An A to Z of UK Television Drama An A to Z of UK Television Drama

Martin and Andy travel back to the early Eighties to uncover the birth of Agatha Christie on television. Before Joan Hickson's Miss Marple and David Suchet's Poirot came Tommy and Tuppence, two bright young adventurers from the Roaring Twenties played by Francesca Annis and James Warwick: Partners in Crime.

Andy also delves further back to explain how Why Didn't They Ask Evans? and The Seven Dials Mystery helped pave the way for Agatha Christie on TV. But what one factor linked these productions and Partners? Listen along as Martin fails to answer this question and others like it as he reluctantly takes his 'Christie on TV' O' Level live on the podcast without any revision time!

There is also a plea for the return of Annis and Warwick who are now the perfect age to play Tommy & Tuppence as an elderly couple as Christie had them in By the Pricking of my Thumbs and Postern of Fate. Are you listening big TV companies?

Next Time: Quiller

This month Martin & Andy tackle a 1976 curio: a 3-part examination of the Zionist military leader Orde Wingate.

Wingate is played by Barry Foster (Van de Valk, Fall of Eagles) in a drama scripted by Don Shaw (Survivors), script edited by Louis Marks (Doctor Who, The Lost Boys), directed by Bill Hays (Wish Me Luck) and produced by Innes Lloyd (Doctor Who, Talking Heads).

The production is notable for its theatrical feel and questionable innovations: a 'Blue Peter-style' desert and a 'toilet roll jungle' in the studio. But it is the subject matter that is more problematic, as it is hard to work out if the zealous and possibly insane title character is being lifted up by the drama or critiqued.

This tale of English exceptionalism and religious mania was a difficult watch, and if that wasn't enough there's also what the pair have come to term 'The Full Foster' to contend with!

It is worth noting that this episode was recorded some months before the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Next Time: Partners in Crime

After a longer break than intended An A to Z of UK Drama is back for the continuation of its second series, starting off the second half of the alphabet with the letter N and The Nightmare Man...

As the fog closes in on a remote Scottish island Andy and Martin are huddled by the fire remembering the time when there were many gruesome and mysterious murrrrrders and the local policemen endlessly downed whisky while on duty!

Starring James Warwick and Celia Imrie, and adapted by Robert Holmes and directed by Douglas Camfield - two legendary Doctor Who luminaries - The Nightmare Man should be a wonderful slice of drama but neither is entirely convinced by the end result, a 4-part drama that lurches uncomfortably between thriller, horror and science fiction.

Next Time: Orde Wingate

The year is 2003 and Earth's intrepid humans have managed to set-up several bases on the moon. There they face the implacable enemy that is the silence and darkness of space - a serious and apparently underestimated threat to the mental wellbeing of moonbase personnel...

Created by Doctor Who’s Barry Letts and Terrance DIcks this 6-part series from 1973 starred Donald Houston, Ralph Bates and Fiona Gaunt and had scripts from John Brason, John Lucarotti and Arden Winch. Moonbase 3 lacks Doctor Who's monsters and excitement and instead delights in technical details and psychological concerns. As such it is something of a hard SF curio which is widely regarded to be a misfire, even by Letts and Dicks themselves.

The big question is what will Andy & Martin make of it from the vantage point of 2023, some 20 years after its characters, with their very 70's attitudes, were meant to be surviving on the moon?

N.B. Having completed the first half of our second A to Z series, we are taking a mid-season break but will return in a few months with a drama beginning with the letter N...

Summer is finally here, so Andy & Martin are off on their hols to Crete to spend some time at Shepherd's Bar in Agios Nickolaos! Back in 1972 The Lotus Eaters was the flagship new BBC2 drama and the first of Michael J. Bird's quartet of Mediterranean-set serials.

Starring Ian Hendry and Wanda Ventham, the series focused on the failing marriage of Erik and Ann Shepherd and the lives and loves of the community meeting at their taverna. What no-one expects, including the viewer, is that Ann is a sleeper agent who is about to be activated, nor that despite this revelation such a development is not always going to be the focus of the show. Instead Bird's serial is about anyone who is running from something, looking for a place to start again and the threat that if you eat the fruit of the lotus you will never leave...

As well as Bird, the scripts were written by David Weir, David Fisher and Jack Ronder. The series was directed by Cyril Coke, Douglas Camfield, David Cunliffe and Viktors Ritelis, and produced by Anthony Read and Michael Glynn The Lotus Eaters was a new direction for UK TV drama which helped the package holiday market no end. Notably, it would find itself to be life imitating art, as Ian Hendry, just like Erik Shepherd, continued his battles with drink, love and life.

With numerous other excellent regular and guest actors - Stefan Gryff, Sylvia Coleridge, Thorley Walters, Carol Cleveland, Maurice Denham, Susan Engel, Timothy Carlton, Anouska Hempel, Godfrey James, Alethea Charlton, John Savident and Julia Goodman - this Cretan-set series is a fascinating exploration of love, motivation, trust, deceit and spying, with a large side order of raki.

So it's time to get you swimsuit on, slap on some lotion and get in the back garden. Put this in your ears for a couple of hours and float back in time to the Seventies.

Next Time: Moonbase 3

Following their Secret Army episode last season, here Andy & Martin tackle its spin-off Kessler. The pair agree that its a very different show to its parent, which doesn't always hit the mark, but nevertheless boasts some fine acting, especially Clifford Rose in the title role, and wonderfully intricate scripts from John Brason and Gerry Glaister.

6 episodes of absorbing drama take us from Germany to England to Paraguay in this continent spanning epic that was clearly inspired in part by The Odessa File and The Boys From Brazil.

Directed by Michael E. Briant and Tristan De Vere Cole, Kessler offers a memorable final chapter to the Secret Army story. The cast also includes Alan Dobie as Bauer, Nitza Saul as Mical Rak, Alison Glennie as Ingrid, Oscar Quitak as Josef Mengele, Nicholas Young as Franz Höss, Ralph Michael as Colonel Ruckert, Guy Rolfe as Yqueras and, of course, some cameos from Bernard Hepton, Angela Richards and Juliet Hammond-Hill.

Next Time: The Lotus Eaters