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.

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.”

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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.”

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