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''Fabian of the Yard'' is a British
police procedural The police show, or police crime drama, is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasizes the investigative procedure of a police officer or department as the protagonist(s), as contrasted with other genres that focus on eith ...
television series based on the real-life memoirs of
Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...
detective
Robert Fabian Robert Honey Fabian (31 January 1901 – 14 June 1978) was an English police officer, who rose to the rank of Detective Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police. Biography Fabian was born in Lewisham in 1901. He joined the police in 1921. One ...
, made by the
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and broadcast between November 1954 and February 1956. It is considered the earliest police procedural to be made for British TV, sharing many points of commonality with the U.S. series '' Dragnet'' which had gone on air in 1951. There were 36 episodes in total, of 30 minutes each. The first 30 were broadcast consecutively on Saturday evenings between 13 November 1954 and 22 June 1955, with the exceptions of Christmas Day and New Year's Day which happened to fall on a Saturday. For unknown reasons, the final six episodes were held back, and were later broadcast intermittently between November 1955 and February 1956. The series was later broadcast in the U.S. under the titles ''Fabian of Scotland Yard'' or ''Patrol Car''.


Synopsis

Apart from
Bruce Seton Sir Bruce Lovat Seton, 11th Baronet (29 May 1909 – 28 September 1969) was a British actor and soldier. He is best remembered for his eponymous lead role in ''Fabian of the Yard''. Early life Bruce Lovat Seton was born in Simla, British Ind ...
, who played the eponymous Fabian in every episode, the series had relatively few recurring characters in comparison with later British police series. Only
Robert Raglan Robert Raglan (7 April 1909 – 18 July 1985) was a British actor best known for his semi-regular role in ''Dad's Army'' as Colonel Pritchard. He also starred in a number of other television series and films such as ''Fabian of the Yard'' (1954 ...
as Detective Sergeant Wyatt was in any way a regular, appearing in 15 episodes. No other cast member featured in more than six episodes, as the particular skills of their character were called on to assist in a case germane to their speciality, such as the laboratory expert, the
psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
, the
pathologist Pathology is the study of the causal, causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when us ...
or the
graphologist Graphology is the analysis of handwriting with attempt to determine someone's personality traits. No scientific evidence exists to support graphology, and it is generally considered a pseudoscience or scientifically questionable practice. Howe ...
. There were guest appearances from well-known actors such as
Kathleen Byron Kathleen Elizabeth Fell (11 January 1921 – 18 January 2009), known professionally as Kathleen Byron, was an English actress. Early life Byron was born in Manor Park (then part of Essex) to what she described as "staunch working-class social ...
,
Elspet Gray Elspet Jean Gray, Baroness Rix (née Gray; 12 April 1929 – 18 February 2013) was a Scottish actress, who first became known for her partnership with her husband, Brian Rix, and later was cast in many television roles in the 1970s and 1980s. S ...
,
Kieron Moore Kieron Moore (born Ciarán Ó hAnnracháin, anglicised as Kieron O'Hanrahan) (5 October 1924 – 15 July 2007) was an Irish film and television actor whose career was at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s. He may be best remembered for his role as ...
and Michael Craig, but for the most part the cast consisted of relative unknowns. ''Fabian of the Yard'' was one of the earliest BBC series to be shot on film, with each episode featuring voiceover narration from Seton. Each case was a dramatisation of a genuine crime which had taken place in the
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
area between the 1920s and the early 1950s, usually, although not invariably, a murder. Many of the cases featured had made national headlines in their day, such as "Little Girl", based on the murder of an
East London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...
schoolgirl which had shocked the country in 1939. Each episode finished with an epilogue in which a shot of Seton at his desk dissolved into a shot of the real-life Fabian at the same desk, who then explained to viewers what had happened to the real criminal from the case they had just been watching.


Episodes

# "The Extra Bullet" (13 November 1954) # "The Unwanted Man" (20 November 1954) # "The Skeleton in the Closet" (27 November 1954) # "Bombs in Piccadilly" (4 December 1954) # "Death on the Portsmouth Road" (11 December 1954) # "The Actress and the Kidnap Plot" (18 December 1954) # "Against the Evidence" (8 January 1955) # "Murder in Soho" (15 January 1955) # "Bride of the Fires" (22 January 1955) # "The Troubled Wife" (29 January 1955) # "Nell Gwynn's Tear" (5 February 1955) # "The Vanishing Cat" (12 February 1955) # "Written in the Dust" (19 February 1955) # "The Purple Mouse" (26 February 1955) # "The King's Hat" (5 March 1955) # "Little Girl" (12 March 1955) # "The Coward" (19 March 1955) # "The Lost Boy" (30 March 1955) # "The Executioner" (6 April 1955) # "The Poison Machine" (13 April 1955) # "The Golden Peacock" (20 April 1955) # "The Lover's Knot" (27 April 1955) # "The Man from Blackpool" (4 May 1955) # "Robbery in the Museum" (11 May 1955) # "The Deadly Pocket Handkerchief" (18 May 1955) # "The Hand of Terror" (25 May 1955) # "Pin-Point Signature" (1 June 1955) # "The Innocent Victims" (8 June 1955) # "The Jade Blade" (15 June 1955) # "April Fool" (22 June 1955) # "No Alibi" (12 November 1955) # "Escort to Death" (19 November 1955) # "The Sixth Dagger" (26 November 1955) # "The Ribbon Trap" (17 January 1956) # "Cocktail Girl" (30 January 1956) # "The Masterpiece" (6 February 1956)


Film

Three early episodes – ''Death on the Portsmouth Road'' (about a serial killer), ''The Actress and the Kidnap Plot'' (abduction and extortion), and ''Bombs in Piccadilly'' (IRA terrorism) – were put together and released to cinemas as a portmanteau feature in early 1955, reflecting the fact that this was still a time when a majority of the British population did not have a home television.


References


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fabian of the Yard 1954 British television series debuts 1956 British television series endings 1950s British police procedural television series Television shows set in London Television series based on actual events