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Z-Cars
''Z-Cars'' or ''Z Cars'' (pronounced "zed cars") is a British television police procedural series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, near Liverpool. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978. The series differed sharply from earlier police procedurals. With its less-usual Northern England setting, it injected a new element of harsh realism into the image of the police, which some found unwelcome. ''Z-Cars'' ran for 801 episodes, of which fewer than half have survived. Regular stars included: Stratford Johns (Detective Inspector Barlow), Frank Windsor (Det. Sgt. Watt), James Ellis (Bert Lynch) and Brian Blessed ("Fancy" Smith). Barlow and Watt were later spun into a separate series '' Softly, Softly''. Origin of the title The title comes from the radio call signs allocated by Lancashire Constabulary. Lancashire police divisions were lettered from north to the south: "A" Div ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Softly, Softly (TV Series)
''Softly, Softly'' is a British television police procedural series produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It was created as a spin-off from the series ''Z-Cars'', which ended its fifth series run in December 1965. The series took its title from the proverb "Softly, softly, catchee monkey", the motto of Lancashire Constabulary Training School. Newsletter 853, Saturday 12 October 2013 Series outline ''Softly, Softly'' centred on the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID of ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Ellis (actor)
James Ellis (15 March 1931 – 8 March 2014) was a Northern Irish actor and theatre director, with a career stretching over sixty years. Originally a stage actor and director in his native Belfast, he moved to London in the early 1960s. After gaining recognition in Great Britain through the '' Z-Cars'' (1962–78) police series on BBC1, he appeared in many other television and film roles. He was also a translator. Early life Ellis was born in Belfast and attended Methodist College Belfast and later studied at Queen's University Belfast and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Career He began to act with the Belfast-based Ulster Group Theatre in 1952. He first appeared in a revival of the Louis D'Alton play,Robert Welch (ed), ''The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 131-32 ''They Got What They Wanted'' (1947). Ellis became established as the company's young male lead in such plays as ''April in Assagh'', where he was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Troy Kennedy Martin
Troy Kennedy Martin (15 February 1932 – 15 September 2009) was a Scottish-born film and television screenwriter. He created the long-running BBC TV police series ''Z-Cars'' (1962–1978), and the award-winning 1985 anti-nuclear drama '' Edge of Darkness''. He also wrote the screenplay for the original version of ''The Italian Job'' (1969). Biography Early life He was born in Rothesay, Isle of Bute, and educated at Finchley Catholic Grammar School and Trinity College, Dublin. He had a younger brother Ian, who is also a television writer best known for creating '' The Sweeney''. 1960s He began writing for BBC Television in 1958, beginning with the play '' Incident at Echo Six'', and he wrote four further plays for the BBC over the following three years, before in 1961 creating his first series, ''Storyboard'', a six-part anthology series that consisted both of original scripts and adaptations. The same year, he wrote the police drama ''The Interrogator''. He wrote an important ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Windsor
Frank Windsor Higgins (12 July 1928 – 30 September 2020), known professionally as Frank Windsor, was an English actor, primarily known for his roles on television, especially policeman John Watt in ''Z-Cars'' and its spin-offs. Biography Windsor attended Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall, and studied speech training and drama at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based at the Royal Albert Hall, London. He played Detective Sergeant John Watt in ''Z-Cars'' from 1962 to 1965, and thereafter its spin-offs '' Softly, Softly'' (1966–1969), '' Softly, Softly: Taskforce'' (1969–1976), ''Jack the Ripper'' (1973), and ''Second Verdict'' (1976). He appeared as "Tobin" in Series 6, Episode 9 of '' The Avengers''. In 1969, he appeared in the pilot episode of ''Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)'' in the episode "My Late Lamented Friend and Partner" as Sorrensen, a wealthy businessman with a murderous streak. His lighter side was demonstrated in the pilot episode of the situat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dixon Of Dock Green
''Dixon of Dock Green'' was a BBC police procedural television series about daily life at a fictional London police station, with the emphasis on petty crime, successfully controlled through common sense and human understanding. It ran from 1955 to 1976. The central character, George Dixon, first appeared in the film '' The Blue Lamp''. Dixon is a mature and sympathetic police constable, played by Jack Warner in all of the 432 episodes. Dixon is the embodiment of a typical "bobby" who would be familiar with the area in which he patrolled and its residents and often lived there himself. The series contrasted with later programmes such as '' Z-Cars'', which reflected a more aggressive policing culture. It retained a faithful following throughout its run and was voted second-most popular programme on British television in 1961. Jack Warner Warner's success as Dixon was well received by police forces. He was made an honorary member of both the Margate and Ramsgate Police Forces i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stratford Johns
Alan Edgar Stratford Johns (22 September 1925 – 29 January 2002), known as Stratford Johns, was a British stage, film and television actor who is best remembered for his starring role as Detective Inspector Charlie Barlow in the long-running BBC police series ''Z-Cars''. Early life Johns was born and grew up in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. After serving as a deckhand in the South African navy during World War II, he worked for a time in accountancy, but soon became involved in amateur theatre. Career In 1948, Johns bought a one-way ticket to Britain and learned his craft working in repertory theatre at Southend-on-Sea for almost five years. He began to appear in British films from the mid-1950s, including a bit part in the classic Ealing comedy '' The Ladykillers'' (1955). He ran a small hotel in London during the 1950s, and was a member of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre during the Angry Young Men period when new playwrights, including John Osborn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Verdict
''Second Verdict'' is a six-part BBC television series from 1976. It combines the genres of police procedural and docudrama, with dramatised documentaries in which classic criminal cases and unsolved crimes from history were re-appraised by fictional police officers. In ''Second Verdict'', Stratford Johns and Frank Windsor reprised for a final time their double-act as Detective Chief Superintendents Barlow and Watt, hugely popular with TV audiences from the long-running series ''Z-Cars'', '' Softly, Softly'' and ''Barlow at Large''. ''Second Verdict'' built on the formula of their 1973 series ''Jack the Ripper'' in which dramatised documentary was drawn together with a discussion between the two police officers which formed the narrative. ''Second Verdict'' also allowed for some location filming and, when the case being re-appraised was within living memory, interviews with real witnesses. The episodes were: * "The Lindbergh Kidnapping" (27 May 1976) * "Who Killed the Princes in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeremy Kemp
Edmund Jeremy James Walker (3 February 1935 – 19 July 2019), known professionally as Jeremy Kemp, was an English actor. He was known for his significant roles in the miniseries '' The Winds of War'' and '' War and Remembrance'', the film '' The Blue Max'', and the TV series ''Z-Cars''. Early life Kemp was born 3 February 1935 in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, the son of Elsa May (daughter of Dr James Kemp, of Sheffield) and Edmund Reginald Walker, an engineer, of a Yorkshire landed gentry family that had owned at various times Aldwick Hall at Rotherham, Silton Hall at Northallerton, Ravensthorpe Manor, and Mount St John, at Thirsk."Jeremy Kemp Biography (1935–)" Film Reference. Retrieved 27 January 2017. Kemp attended Abbotsholme School in Staffordshire from 1943 to 1953. He studied acting at the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wiping
Lost television broadcasts are mostly those early television programs which cannot be accounted for in studio archives (or in personal archives) usually because of deliberate destruction or neglect. Common reasons for loss A significant proportion of early television programming was never recorded in the first place. Early broadcasting in all genres was live and sometimes performed repeatedly. Due to there being no means to record the broadcast or, later, because the content itself was thought to have little monetary or historical value it was not deemed necessary to save it. In the United Kingdom, early programming was lost due to contractual demands by the actors' union to limit the rescreening of performances. Apart from Phonovision experiments by John Logie Baird, and some 280 rolls of 35mm film containing some of Paul Nipkow television station broadcasts, no recordings of transmissions from 1939 or earlier are known to exist. In 1947, Kinescopes (preserving the image ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Blessed
Brian Blessed (; born 9 October 1936) is an English actor, presenter, writer and mountaineer. Blessed is known for portraying PC "Fancy" Smith in ''Z-Cars'', Augustus in the 1976 BBC television production of ''I, Claudius'', King Richard IV in the first series of ''Blackadder'', Prince Vultan in ''Flash Gordon'', Bustopher Jones and Old Deuteronomy in the 1981 original London production of ''Cats'' at the New London Theatre, Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter in '' Henry V'', Boss Nass in ''Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace'' and the voice of Clayton in Disney's ''Tarzan''. In 2016, Blessed was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the arts and charity. Early life Blessed was born on 9 October 1936 at Montagu Hospital in Mexborough, Yorkshire, the son of William Blessed, a socialist coal miner at Hickleton Main Colliery (and himself the son of a coal miner) and cricketer for the Yorkshire second team, and Hilda (née Wall) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barlow At Large
''Barlow at Large'', later ''Barlow'', is a British police procedural television programme broadcast in the 1970s, starring Stratford Johns in the title role. Johns had previously played Barlow in the ''Z-Cars'', '' Softly, Softly'' and '' Softly, Softly: Taskforce'' series on BBC television during the 1960s and early 1970s. ''Barlow at Large'' began as a three-part self-contained spin-off from ''Softly, Softly: Taskforce'' in 1971 with Barlow co-opted by the Home Office to investigate police corruption in Wales. Johns left ''Softly, Softly'' for good in 1972, but returned for a further series of ''Barlow at Large'' in the following year, Barlow having gone on full-time secondment to the Home Office. This second series, rather than telling one story in serial form, as the 1971 series had, was instead ten 50-minute episodes, each with a self-contained story (this would be the format of all subsequent series). In this series, Barlow was supported by Norman Comer as Detective Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barlow (television Series)
''Barlow at Large'', later ''Barlow'', is a British police procedural television programme broadcast in the 1970s, starring Stratford Johns in the title role. Johns had previously played Barlow in the ''Z-Cars'', '' Softly, Softly'' and '' Softly, Softly: Taskforce'' series on BBC television during the 1960s and early 1970s. ''Barlow at Large'' began as a three-part self-contained spin-off from ''Softly, Softly: Taskforce'' in 1971 with Barlow co-opted by the Home Office to investigate police corruption in Wales. Johns left ''Softly, Softly'' for good in 1972, but returned for a further series of ''Barlow at Large'' in the following year, Barlow having gone on full-time secondment to the Home Office. This second series, rather than telling one story in serial form, as the 1971 series had, was instead ten 50-minute episodes, each with a self-contained story (this would be the format of all subsequent series). In this series, Barlow was supported by Norman Comer as Detective Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
