The TV (and Radio) Shows



This section is sketchier than the film section, mainly because not too many of these are on general release (or even on DVD; high-prestige programmes like Gangsters  and Day of the Triffids are all very well, but just you try tracking down Armchair  Thriller sometime); however, I've done my best. In the really-obscure-roles department, if anyone knows anything about a 1978 (?) programme called "Killers," mentioned in a contemporary obituary, do drop a line care of nydermail atte nyder dotte comme removing the anti-spam device first.


Gangsters (1975; 1976-8, BBC1)

MC was: John Kline, the co-protagonist (with Ahmed Khalil)

Who else was in it: Saeed Jeffery, Elizabeth Cassidy, Alibe Parsons, Paul Antrim, Paul Barber, Philip Martin, and a whole lot of others.

Overall: Probably the only postmodern drama (as opposed to comedy) to have featured on British television; a massive hit with critics and the sort of people who build this kind of website, but not apparently with the BBC, who have thus far declined to repeat this tale of the Birmingham underworld, in which every ethnic group has its own mafia and every organization has an agenda. Still, there's hope.
The original 1975 Play for Today was a sort of inverted, multicultural Get Carter; Kline, on the run from the man whose brother he killed four years ago, is involved against his will in intrigues in the Asian and Carribean communities by detective Khan. The resulting series, which picked up where the play left off, presented Kline and Khan's subsequent adventures through a clever mix of gangster-film, Western, Bollywood and Kung-Fu film cliches, garnering a good-sized cult following.

MC's Role: was no bit-part, to be fair, but the continued lack of re-release of the series makes it an obscure one. Overall it seems to have been the most positively received of any of his roles, with phrases like "gritty," "unscrupulous" and "trapped by circumstances" cropping up a lot to describe the character, a London-born former SAS officer and hard man whose one attempt to obtain legitimate employment caused him to be drawn into a three-year-long saga of multiethnic intrigue and double-crossing. Bitter, menacing and rather cruel, yet oddly sympathetic somehow.


Van der Valk: "Everybody Does It" (1977, ITV)

MC was: Nick Scholtz

Who else was in it: Barry Foster.

Overall: A pleasant detective series whose arguably thin plots were compensated for by the great settings and Barry Foster's take on the Dutch detective as a world-weary man of anti-fashion. To be honest, though, no one we know has seen this particular episode.

MC's Role: As noted above, none of us really knows anything about it. If you've seen Mr Scholtz, do lend us your opinions.


Return of the Saint: Duel in Venice (1978, ITV)

MC was: The episode's villain; Jed Blackett, a mercenary

Who else was in it: Simon Dutton (as Simon Templar).

Overall: Same formula as its predecessor, although less enthusiastic; to be fair though, Roger Moore's are big loafers to fill (just ask Timothy Dalton). Trivia point: all the principals in this episode had to have typhoid shots in case they fell into the canals.

MC's Role: What else? A hard thug, sadist and, apparently, technology fetishist. Kidnaps the woman the Saint is supposed to be guarding and then leads him on an amazingly complex chase through Venice. Minimal characterization, but in a programme like that, who needs it?


The Oneidin Line (1979; BBC1)

MC was: Charles Marston, spoiled nouveau-riche love-interest for Elizabeth Fogarty (Jessica Benton)

Who else was in it: Peter Gilmore, Jessica Benton, Jill Gascoigne, and the usual suspects.

Overall: a decade-long show about the cutthroat world of the 19th-century shipping trade. Colbourne was in it for a total of one series, towards the end.

MC's Role: Charles and Elizabeth start off hating each other, so you know they're going to wind up, if not in bed (it is supposed to be the Victorian era, after all) at least having great crises of conscience about the fact that she's already married (albeit apparently to the Invisible Man) and that his father wants him to marry someone with better connections. And they do. Colbourne does seem to be having fun playing someone who is not so much hard as foppish for a change. Trivia point: Marston's father was played by the same actor who played Sir John in Howard's Way. Deeply significant, I know...


Armchair Theatre: Dead Man's Kit (1980, ITV)

MC was: Lt-Cmdr Kobahl

Who else was in it: Larry Lamb (no, not that Larry Lamb), Victoria ("Blake's 7") Fairbrother and William Russell.

Overall: Another in the short-lived series of ITV crime dramas. This story apparently involved a naval officer investigating the death of a colleague, and getting drawn into the inevitable web of political intrigue.

MC's Role: The main baddie. As this show is unlikely to be repeated within this site's lifetime, we shall reveal that he was a Russian agent all along.


Strangers: Racing Certainty (1980, ITV)

MC was: John Rutter

Who else was in it: Don Henderson.

Overall: A sequel to The XYY Man and a prequel to Bulman, this series was a classic late-Seventies British crime drama. This episode apparently focused around corruption in the horse-racing world.

MC's Role: Presumably someone in the horse-racing world (place your bets: hard thug or amiable working-class?).


Shoestring (1980, BBC1)

MC was: The Priest

Who else was in it: Trevor Eve, with Celia Imrie, Eric Richard, Tariq Yunus, Leslie French...

Overall: Detective series about a DJ. This particular story was a Christmas episode involving deadly toys which the hero must track down.

MC's Role: Another we haven't seen, but the name probably says it all.


Day of the Triffids (1981, BBC1)

MC was: Jack Coker

Who else was in it: John Duttine, Emma Relph, Steven Yardley. And some plants.

Overall: slightly condensed and updated, but otherwise faithful, 1980s take on the John Wyndham apocalyptic giant-plant thriller, directed by the inimitable David Maloney.

MC's Role: more humorous and less "hard" than his usual roles, but he seems a bit at a loss with this at first, only really getting into his stride during the second half, in which Coker becomes something of a practical and reasonable counterweight to John Duttine's more idealistic Mason. Unfortunately, the decision to gloss over the character's background (in the book, Coker was the product of a mixed working- and upper-class marriage, and a professional demagogue; in the show he's simply a history teacher) made him a lot less interesting than he might have been, and removed a lot of his motivation for action. Interestingly, however, where the 1960s novel had Coker joining up with the stiff-upper-lipped, survival-at-all-costs group, the 1980s serial implied that he had set up his own, more successful and less authoritarian community, suggesting a shift in English values over the intervening 20 years.


Johnny Jarvis (1983, BBC1)

MC was: Jake

Who else was in it: No one we know, but it was written by Nigel Williams.

Overall: this is another one that hasn't been repeated, but to judge by the Radio Times synopses it was about two unlikely friends coming of age in London and getting mixed up with dodgy characters before seeing the light.

MC's Role: According to a friend of mine who has seen it, Jake is Johnny's father, and a more-than-dodgy character himself, ultimately winding up in a fatal mixup with the mob. However we at the MCBPA take no responsibility in the event that he's misremembered it totally.


Doctor Who: "Resurrection of the Daleks" (1984) and "Attack of the Cybermen" (1985)

MC was: Commander Lytton, alien mercenary (some sources add the first name "Gustave," but this is only semi-canonical since it was only ever used in the novelization of Attack).

Who else was in it: (Resurrection) Peter Davison, Rula Lenska, Les Grantham, Chloe Ashcroft, Terry Molloy; (Attack) Colin Baker, Brian Glover, Faith Brown, David Banks, and Terry Molloy again.

Overall: Does this series really require summarization? Suffice it to say that in 1984 and 5, the stories were tending towards the Aliens-esque and the continuity-obsessed, the protagonists towards the violent, and the BBC towards giving the Doctor an 18-month hiatus. Unfortunate, really, as, while Resurrection can be accurately described as "confusing," Attack at least is viewed by a sizeable minority as an example of how good Colin Baker really could be, given the chance.

MC's Role: in keeping with the "darker Doctor Who" of the period, was a complex figure, a career soldier dedicated to fulfilling his contracts to the bitter end, and consequently willing to sacrifice his own men one minute and his own life the next, in contrast to earlier Doctor Who villains who are purely evil and nowhere near as conflicted. In his first serial, Lytton was an enigmatic character who ultimately played two factions of Daleks off against each other; in the second, he was somewhat more animated, baiting the Doctor about the hypocrisy of his moral standards and delighting in deceiving people about his own loyalties. Also, due to a rather ill-considered torture scene at the climax of Attack, obtained the dubious distinction of appearing in every single publication about Doctor Who which criticises the gratuitous violence of the later years of the series.

Lenin of the Rovers (1988-1989, BBC Radio 4)

MC was: Ray of the Rovers

Who else was in it: Alexei Sayle, John Sessions, Jim Broadbent, and others.

Overall: Alexei Sayle's comic spoof of Roy of the Rovers,  in which a simple working-class Communist makes good as a football star

MC's Role: An unusual one for Colbourne, being not only the only audio role of his I've personally been able to track down, but also a rare comedy part. Colbourne takes to the role of the blatantly corrupt capitalist football-team manager with such relish that it's a real shame he never got a chance to do more along these lines. 

Howard's Way (1985-1989, BBC1)

MC was: Tom Howard, the protagonist (for a change)

Who else was in it: Steven Yardley, Glyn Owen, Jan Harvey, Kate O'Mara, Dulcie Grey, Tony Anholt, Nigel Davenport.....

Overall: A UK version of Dallas, Dynasty etc. etc., which, like the American soaps, had a lot of people slagging it off as trash and even more people secretly watching it. Viewed as camp, it's fun, but one can see why it didn't last into the nineties when reality started to bite.

MC's Role: ranged from being the focus of the series (although opinion is divided over whether the character was stoic and driven, underwritten, or merely wooden) to, especially towards the end of the run, something that actually rather approached a bit part (wandering into the boatyard office every so often to provide expository dialogue and/or fight with Glyn Owen). Curiously, after the actor's death the character lingered on for a while through bits of dialogue explaining his absence ("Tom's in Majorca on business"); a sort of a bit non-part, one supposes. Still, they gave him a good write-out later on.


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