''Telford's Change'' is a 1979 BBC television series by Brian Clark which stars

Peter Barkworth Peter Wynn Barkworth (14 January 1929 – 21 October 2006) was an English actor. He twice won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor; for ''Crown Matrimonial'' in 1975 and for '' Professional Foul'' and ''The Country Party'' in 1978. He also starre ...

. The theme music was composed and played by jazz composer

John Dankworth Sir John Phillip William Dankworth, CBE (20 September 1927 – 6 February 2010), also known as Johnny Dankworth, was an English jazz composer, saxophonist, clarinettist and writer of film scores. With his wife, jazz singer Dame Cleo Laine, he ...

. The theme tune was released by

BBC Records BBC Records was a division of the BBC founded in 1967 to commercially exploit the corporation's output for radio and television for both educational and domestic use. The division was known as BBC Radio Enterprises (1967–1970), BBC Records (1 ...

, (Resl 63), backed with 'Serenade for Sylvia'. The book was released as a Corgi imprint (

Transworld Publishers Transworld is a British publishing house in Ealing, London that is a division of Penguin Random House, one of the world's largest mass media groups. It was established in 1950 as the British division of American company Bantam Books. It publi ...

Outline

Barkworth plays a bank manager, Mark Telford, who takes a backward step in his career in order to retreat from the

rat race A rat race is a metaphor used to describe an endless, self-defeating, or pointless pursuit. The phrase is sometimes used to relate the human life to that of rats attempting to earn an ultimately pointless reward when Mortality salience, death ...

. He relinquishes his job in international banking and becomes a local branch manager in

Dover Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies southeast of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. ...

. Telford's wife Sylvia (played by

Hannah Gordon Hannah Campbell Grant Gordon
Film reference website (born 9 April 1941) is a Scottish actress and presenter ...

) and son Peter ( Michael Maloney) remain in London.

Keith Barron Keith Barron (8 August 1934 – 15 November 2017) was an English actor and television presenter who appeared in films and on television from 1961 until 2017. His television roles included the police drama '' The Odd Man'', the sitcom '' Duty Fr ...

plays Tim Hart, Sylvia's theatrical colleague who is keen to have an affair with her, and with whom she does have a brief liaison. In order to win back his wife, Telford gives up the Dover job and returns to international banking. The series was created and sold to the BBC by Barkworth himself and a group of colleagues (including Mark Shivas) through a company called Astramead.Times Obituaries: Peter Barkworth
/ref> ''Telford's Change'' consisted of only one series of ten episodes.

References

External links

* 1970s British drama television series 1979 British television series debuts 1979 British television series endings BBC television dramas British English-language television shows {{BBC-drama-tv-prog-stub