Proper villains!

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.”