of her money on records and going to concerts.

The post Rose blooms when it’s dark outside! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A new ITV play series starts on Friday under the title It’s a Woman’s World — stories about women of different ages from teens to old age. But is it really a woman’s world we live in today? We asked the 54-year-old Earl of Arran a newspaper director and journalist, known to his Fleet Street friends as “Boofy.” Here, Lord Arran, who is in The Celebrity Game on Friday, explains why he answered “Yes”

OF course it’s a woman’s world. Here, like everywhere else, the plain truth is that women can get on without men. Men can’t get on without women.

It has nothing to do with sex or romantic love, or any of that nonsense. It is just that men are, by nature, dependent; women are independent. A man without a woman is a pitiful creature.

I am not talking, of course, about young men. The high-spirited young bachelor is the happiest thing on earth.

But later on in life, every man needs a companion. Someone to lean on and be nice to him.

And, oh, the sadness and loneliness of the widower! I know many merry widows, but I have never yet known a man who was not utterly lost when his wife died.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that in a marriage the man does not usually and rightly play the dominant role.

But though the husband is, or should be, the boss, he is always desperately dependent upon his wife. He gets fidgety if she isn’t around. I feel utterly lost without my wife. Women can make do quite well on their own.

Of course, I am speaking about happy marriages — and four out of five in this country are still happy marriages.

In unhappy marriages the man goes to the pub or the club, or becomes a politician. But even being in high political office doesn’t make up for the loss of a happy home.

In England we men successfully disguise the fact that we are run by women. The American men, however, who exaggerate everything, openly and ostentatiously flaunt their subservience to their wives. Theirs is an odious matriarchy.

Indeed, their only “freedom” is once a year to go to a business “convention” and commit adultery just to show they’ve got it in them.

I do not myself complain that this is a woman’s world.

Man is the racehorse; woman the cart-horse. She is the brood mare. She don’t think much, but she pulls her weight. She is reliable. I am sure that we are safe in her hands.

The post Yes, it’s a woman’s world… and I’m not complaining appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

ROUGH, tough Northern realism returns to Granada screens on Friday night with the start of the second series of The Villains. Authentic situations, accurately reported dialogue, and minutely detailed character studies of the criminal elements of Northern society were the factors which made the first series such a success a few months ago.

And they are the ingredients which producer Harrv Kershaw intends to maintain this time. The tone is set with this week’s story.

Much of the action of “Big Fleas Have Little Fleas” takes place in a factory work-room. So to capture the right atmosphere, five girl “workers” in the cast spent an afternoon in a garment factory in Salford with studio floor manager John Tiffin.

“The girls were machinists,” he explained. “We went along primarily to watch the workers at their job, and see how well we could copy their methods.

“The factory workers were so interested in us that they stayed behind — without pay — to make sure we got everything right.”

Friday’s story is about Cyril Battersby (Richard Butler), a small time operator and boss of See Bee Garments in Cheetham Hill, Manchester’s clothing mecca. He turns out a garment which catches the eye of a multiple store. He takes on a big overdraft, expands his business, and everything looks rosy until he finds himself in difficulties.

Harry Kershaw and his team will continue their policy of realism in later episodes. They will visit bars, greyhound tracks and dance halls in the North to get background for a story of a young boy whose father is cruelly assaulted in a robbery, and the uneasv romance of a young shop girl and a crook.

He said of the series: “We are sticking to our policy of localising stories in the North and its cities. If it is Deansgate, in Manchester, or Leeds, then we use these names and locations. We don’t invent place names.

“Our stories will be slanted towards criminal lives rather than crimes. We are, in fact, interested in that part of a criminal’s day when he isn’t engaged in his particular profession.”

There is a major breakthrough in TV series production in two later episodes. Both are being produced on location.

One, the story of a boy on the run from the Army, is being shot at a farm high up in the Pennines. The other will be produced on a caravan site and in disused copper mines at Alderley Edge, Cheshire.

“It is impossible to tell some stories in the studio because they are so closely bound up with a location,” Kershaw said “These episodes were written and developed after we had found a suitable spot.”

The post Proper villains! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

LIFE was so uncomplicated for Ken Nixon and his family. His bread-and-butter was pig-iron and copper.

His address was anywhere along the silver necklace of waterways between Liverpool and London.

His only major headache was fishing the kids out of the water whenever they went overboard.

Uncomplicated.

Until a certain Spring afternoon when the sun was shining with surprising warmth, and the wind was corrugating the chocolate brown surface of the water at Weston Point Docks, at Runcorn, Cheshire

And Granada’s Travelling Eye unit moved in and took over his life for a week!

Friday’s episode of The Villains tells the story of two bargees smuggling contraband from Runcorn to London.

In the process it provides a tender and tragic glimpse of a section of the community with an attitude of mind as anachronistic as the horseless carriage — the fraternity of Britain’s waterways.

Authenticity and realism are the twin – keynotes of the series. And to obtain these, producer Harry Kershaw moved both cast and production unit down to the Cheshire waterways, lock, stock and barrel to prepare a large slice of the show on location. Which was were Ken came in.

The producer needed two real working barges. And the know-how to handle them.

Ken Nixon, a 31-year-old bargee who has been working the waterways since he was ten years old, was in a position to supply both. So he was seconded to the Outside Broadcast unit by the British Waterways Board as a sort of temporary “technical adviser.”

He turned out to be a lot more than that — particularly to the actors.

Jack Smethurst and Derek Benfield, who play the bargee brothers who fall foul of the law, spent days trying to capture his accent.

“It isn’t anything you can localise exactly.” said Jack. “A bargee’s accent seems to be coloured by every county he passes through.’’

But, more important still, Ken was a key to the extraordinary character of the men who drive the narrow boats. Because the long days gliding through the lonely, rippling reaches of Britain’s canals seem to produce an attitude to life which has never been fully reconciled with the world of television, the telephone and the washing machine.

Ken Nixon and his wife have three small children — but live in a tiny cabin that would make a gypsy’s caravan seem spacious.

His philosophical delight in Britain’s languid water highways is something he inherited from his parents, who were bargees before him

“You leave it, and you come back to it,” he said quietly, manoeuvring boats into position for next scene. “Once it gets in your blood, you just can’t get rid of it. It’s such a free life.”

For this particular barge family, however, it is an idyll that can’t last forever.

The children are approaching school age. “I could send them to the Waterways boarding school at Birmingham,” said Ken. “But we’d miss them being away for all those months between holidays.

“So I suppose eventually I’ll have to give up the barges and find myself some kind of a job ashore.

“Mind you, I want a job driving a lorry or something. You get used to moving around. And like I said, you always come back to the waterways in the end.”

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Few monarchs enjoy as much affection and respect as our own Queen Elizabeth. A century ago Victoria, the subject of the Friday night series, Victoria Regina, was Queen. Here

A. S. A. BRIGGS [sic]

Professor of History and Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Sussex, shows that life was very different for Victoria

THE morning of December 14, 1861. The Queen, in her dressing-gown, entered Windsor Castle’s gloomy sickroom and approached a damp bed. The castle clock struck a quarter to eleven. And the Queen screamed: “This is Death — I know it!”

On the bed lay the body of her husband. Albert, Prince Consort of Britain. The imperious Victoria was a widow at the age of 42. For the next 40 years, until her death in 1901, she was to rule alone.

“It seemed as though grief would kill her then,” recalled Mrs. Macdonald, a faithful servant, who was at Victoria’s side soon after the death-bed scene. “When the Queen did cry, she cried for days. It was heart-breaking to hear her.”

The public had mocked Albert while he lived: now it, too, mourned the little German. The tide of anti-royalist literature and songs (which had dubbed him “Lovely Albert” and promised to “send him home and make him groan”) was temporarily stemmed.

But not for long — and the obstinate Victoria had only her self to blame when the acid pens were taken up again. The private widow had public duties which she ignored; she was petulant and arrogantly disregarded criticism of herself and the Royal Family.

Londoners rarely saw their Queen. She spent most of her time at Osborne House (“Albert’s own creation” on the Isle of Wight), Balmoral and Windsor, carelessly inconveniencing ministers who wanted to consult her. “Victoria could do everything she liked and nothing she didn’t,” remarked Lord Clarendon.

The Press and Public reacted against her isolation. Delane, Editor of The Times, used one of the oldest tricks in the journalists’ notebook, announcing as fact what he hoped to accomplish with his story. He wrote, hopefully, that the Queen’s seclusion was coming to an end.

It didn’t. She simply spent part of it writing an indignant letter to the paper, perhaps the only letter a reigning sovereign has ever sent to the Press. She did not sign it, but the style was unmistakable.

Equally unmistakable was the style of a Punch cartoon which followed Delane’s campaign and Victoria’s rebuke. Published in September, 1865, it took up a full page. Britannia was featured unveiling a statue of Victoria, and pleading “Tis time! Descend: be stone no more!”

Crude anti-royalist tracts rolled off crude presses. Virulent attacks of the 1860’s make present-day satire and political invective seem like back-patting and hot air. Pamphleteers and cartoonists drew no line between the monarch’s public and private life.

“What Does She Do With It?” asked a famous paperback, demanding a breakdown of the Royal household budget. It warned her that “all the spirit of the English constitution is opposed to the possession of a great private fortune by the holder of the throne.”

The radicals, as Labouchere wrote later, were essentially practical. “They do not approve of the fuss and feathers of a court, and they regard its ceremonies with scant respect, for they are inclined to think that they conduce to a servile spirit, which is degrading to humanity.”

The scandal-mongers seized on anything and everything to malign Victoria. They found an irresistible issue in her relationship with John Brown, a Scots ghillie whom Albert had introduced to Balmoral as a pony-leader.

Her close companions thought she believed the red-bearded highlander had a mystic bond with Albert’s spirit. Some said the Queen was a spiritualist and John Brown acted as her medium. It was clear from his first months at Osborne House that he had a very special relationship with the normally unapproachable Queen.

Rumours spread. For a time the relationship between the Queen and her kilted courtier was more openly talked about abroad than in Britain. (Very much as they were when Victoria’s great grandson, Edward VIII, met the attractive American, Mrs. Wallis Simpson.) An American writer spoke of “gross stories” told at a dinner when he was visiting England.

“At a table where all the company were gentlemen by rank or position, there were constant references to and jokes about ‘Mrs. Brown’ … I lost the point of all the witty sayings, and should have remained in blissful ignorance had not my host kindly informed me that ‘Mrs. Brown’ was an English synonym for the Queen.”

The Continent was insatiably curious. (Even in those days people there were excessively interested in the goings on at Windsor and other royal haunts.) Cyphered despatches went abroad from London embassies to the dismay of foreign royalty.

Punch printed the following “Court Circular,” datelined Balmoral: “Mr. John Brown walked on the slopes. He subsequently partook of a haggis. In the evening Mr. John Brown was pleased to listen to a bagpipe. Mr. John Brown retired early.”

Nasty, but mild compared with what was to follow. The Queen and Brown were reported to have rowed over the Punch spoof. One version of the tale said she sacked him: another, that he dismissed her.

The trouble dragged on. Historians today convincingly deny that Victoria and Brown were lovers. There is no evidence to support the theory that she secretly married the ghillie. But there was certainly cause for concern among loyal officials that the relationship was socially and politically damaging.

Then, suddenly, in March, 1883, John Brown died at the age of 56. No one dared to tell the Queen, until her son, Prince Leopold, plucked up courage. The Queen cried.

She compared the shock to that which she had suffered in 1861 and she determined once more to live on her memories. Brown left her no great house, but she did have his personal diary. She proposed to publish it with a biography that she had written herself. But the truth never appeared. After much persuasion, she gave the manuscript to Henry Ponsonby (her private secretary, who later died of overwork) and he burned it.

And it was the end of the major attacks on Victoria. The republicans — there were never very many of them — continued sporadically to attack the throne. But their grounds were political, unsensational when compared to the violent personal vendettas carried on by the scandal-mongers.

The Elgin Courant described Brown as “a Highland ghillie, who has achieved a practical realisation of his compatriots’ wish for a Loch Lomond of whisky,” but they said “Brown’s fall has been more commonly ascribed to Mr. Punch than to any shortcomings of his own.”

The magazine Tomahawk pursued the scandal relentlessly, suggestive innuendo turned vicious and Victoria’s reputation reached its lowest ebb.

The first issue carried a cartoon based on Sir Edward Landseer’s famous painting of the Queen on horseback, with Brown at the bridle. His mistress’s widow’s weeds were emphasised, and the caption below said, “All is black which is not Brown!”

Then came “Where is Britannia?” a cruel caricature. It reviewed an empty throne with royal robes thrown across it. In a corner, under a domed glass cover, lay the neglected crown. The next cartoon took the theme a stage further. It was the most daring and ferocious anti-royalist cartoon Britain had teen.

Lolling against the empty throne was a coarse-faced, arrogant Scot in a kilt. His arm obscured the treasured crown — and he was sneering down at the British lion. It was a skilful porrait of John Brown.

If such an insult appeared in the Press today, M.P.s would want to know why. Victoria’s ministers and members of her Parliament were silent.

Victoria grew into old age and the affection of her people. Skilful stage managing by the artful Disraeli raised her above all previous monarchs. But few, as she no doubt remembered, had ever been subjected to comparable abuse.

The post Victoria, the stubborn Queen appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WHAT kind of dramatic entertainment would you have seen on your screens if you had lived in Victorian times — and there had been television in those days?

Viewers will have a chance to find out next Friday at 9.15 p.m. when the first play in a new series of eight under the overall title of The Victorians will be televised by Granada.

Produced by Philip Mackie and performed by the Company of Seven, a group specially formed for the series, these dramas set out to present slices of real nineteenth-century life.

“Certainly there have been Victorian plays before on television,” said Philip Mackie, “but the difference here is that we are not sending up’, or guying the plays. These are going to be played absolutely ‘straight’ — just as they were when they were first shown to Victorian audiences.

“They show a vigorous, bustling, money-making society. Every theme is seen in relation to money. The old aristocracy is seen trying to hold on to its own and beat off the middle-classes who are more and more coming to represent the image of England.

“Each play is representative of its decade — starting with the 183O’s and ending with the 1880’s. As the series progresses, the plays become more populated by merchants, lawyers, bill-brokers, crooked company promoters and self-made men.”

Why use members of the Company of Seven to perform the whole series, rather than a group of different actors for each play?

Is there not a danger that the atmosphere of authenticity Philip Mackie wants to create will be destroyed when viewers see the man who has played the villain one week, play the hero the next?

“I don’t think so,” said Mackie. “By reproducing the conditions in which the plays were first shown, it should be possible to achieve the atmosphere. After all, these plays were mostly performed by repertory companies. This is just transferring the idea to a new medium — television.

“I believe, too, that by giving the actors a chance regularly to play different parts, it becomes a challenge to their versatility and increases their performance. And I think the audiences will find the idea stimulating — trying to identify the players in their different parts.”

The Company of Seven consists of five men, Michael Barrington, Geoffrey Bayldon, Barrie Ingham, Charles Kay and John Wood, and two women, Patricia Garwood and Ingrid Hafner.

“The Rent Day,” the first play in the series, is set in the English countryside in the 1830’s and, like all Victorian plays, has a strong and complicated plot. Action and clear characterisation were the first demands in the theatre in those days.

The play opens with Crumbs (Geoffrey Bayldon), the rascally steward for an absentee landlord, extracting rents from the tenants, and centres round the struggles of a farmer, Martin Heywood (Charles Kay), whose crops have been ruined, to raise enough money to avoid eviction.

The 183O’s, of course, was one of the most exciting periods in English history. England was a little like the Wild West when first opened up, in that it was a bustling, frontier-like age full of action, squalor and movement.

The post A night at the theatre – with The Victorians appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THORA HIRD cocked her head to one side, and registered profound alarm, as she exclaimed: “I just didn’t know what I was letting myself in for, you know, when I got mixed up with this lot.”

“This lot” referred to Friday’s edition of The Verdict Is Yours, the preparations for which were in their final stage when I arrived at the studios.

Thora plays Rose Denbigh, a Lancastrian licensee, who gives evidence for the prosecution in a dispute between two Irishmen about the mysterious blowing up of a greenhouse.

Although she was enjoying the new theatrical experience of acting without lines, Thora was finding the whole process distinctly unnerving.

“Not that I can blame anyone but myself,” said Thora, keeping an eye open for her counsel, Jack May. “There I was, in front of my television set Friday after Friday, an ardent fan of The Verdict Is Yours, wondering how it was done, and thinking that I wouldn’t mind having a shot at it myself.

“Then a letter dropped through the letter-box inviting me to be in it! And I jumped at the chance — if it was only to satisfy myself that I could do it.”

If Thora can’t do it, it won’t be for the want of acting experience for she has spent a lifetime in the theatre.

“I started, in fact, when I was 10 weeks old,” she explained, shooting information at me as only Thora Hird can.

“My mother and father worked with a travelling company.

“Money was so tight that the company couldn’t even afford a dummy-baby. And as I was the size and shape for the job, they used me instead. And I loved every minute of it. I mean, I must have done, mustn’t I? I’ve been doing it ever since!”

Thora will be 50 on her next birthday. The mother of film star Janette Scott, she and her husband Jimmy Scott live in a cottage in Surrey. She has appeared in more than 80 films, but won’t be lured into trying to count her appearances on stage and television.

“But I’ve never encountered anything like this before,” said Thora, cutting back resolutely to her course. “I mean, I knew it was unscripted, and that you had to become the character you were portraying when you were in the witness-box. But I never realised how much preparation went into it until now.”

The preparations started for Thora with a brief resume of Rose Denbigh’s character prepared by the man who devised the case.

“I studied it, worked out how Rose would react to given situations, how she would talk, the sort of gestures she would be likely to make,” said Thora. “That wasn’t so bad. That’s the usual process with a part. But when I got to the studios the pressure really started.

“I’ve since spent hours talking about Rose, talking like Rose, and acting like Rose, with the producer of the show. I’ve spent more time talking to counsel Jack May about how the case is going to be handled, and the sort of questions he’s going to ask. So much so that I’m getting to the stage where I don’t know where Thora starts and Rose finishes.”

Thora has found that although the programme’s principal aim is entertainment, it is no game to the people participating.

“I’ve already found myself getting worked up, and becoming involved in fierce arguments — and we are not even in court yet,” she said. “And it’s no game to the barristers, either, you know. It’s a real battle of wits between them, just as it would be in a proper court.”

The security which surrounds each programme in the days of preparation also surprises Thora.

“We aren’t allowed to talk to witnesses for the defence, you know,” she said. “We aren’t allowed to discuss the case with anyone beforehand. It’s not easy, if you have friends in the opposition cast that you haven’t seen for months, and might never see again for months.

“As a matter of fact,” she added, giving me a quizzical look, “I’m not sure that I should be talking to you!”

So as Jack May was heading in our direction, I made a discreet exit.

The post Thora Hird gives HER verdict appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

YOU can’t always boil it down to imagination, nerves, or even indigestion!…

And people who have once had a sensation of the supernatural say they can never forget it — whether it is a premonition of future events, a hallucination, or that sense of having lived through a situation before.

Many viewers will give second thoughts to such experiences as a result of Granada’s Wednesday One Step Beyond, which dramatises outstanding and bizarre cases of psychic phenomena.

The first episode in this new series follows a young couple driving to their honeymoon hotel. All should be blissful — and is until the bride describes the landscape around the place they will be staying — a landscape she has never seen before.

The bride asks her husband to stop the car at a point overlooking the ocean. Then suddenly she speeds away, marooning her bewildered husband. What was the significance of the girl’s vision?

Another chilling episode tells of a young woman who unaccountably has a preview of the future at a party. She predicts a dangerous train trip for a sceptical guest. But when the guest boards the train his scepticism peels off as he goes one step beyond the realm of human understanding.

To find out if such strange phenomenon really do exist I asked a group of celebrities to tell me any of their real-life experiences which had taken them that extra “step beyond” explainable happenings.

Coronation Street star Pat Phoenix is someone who says she has fairly recent evidence of psychic phenomena. Since she recently moved into a Georgian house in Sale, Cheshire, she has discovered “a rather cosy sort of ghost.”

“I first began hearing a sound as if someone were getting out of bed on the floor above me, at about 10.30 each evening. Then later, when I was alone, I looked through the glass door leading to the hall and saw a small beige-coloured figure with white hair, holding what seemed like a candle.

“At first I thought it was imagination; but it happened again, so I invited some of my more sceptical friends to come and see for themselves.

“Sure enough, around 10.30 they saw her — it seems to be an old lady — crossing the hall to go upstairs carrying either a candle or a bowl of soup. One of my friends rushed out but couldn’t find anything.”

Another star who says she has always been sensitive to the supernatural is 1961 TV Actress of the Year Ruth Dunning.

“I often have premonitions,” she told me, “though not as many as I used to have when I was younger. Sometimes they’re dreams, and at other times its a spur-of-the-moment instinct of something that is going to happen.

“Thank goodness my experiences in this line have all been pleasant. For instance, I knew I was going to marry my husband when I first met him, at a party. And shortly before I received it I had a MOST uncanny premonition that I was going to win my award — though I hardly dared to believe it. And at that time the panel had not even begun to consider the short list.”

Actor Bill (“Snudge”) Fraser tells of perhaps the only case Forces’ history when a billet had to be evacuated because it was listed as ’haunted’.

But this was no Army Game — it actually happened when Bill was a corporal in the Army during the last war.

“We had to spend a time in Bradford,” said Bill, “and six of the men and myself were billeted in a big old empty house. For three nights we couldn’t sleep because of the noise of footsteps, banging, wood-chopping and tapping.

“But although the place was thoroughly searched, they couldn’t find any natural explanation of the noise. So we were moved out and the place was listed as ‘haunted’.”

Newscaster Huw Thomas said he had frequently had that “I’ve-been-here before” feeling.

“I know that many people have this sort of psychic experience,” he said, “but I still find it quite frightening at times.”

Huw is fervently hoping that his premonitions don’t extend to the dream world. He keeps having a dream in which he completely mislays some of his news sheets and has to carry out a frenzied and unsuccessful search on camera — with no one to lend a helping hand!

It wasn’t a dream, but a very vivid form of hallucination, which Bob Monkhouse recalls as his sinister experience. It happened in 1946 when he was working as a cartoon film animator at Cookham, Berkshire.

He and eight other young cartoonists were invited to spend Halloween at an old mansion.

“I was sleeping near the top of the stairs on the first landing,” said Bob, “and most of the others were on the top floor. At about two in the morning I woke up to a most amazing sensation.

“There was an almost blue, electric atmosphere about the room. We found later we’d all had a similar sensation.

“Suddenly, I heard the grandfather clock at the top of the stairs begin to make a noise as though rocking to and fro. The rocking became slower and the movement more ponderous, until finally, after a long pause, I heard it fall over.

“There was a smashing, slithering, sliding and jangling sound as it slipped down the stairs and into the hall, where there was another sound of splintering glass on the wooden parquet floor.

“Everyone in the house had heard it and rushed out to look at the damage.

“But the clock was still standing in its place.”

Of course, Bob couldn’t resist rounding off his psychic experiences with a spinetickling special:

“It was Walpurgis Night.

“I awoke with a jerk — who was sharing rooms with me. Tumbling from my white lips came the story of my dream, in which I saw two head hunters. They were watching Jayne Mansfield make a movie in Africa.

“Ten years later, to the very year, that dream was far from my thoughts as I sidled in through the exit door of my local cinema. There, on the screen was Jayne Mansfield in an African jungle film. And who do you think was in the background? The two head hunters? No, it was Tab Hunter and Ian Hunter.”

Stories of the supernatural have always given rise to a great deal of scepticism. And one man who has a number of doubts about it all is former Fleet Street journalist the Marquess of Donegall.

“I have investigated quite a few stories of the supernatural in my time, and each one turned out to be a fake of some sort.”

Compere-host Hughie Green also has his doubts as to the existence of some so-called psychic phenomena.

“The feeling a person gets that he has done something or been somewhere before is nearly always explained by the fact that the person is tired at that time. Because of this, part of the brain is thinking a step ahead of the other — so that when the thought registers in the other part of his brain, he has what he calls a psychic sensation.”

There are possibly similar explanations for all the other psychic phenomena that surround us. But maybe it’s safer to leave them one step beyond us.

The post Can we really go one step beyond? appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

EDWIN RICHFIELD erupted from the posse of children in his back garden, gracefully sidestepped a rocking-horse, dropped a disdainful-looking doll at my feet and thrust a blonde, blue-eyed charmer into my arms.

“Meet my daughter Belinda,” he said, disentangling himself from the remains of a child’s bow and arrow and leading me towards the house.

Maybe not the most conventional opening gambit, but it broke the ice. In the Friday thriller serial, The Odd Man presented by Granada, 40 year-old Edwin plays Steven Gardiner, theatrical agent with an uncanny knack of getting involved in tricky situations. “But Steve never faced three trickier domestic problems than mine,” said Edwin, relieving me of my blonde burden.

Edwin, married to actress Jan Holden, lives in a big, blue, pebbledashed house in Hampstead, London.

The domestic problems he referred to were their two-year-old twin daughters, Arabella and Belinda, and five-year-old son, Simon.

Jan and Edwin have an Austrian nanny to look after the children.

But the children have a disconcerting habit of dragging their parents into their activities…

When Edwin isn’t working on a part for another play or film, he is usually tapping a typewriter — for he is blessed with twin talents as well as twin daughters.

He writes regular television scripts. In fact, his acting and writing careers have run simultaneously since he was a 12-year-old schoolboy at Andover, Hampshire.

“I read ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ by W. W. Jacqbs, and was so impressed I decided to dramatise it,” he said.

“You can imagine how diabolical it was. But my teachers were very tolerant, and eventually we staged it for the benefit of the school.

“Everything ran fairly smoothly until the climax of the play, when some clot forgot to bring down the curtain.

“The audience were delighted to hear me hissing abuse at the poor chap from the wings. It made the show.

“From that moment. I knew the theatre was for me.”

After leaving school, Edwin worked with various concert parties as an impersonator.

“My family eventually dragged me out of that, but it was wonderful experience,” he explained.

His ability as a mimic still comes in useful, for he is asked to play an incredible variety character parts.

“Two months ago I was an Egyptian courier,” said Edwin. “Before that, an Arab security officer, and going back further, a Dorsetshire farmer. In a previous television series, I played a Spanish pirate chief.” Yet Edwin might never have taken up acting as a career but for the war. After dropping his concert party act, he seemed destined for the civil service.

But the war came and, in 1940, he found himself in the Royal Air Force. For most of his time he served as a wireless operator.

During the war, Edwin had time to think about his future. And when he was demobilised in 1946, he went into repertory.

“I stayed nine months, doing the northern towns, and then sailed down to London, confident that I knew it all,” he said.

“What a rude awakening. I was down to my last 3s. 6d. before I got an understudy role in the West End. Years of bit parts followed.”

At this stage, Edwin’s writing came in useful again. “I managed to keep the wolf from the door by turning out songs and comedy dialogue for revues,” he said. His luck finally changed nine years ago, after he married Jan Holden. Since then, he has made more than 150 television and film appearances.

Today, Edwin still divides his time between acting and writing.

They are useful talents — particularly with three children to coax to sleep.

“They won’t close an eye until I’ve told them a story,” he explained, “and they all sleep in different rooms.

“It’s very wearing, rushing from room to room — telling three different stories.”

The post Odd Man Edwin counts his blessings appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

TO talk to the woman who combines motoring and acting and whose latest part is a “mum” I made a date with Doris Rogers. She switched on the ignition, put the car into first gear, released the handbrake and slid smoothly into the thick Manchester traffic.

“Lady drivers?” she said. “I think there’s a lot of nonsense talked about us. If you get a good woman driver, she’s better than a man. She takes more care.”

She pulled up gently at a zebra crossing to let a bunch of pedestrians across. Two male drivers in front of her hadn’t bothered. Doris lifted an eyebrow in my direction.

“I see what you mean,” I said, feeling that our sex had been let down rather badly.

On Thursday, in Granada’s Family Solicitor she plays a Yorkshire mum, whose daughters get into trouble with the law. With us in the car was one of her “daughters” in the play, Daisy Frisby, played by Diane Aubrey.

Driving is a passion with Doris Rogers. She uses her car extensively for her work and her busy social life.

“I’m thinking of taking the advanced driving test,” she said. “I enter rallies, you know — small ones.”

I posed a delicate question. “How long have I been driving?” she replied. “I shudder to think. I bought my first car in 1936, if that gives you a clue. It cost me £15. It was a magnificent two-seater.

“What bodywork! I used to be sore for weeks after a long drive. It was like trying to pull a bus round corners.

“I loved that car, though, I sold it eventually — for £7 10s.”

Since then Doris has had a succession of cars.

“My favourite car? I liked them all. I had one of the first baby cars in London. The buses used to terrify me. I was convinced they would run right over me. And then, of course, there were the London policemen. One told me he thought I was going to run up his sleeve!”

We passed the Manchester Albert Hall. “See that place?” asked Doris, never taking her eyes off the road.

“I remember being on stage there when I was about nine. Very odd. I was reciting poetry in French. I can’t imagine why. No one understood a word!”

Doris talked about the kind of drivers she hates: “I can’t stand those people who amble along at a snail’s pace, hogging the crown of the the road.

“Not, of course, that I’m a speed hog. I’m far too nervous to drive fast.

“My favourite drivers? Lorry drivers. Those are the real gentlemen of the road.”

The post Doris Rogers is a versatile ‘mum’ appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

I ENJOY the Family Solicitor series very much and think it is fairly authentic. It shows the many and varied sides of a solicitor’s busy practice and the help the public can receive.

The episodes in Family Solicitor illustrate that the solicitor’s main concern is to render service rather than, as is so frequently thought to be the case, to increase his own charges.

Incidentally, I cannot resist saying that the office of “Naylor Freeman and Co” is certainly more opulent than most solicitors can afford.

A solicitor’s life is a hard but pleasant one. I noted that one of the partners in the firm apparently planned to take the afternoon off at short notice, but this is rare in these busy days in most offices in my experience.

The series also gives some idea of the friendly relations existing between colleagues within the same profession and that that in most offices of any size there is nowadays a good deal of specialisation such as in property, commercial or tax work and in court cases, depending on the nature of the practice.

It also demonstrates the care that solicitors lake in working up their cases and looking after their clients’ interests.

I have no doubt that viewers of this programme will learn something useful about the working of the laws of England.

One strong point already made clear to the public who saw these excellent stories was to indicate the danger of signing documents, or taking over businesses or buying houses without first seeking legal advice.

Seeing a solicitor in time often results in considerable financial saving, and it is much easier for a solicitor to keep a client out of trouble than, once in, to get him out of it.

The law affects us all in so many ways in everyday life, but when one thinks about it, one’s first thought is often of a court scene. Trials are a familiar and favourite subject on the television screen, but in real life this is only a small part of a solicitor’s practice. About 90 per cent of the work that lawyers undertake has nothing to do with the courts at all. Litigation is often the last resort.

It is the realisation of this fundamental truth on the part of the producer, director and scriptwriters of Family Solicitor tliat makes the series so fresh and true to life.

The programme tells viewers something of what the 20,000 solicitors — who form nine-tenths of the legal profession of the country and who alone come into direct contact with the public — do and how they help the ordinary man and woman, not only in trouble, but in dealing with the problems and questions of our complex, everyday life.

Family Solicitor is splendidly cast. A. J. Brown, Robert Flemyng, Bernard Horsfall, Geoffrey Palmer and Philip Grout perform difficult roles with understanding, and I am particularly pleased to see a prominent part well played by Mary Kenton as Ann Harvey, the woman partner, for the number of women in the law shows a steady and welcome increase.

The supporting staff combines to create the right atmosphere and to emphasise the personal touch so essential in helping clients.

This is a series which has something good for everybody and Granada are to be congratulated on staging such an entertaining and informative legal feature.

The post Praise from a peer appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

MARY KENTON, who plays Ann Harvey, partner in that august, thorough, much respected and well-established firm of solicitors, Naylor Freeman and Co., is an intelligent, sympathetic woman who fits my image of a solicitor much more than that of an actress.

But the truth is that Mary is a professional artist. She loves and lives acting, and is as serious about her profession as any woman lawyer.

After a few minutes talking to her in her North London home, I realised that she approaches her part with an extraordinary sense of responsibility.

Over coffee, auburn-haired Mary told me: “This is a fascinating series for me if only because of what I have learned about the law.

“Before I joined the programme I knew nothing about legal procedure, and I was in awe of it. But since I have been working in Family Solicitor, I have put in a little study and have learned things that have been a revelation to me.

“There are so many points of law vital to us in everyday life that the public are not aware of, and when simplified and explained, as they are in the programme, these points can be of immense use and help.”

Mary, who is married to actor Gerard Heinz, has two children, enjoys reading, playing classical records and cooking. But, basically, her hobby is her job.

She said: “I have tried doing many things as a relaxation, but I always go back to my only real interest — acting.

“Because I thought I was getting rather limited I once took up pottery when I was out of work. But it was no good. I was no potter.

“What I really enjoy is having friends round and discussing theatre — not that I enjoy first nights and all the nonsense and ballyhoo.”

Mary came into the theatre in a most romantic manner. “It’s so romantic, it’s corny,” she said.

She was born in the English home of classical drama — Stratford-on-Avon. As a child she wanted to be a dancer, but being modest and self-critical, she made up her mind that she hadn’t the special talent to he a ballet dancer. “So,” she said, “I decided to become an actress

“As it was wartime and I had no chance of going to drama school, I decided to train myself. So I took my Shakespeare to a large empty house, and there, alone, I declaimed my favourite speeches to the bare walls.

“I did this every day for months, until one day I found that I had an audience. It was B. Iden Payne, then director of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, who heard my enthusiastic performance as he passed the house.

“He appeared tickled pink and offered me walk-on parts. I was overjoyed.”

Of the part of Ann Harvey, Mary said: “This is my first role in a series. Playing the same character in a number of situations gives me a chance to identify myself with the character

“After a few more programmes I think I will know how Ann Harvey will react in any circumstance; know her sympathies and methods of handling people.

“She loves her family life, but is also a career woman who is fascinated by her job, and has a tremendous respect and admiration for her father, the senior partner William Naylor.

“Ann is understanding and kind, and is the type of woman to whom I would feel confident to go for help.”

Mary’s 17 year old son, William. has followed her into show business. He has joined a circus.

She said: “I couldn’t be more delighted. He’s so happy.

“He looks after the performing dogs and helps put up and take down the big top. In his spare time he takes lessons in tumbling.

“He tells me that his lessons cost him £1 a week, but he reckons it is a good investment. I agree with him. There are not many careers you can learn for a few pounds.”

We ended our chat because Mary had an appointment with a woman solicitor at the Law Society. “I’m doing a spot of … er … research.” she said.

The post When Mary played to an empty house… appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

BLONDE Kay Callard was quite emphatic. “Men,” she said, “are the limit. Why do they have to be so patronising when they meet a girl who has looks and intelligence?”

Canadian-born Kay, who plays Liz Parrish, John Knight’s “Girl Friday” in Granada’s Knight Errant ’59, pursued the point.

“It’s a tousand pities there aren’t more knights in shining armour around these days,” she said, referring to men who aren’t patronising to girls who have taken their education seriously. “Maybe it’s a thing with me but I hate patronising men. Why do they have to be so supercilious?”

Kay is in the mood for talking and she goes on speaking for a long time and says a whole lot of things that are most interesting.

Like how her boy friends react when they find out she goes in for sculpture.

“They pat me on the head,” said Kay, “as though they think there might be something mistaken in the works, or they look all sympathetic and say something like ‘Oh well, if it pleases you, my dear… It makes me so mad.”

There was an angry glint in the Callard eye, but she brightened as she added: “That’s why when I meet new boy friends I always talk to them about their business rather than mine. I find it saves a lot of eyebrow-raising.” She laughed.

Kay laughs, too, about the crazy situations in which she finds herself. “They seem to crop up frequently at my flat in Chelsea,” she said. “Mainly because I am probably the world’s most untidy person.

“When I am going out, I can never find anything I want. The dress I decided to wear is always at the cleaners.”

Kay claims she lives in “an almost perpetual state of panic stations.” Evenings that begin quietly at home are apt to have a different ending.

She explained: “My friends and I take it in turn to meet in our own homes. I remember not so long ago one of these so-called quiet evenings ended up with Scotch and strawberries in Covent Garden and a stroll through Hyde Park at the crack of dawn.”

Kay, who started her career as a writer on a Toronto newspaper and ran her own advertising agency when she was only 19, has made many television appearances and has been in a dozen films since she came to England six years ago. Six years of crazy situations. And improvisations. Like the evening she had been invited out to cocktails.

“I was at my wits’ end for a hat,” said Kay. “Then I came across an old black sweater and thought it might be a good idea to cut off the sleeve, wind it round my head and stick a pin in it ”

Was the hat a success?

“I suppose it was really,” replied Kay. “But I don’t think it wise to admit authorship of anything until you know how the land lies.

“I was asked where I got the hat so I said it was just a little something I had picked up on my travels. They seemed quite impressed, so I thought it best to leave well alone.”

Our conversation drifted back to men. Said Kay: “When it comes to picking my man I shall look for a sense of humour. That’s very important because he will have to put up with my peculiarities.

“He will have to be a good listener, too, because I talk a lot.”

She laughed and said she was firmly convinced men were here to stay and she believed the situation was not really so terrible after all.

Patronising on the part of Kay?

The post Oh, for the days of the knights! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE enthusiasm is there — it is just that there do not seem enough causes any more. That could well be a wail from the Modern Young Man, and one which may well have prompted Adam Knight, the hero of Granada’s new hour-long series Knight Errant ’59 to take up his job. The first episode will be screened on Tuesday.

Adam Knight, played by John Turner, is a young man who, having tried a variety of jobs, decides that he wants work that will combine interest and excitement. Calling himself Knight Errant, he sets himself up in business. His aim? To help anybody — in any situation. Scope? There is plenty, and Adam, as a 20th century Sir Lancelot, is kept hard at work.

Helping Adam is Liz Parish, a former newspaper columnist, who gave up her job to become his Right Hand Woman. Liz is described by producer Philip Mackie as “chic, charming, witty, wise, sophisticated, warm hearted and cool-tongued. As quick with a helping hand as she is with a well-turned wisecrack. She wears her clothes in the manner of 1959 — sometimes 1960. She is, of course, beautiful.” The part is filled by blonde actress Kay Callard. Her past career will help her with the part too, for, although Kay modestly says her career has been “ordinary,” she has led a more varied life most.

After studying at the Twickenham Arts College, she worked on a Toronto newspaper, so she is well acquainted women like Liz Parish. A year later she went into advertising, and by the time she was 19 had her own agency.

Then an old yearning came back. She remembered her days in pigtails when no one would let her act in the school plays. “Maybe it was because I was a tomboy,” she said. “They just couldn’t see me as Juliet or the Fairy Queen.”

So Kay decided to “take a whirl” of acting. She started as an announcer and writer on a Canadian radio station, then took the plunge and headed for Hollywood. Bit parts followed and “enough work to keep body and soul together” for three years.

Then she returned to England to see the Coronation. Within a week she a part opposite Douglas Fairbanks in a TV play. “So I stayed in Britain,” she explains simply.

“I’m delighted with the part of Liz Parish,” she said. “She is such an ‘alive’ character. In between trips to the Manchester studios, I busy myself in my Chelsea flat — sculpting.”

Twenty-seven-year-old John Turner a punter. River, not race track type, that is.

He lives with his young wife, a former repertory actress, in a charming old cottage in Stratord-on-Avon. Oak beams, Anne Hathaway’s cottage round the corner and, of course, the winding River Avon, where, on sunny mornings, the Turners take turns at the punt pole.

“Can’t imagine why anyone wants to live anywhere else,” says ex-city dweller “All the actors and people I knew in London or Nottingham, where I worked in repertory, eventually turn up here.”

Tall, dark and blue-eyed, John has the sort of good looks that one often sees in women’s magazine illustrations.

If Adam is the Angry Young Man type, John Turner is not. Slow speaking, he has an easy, relaxed manner. His hobbies — nothing too strenuous — include collecting telescopes and photography.

Of his telescope collection, his wife says “It was all right when the first two or three arrived. They were a manageable size, but now they seem to be getting larger. We’ll have to move to a bigger house soon.”

Not to let it appear that he is too lethargic, John told me he does weightlifting. “I used to practise a lot in the back garden, but now the weights are getting rusty behind the lawn mower.” John is delighted with the part of Adam. This will be his first TV appearance. He has so far acted mainly in Shakespearean roles, both at the Nottingham Playhouse and the Stratford Memorial Theatre. He played Marcellus in Peter Brook’s production of Hamlet and visited Moscow with the Brook company.

Third “regular” in the Knight Errant set-up is Peter Parker (played by Richard Carpenter), an earnest young author in the throes of writing a magnum opus entitled: “What is Wrong with Britain Today.” He is full of “angry young mannerisms,” but lacks that vital commodity: money.

Peter has had many jobs — Espresso bar attendant, office cleaner and the like. These keep body and soul together, and, as he explains, “leave the mind free for more important things.”

Richard Carpenter, tall, blond and looking younger than his 28 years, has this to say of his role: “I get to know Adam and like the work he does and the types he meets, so I work myself in as a sort of hanger-on cum leg-man. I’m also able to use the office typewriter for my book.”

In real life Richard Carpenter is himself a writer. He has sold short stories to magazines and radio scripts. But this is where type-casting ends.

“I don’t think I’m an Angry Young Man,” he said. “The only thing that angers me is to see or hear of people being pushed around.”

The post Knight Errant – 1959 model appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WHAT is the quality, the universal factor, that causes a man to be regarded with admiration and affection in every country of the world, no matter of what race, colour or creed? What, in this context, has the Scandinavian in common with the Latin, the Asiatic with the African?

Biggies has proved there must be one, otherwise the stories of his exploits would not have been translated into nearly every European language, read by young and old and even used as school readers in many foreign countries.

His creation was fortuitous. Designed as a representative type of British serving officer in the accepted tradition, there was nothing particularly remarkable about him except a natural aptitude for air pilotage.

He was never a strong man physically.

Born in India of parents with a military background, he was rather a sickly child who had to be sent home for his health and education.

As a schoolboy, he had no academic success. He played no games. Inclined to be shy, he shrank from fisticuffs and avoided horseplay. If he had any particular charm of manner it has never been recorded. He was not even good looking.

In short, there was nothing about him of the standard hero except perhaps an intense patriotism now derided as nationalism. He was taught to be proud of being British, as were most boys of his generation.

Where, then, lay his appeal? Why did others readily accept his leadership?

The answer may be that, from an ordinary boy in whom others of a similar retiring nature could see themselves he developed, under the stress of war. into the sort of man most men would like to be; fearless but modest, efficient and resolute in what he undertook.

Like others in the early days of war flying, he had killed a dozen men in combat before he was 20. Living with death forever in the cockpit either makes a man or breaks him. It made Biggies what he subsequently became.

But there must have been more to it than that, and an international fan mail reveals some basic facts which those who are now worrying about the state of the world would do well to ponder.

In the great multitude of ordinary people throughout the world, good, bad or indifferent in their way of life, there has developed through the ages an acceptance of the dividing line between right and wrong, good and evil; a belief, whether practised or not, in the fundamental virtues without which the human race could not have survived

It could hardly be otherwise, for these have been extolled by the founders of every religion since the earliest civilisations. Indeed, the virtues have been a religion in themselves, with temples erected to them.

Biggies may not be particularly virtuous, but at least he represents right versus wrong, law against disorder, which is something most people appreciate.

He does the right thing. It is expected of him, and those who know him well would be shocked if he did anything else. Yet he has the faculty of seeing the other fellow’s point of view. If he hates any thing it is tyranny.

Thus, for years his most dangerous opponent was a Prussian secret agent who had also been a soldier and an air pilot But that to Biggies did not make him a villain.

His code of ruthless efficiency was different, but he recognised in him a man who, in his own way, was doing for his side what he. Biggies, was trying to do for his. He could make excuses for him.

The enemy pilots against whom Biggies fought in the war were also brave men. to be respected. Why pretend otherwise? What are the virtues for which he stands, by instinct or intuition rather than by deliberate intent? Naturally, they are those which I myself would have been happy to possess, or, failing in that, was able to admire in some of the men with whom it was my good fortune to serve in the Army, the RFC, and later the RAF.

Virtue covers a wide field. Courage, truth, loyalty, integrity, reliability, chivalry (now, alas, outmoded) and other qualities not easy to define.

Biggies is a man of his word. He has in strong measure the British conception of fair play and repugnance of hitting a man when he’s down. He says what he thinks, regardless. He abhors humbug and double dealing, and says so, and he talks in plain straightforward English. Propaganda he ignores as a despicable form of cheating.

He dislikes physical effort and makes no secret of it, but with a tenacity of purpose is capable of tireless endurance when pushed to it. He shrinks from brutality and fights with his brains rather than his hands. He can be tough when occasion demands.

These attributes really add up to personality, and this being perceived by the higher authority in his first campaign resulted in him being given difficult assignments.

These inevitably made him shrewd and calculating, so it was not surprising that when after the war his old CO, Air Commodore Raymond, was asked to form a cadet unit of aviation specialists to deal with increasing airborne criminal activities, the first man he sent for was Biggies who, from squadron leader RAF, became a sergeant CID, still in flying cap.

He now wages war on the parasites of society and other enemies of the State with the same dispassionate intensity that made him an ace fighter pilot.

Having flown far and wide, he now knows what most of the world looks like from the air. He has also learned a great many other things that have made him the efficient Interpol officer he has become.

So the saga has run on from his schooldays through a changing world to the present day. He has made, and still makes, mistakes, a human touch that keeps him what he has always been, an ordinary man.

In his early days he had an unfortunate love affair, falling for a girl who turned out to be a spy, a shock which left a scar that is never mentioned but can sometimes be seen.

Well, that is Biggies. A sense of being real, which people are quick to notice, introduced through the author’s own experiences, may have helped to make him popular. Imagination can go a long way, but to know how it feels to be shot down, captured, to escape, be on the run and on recapture be thrown into a civil prison and sentenced to death is likely to make a story more convincing.

If, as I hope and have reason to believe, Biggles has set an example of decent behaviour to the youth of the world, I shall feel I have achieved something worthwhile.

The post What is the secret of Biggles? appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

NEVIL WHITING, the 35-year-old actor who plays Biggles, in Granada’s Friday series of that name, has been asking himself many questions during the past few weeks. And he has been giving himself all the right answers.

“I feel that I’m so much like Biggles that I think of him as my twin, rather than as a fictional character,” says Nevil.

The questions?

Well” says Nevil, “as a result of playing this part, I find that whenever I’m intent to do something or go somewhere I ask myself whether it is the sort of thing Biggles would do or the type of place that he would be likely to go to… I find that the answer is ‘Yes’ every time, so I’m quite satisfied.”

From the beginning Nevil set out to “get inside” Biggles and to compare the character, personality and interests of Capt W. E. Johns’ famous air ace with his own.

How has it worked out?

“Very well indeed,” replied Nevil as we relaxed between rehearsals at the Manchester studios. He stroked his fair, wavy hair and added: “I think Biggles and I have a great deal in common.

“I see him much as his creator sees him – a man with a strong sense of justice and a clear picture of the difference between right and wrong.

“I hate injustice, and when I see someone trying to ‘put one over’ or ‘pull a fast one’ I immediately want to fight it. I can’t stand cheats.”

The 6ft-tall actor, who as a youngster, like millions of other schoolboys, read about and hero-worshipped Biggles, brings to his television role the sincerity and enthusiasm he applies to all his interests.

Like Biggles, Nevil would never consider using physical force unless it were absolutely necessary, though he once battled his way to the semi-finals of inter-unit boxing tournaments while in the Army.

“Biggles can be tough when the situation demands it,” said Nevil. “But he’s not a brutal man by any means.”

Like Biggles, Nevil is greatly interested in flying. He is currently impressed by his first trip in a helicopter.

To add emphasis to his description of the experience, Nevil shot his arms upwards. “Whoosh,” he said. “You go up just like that. It’s marvellous! They’re very manoeuvrable machines. You can almost turn them round on a sixpence.”

Like Biggles, Nevil loves the outdoor life. “I like swimming, and I go sailing on the Thames whenever I can,” he said.

Nevil became interested in “messing about in boats” when he was in Germany during the war, and now, when on holiday, he likes to go dinghy sailing off the Cornish coast.

Nevil looks back on his days in the Army with some affection. For it was then that his acting career took shape.

Said Nevil: “I produced gramophone recitals and little variety shows and out of that grew my leaning towards the theatre.

“I don’t know what I would have done otherwise. Perhaps become a sleuth like Biggles.”

He added: “When I was demobbed in 1947 the Government gave me a gratuity and paid for my theatrical training in London.”

After that, Nevil spent five years in repertory at Northampton, doing “almost every job in the theatre except that of box-office cashier.”

Then Whiting the baritone emerged, and with Biggles-like determination Nevil “burnt his boats” in repertory, went to London and landed a part in the Drury-lane production of South Pacific.

He spent several years playing in musical shows in the West End and in touring productions before taking over his own television children’s programme two years ago.

Nevil’s current problem is to find a second car.

“My wife has the family car at home in London and I need one to run around in while I’m in Manchester,” he said.

What sort of car has he in mind?

“Oh, a Biggles-type, of course,” he replied unhesitatingly. “An old drophead sports two-seater is the sort of thing that Biggles would probably go for… and that’s just what I have in mind.”

And with that Nevil said he was sorry but he just had to fly…

The post Living up to Biggles appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.