''Oktober'' is a three-part British television psychological thriller, written and directed by

Stephen Gallagher Stephen Gallagher (born 13 October 1954) is an English screenwriter and novelist. Gallagher was born in Salford, Greater Manchester. Career Gallagher has written novels and television scripts, including for the BBC television series ''Doctor Wh ...

, that first broadcast on

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

on 2 April 1998. Based upon Gallagher's 1988 novel of the same name, the series stars

Stephen Tompkinson Stephen Phillip Tompkinson (born 15 October 1965) is an English actor, known for his television roles as Marcus in '' Chancer '' (1990), Damien Day in ''Drop the Dead Donkey'' (1990–1998), Father Peter Clifford in ''Ballykissangel'' (1996–9 ...

as Jim Harper, a schoolteacher who finds himself drawn into an international conspiracy when a pharmaceutical company eyeball him to be the human guinea pig in a new, state-of-the-art medical trial. Tompkinson told the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...

'' that he was keen to take on the more active role of Jim Harper, commenting; “I grabbed this project because I’d never been asked to do anything like this before, and the chance to do stunts was one reason it was so appealing. As soon as I read the script I knew there hadn’t been anything like this on British television for a very long time. It has elements of '' The 39 Steps'' running through it. It asks how an ordinary person manages to deal with a set of quite extraordinary events.” The series was released on Region 2 DVD on 24 May 2004. A reprint of Gallagher's novel with Tompkinson on the cover art followed on 2 January 2018.

Production

The series was initially written for the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

, but after they declined to commission the project, the series was offered to ITV, who chose to commission it the following year. Whilst filming in the

Swiss Alps The Alpine region of Switzerland, conventionally referred to as the Swiss Alps (german: Schweizer Alpen, french: Alpes suisses, it, Alpi svizzere, rm, Alps svizras), represents a major natural feature of the country and is, along with the Swiss ...

, a number of crew members suffered from altitude sickness, which temporarily halted production. The series was intended for broadcast in February 1998, with a number of listings magazines including features on the series prior to broadcast; but due to changes in the

, the series did not transmit until early April. The series has since been repeated on

ITV2 ITV2 is a British free-to-air television channel owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc. It was launched on 7 December 1998. For a number of years, it had the largest audience share after the five analogue terrestrial stations, a ...

Cast

as Jim Harper * Lydzia Englert as Rochelle * Maria Lennon as Linda * James McCarthy as Viveros * James Duke as Daniel * Michael Bertenshaw as Dr. Franks * Stephen Jenn as Russian *

Richard Leaf Richard Leaf (born 1 January 1967) is an English actor. He has had several small parts in television and stage productions. Leaf met actress Tamsin Greig at a wrap party after Neil Gaiman's 1996 miniseries ''Neverwhere'' finished recording. Th ...

as Bruno * Lisa Jacobs as Dr. Bauer *

Michael N. Harbour Michael Ninian Harbour (4 July 1945 – 9 April 2009) was a British actor. In a career spanning forty years from 1969 until his death, he took on roles in television programmes such as ''The Line of Beauty'', '' Heartbeat'', ''Casualty'', ...

as Werner * James Kerr as Stephen * Tim Poole as Terry *

Hermione Gulliford Hermione Valentine Gulliford is an English actress, born in Somerset. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, graduating in 1994. She has worked in the theatre, appearing in ''The Merchant of Venice'', ''Othello'', and ''A Midsumme ...

as Kim * Billy McColl as Billy

Episodes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Oktober (Tv Series) 1998 British television series debuts 1998 British television series endings 1990s British drama television series 1990s British television miniseries ITV television dramas Television shows based on British novels English-language television shows Television shows set in Switzerland