Series 1 – Episode 14
|
Marker
Harry Lawford Jean Lawford John Fordyce Sonia Fordyce Deirdre Wallis Lift man Master of Foxhounds |
Alfred Burke
Peter Jeffrey Zena Walker James Cairncross Lillias Walker Jane Carlyle Bernard Kelly Sylvia Coleridge |
Uncredited cast:
People at hunt/ People in bar |
Patrick Hardy, Frank Peters, Richard Heller, Graeme Cruikshank, Rex Brown, Rex Rashley, Bill Richards, Evelyn Lund, Coleen Burford, Suzanne Jeffries, Rita Smithe, Michael Hasted |
The extras listed above are described in the rehearsal script as “Men and women in hunting clothes in public house” and “Landlord (non-speaking)” – the latter is named in dialogue as Bill Smithers
Production
Series based on an idea by Roger Marshall & Anthony Marriott
Theme Music composed by Robert Earley Story Editor: Richard Bates Floor Manager: John Russell |
Stage Manager: Dennis Redwood
Production Assistant: Pam Bedford Designed by Peter Le Page Producer: John Bryce Directed by Toby Robertson |
Rehearsed from 10.30am on Friday 19 February 1965 at Steadfast Hall, Riverside, Kingston upon Thames, and then at Rehearsal Room 2A, ABC Television Studios, Broom Road, Teddington, Middlesex from Thursday 25 February 1965
Camera rehearsed from Tuesday 2 March 1965 at Studio 2, Teddington
Recorded from 4.45pm to 6pm on Wednesday 3 March 1965 at Studio 2, Teddington
Camera rehearsed from Tuesday 2 March 1965 at Studio 2, Teddington
Recorded from 4.45pm to 6pm on Wednesday 3 March 1965 at Studio 2, Teddington
TV World Synopsis
Monday: Depart Waterloo 10.15 a.m. Appointment with solicitor noon. A marriage on the rocks. He seemed particularly upset – I wonder why.
Click here for detailed synopsis
Click here for detailed synopsis
Transmission
Saturday 17 April 1965, 9.10pm (Southern)
Saturday 24 April 1965, 10.10pm (ABC Midlands, ABC North, ATV London, Border, Channel and Westward)
Saturday 1 May 1965, 10.10pm (Ulster)
Saturday 17 July 1965, 10.10pm (Tyne Tees)
Sunday 8 August 1965, 11.05pm (Scottish)
Saturday 4 September 1965, 10.10pm (TWW)
Tuesday 21 September 1965, 10.35pm (Grampian)
Saturday 24 April 1965, 10.10pm (ABC Midlands, ABC North, ATV London, Border, Channel and Westward)
Saturday 1 May 1965, 10.10pm (Ulster)
Saturday 17 July 1965, 10.10pm (Tyne Tees)
Sunday 8 August 1965, 11.05pm (Scottish)
Saturday 4 September 1965, 10.10pm (TWW)
Tuesday 21 September 1965, 10.35pm (Grampian)
Archive
Rehearsal script – held in the BFI Special Collections
Story Notes
This very notable episode was a rare example at the time of an ongoing drama series featuring the subject of homosexuality – then a criminal offence. “Martin [Worth] came to me with a story about a woman who comes to Marker and says, ‘I think my husband is having an affair. Will you follow him?’” recalled Richard Bates in July 2012. “And, of course, Marker discovers that the husband is actually seeing another man.” Bates also told Andrew Pixley how the script for You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere was sent to the regulatory body the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) – or rather its 1954–72 predecessor, the Independent Television Authority (ITA), which had reportedly “banned” a previous episode of Public Eye (see The Drug Merchants). “With that story,” said Bates, “we chose to submit it to the IBA before we commissioned the script, because it was felt to be so ‘adult’ that we were not sure that ITV could do it. So we submitted it to the appropriate department and they gave their blessing. I remember that I was particularly pleased that we’d done it. It was a brave decision and I think it was a good episode.”
Interviewed in Time Screen magazine (Number 14, Autumn 1989), writer Martin Worth remembered You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere as being “the first TV play about gays, in which a woman who knew there was somebody else in her husband’s life hires Marker, the private eye, to find out who it is. On hearing it’s someone called Pat, she threatens to ‘get the bitch’ – to which Marker replies, ‘Pat is not a woman.’ End of Act One. Sensation!” Though it was one of the first British TV dramas to depict an overtly homosexual character, You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere was not the very first. The earliest known example, as identified by the British Film Institute, is South, a 1959 Granada Play of the Week written by Gerald Savory (based on Sud, a 1953 stage play by Julien Green) and starring Peter Wyngarde as a conflicted Polish Army lieutenant living in exile in the USA’s Deep South as civil war approaches. Also, the dramatic revelation described by Worth took place at the end of Act Two rather than Act One. “The IBA cleared the script and ABC TV put out a special press release, very nervous of how it would go down,” continued Worth. “But brilliantly acted by Zena Walker and Peter Jeffrey, it was a big success.”
In the original draft of the script, Harry and Jean Lawford were called Harry and Jean Randall. The surname was accidentally retained three times in dialogue within the rehearsal script.
In speech prefixes, the title of the Master of Foxhounds is abbreviated to “M.F.H.” In the script, she wears a pink coat, but a surviving still shows that she wore black in the completed episode.
Coincidentally, Martin Worth’s script contains a similar horse-related joke to Terence Frisby’s You Should Hear Me Eat Soup. In You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere, Harry tells Jean that he wants a bath and a good rub down, causing his friend John Fordyce to remark, “You sound just like a horse yourself, Harry.” Following a hunt meeting in You Should Hear Me Eat Soup, the Honourable Penelope Hunter-Bruton announces that she is going upstairs to have a bath and change for dinner, adding, “I could do with a brisk rub down.” “Brisk rub down,” mocks Lord Timothy Trepolwyn, after she has gone, “Ruddy girl thinks she’s a horse now!”
Interviewed in Time Screen magazine (Number 14, Autumn 1989), writer Martin Worth remembered You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere as being “the first TV play about gays, in which a woman who knew there was somebody else in her husband’s life hires Marker, the private eye, to find out who it is. On hearing it’s someone called Pat, she threatens to ‘get the bitch’ – to which Marker replies, ‘Pat is not a woman.’ End of Act One. Sensation!” Though it was one of the first British TV dramas to depict an overtly homosexual character, You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere was not the very first. The earliest known example, as identified by the British Film Institute, is South, a 1959 Granada Play of the Week written by Gerald Savory (based on Sud, a 1953 stage play by Julien Green) and starring Peter Wyngarde as a conflicted Polish Army lieutenant living in exile in the USA’s Deep South as civil war approaches. Also, the dramatic revelation described by Worth took place at the end of Act Two rather than Act One. “The IBA cleared the script and ABC TV put out a special press release, very nervous of how it would go down,” continued Worth. “But brilliantly acted by Zena Walker and Peter Jeffrey, it was a big success.”
In the original draft of the script, Harry and Jean Lawford were called Harry and Jean Randall. The surname was accidentally retained three times in dialogue within the rehearsal script.
In speech prefixes, the title of the Master of Foxhounds is abbreviated to “M.F.H.” In the script, she wears a pink coat, but a surviving still shows that she wore black in the completed episode.
Coincidentally, Martin Worth’s script contains a similar horse-related joke to Terence Frisby’s You Should Hear Me Eat Soup. In You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere, Harry tells Jean that he wants a bath and a good rub down, causing his friend John Fordyce to remark, “You sound just like a horse yourself, Harry.” Following a hunt meeting in You Should Hear Me Eat Soup, the Honourable Penelope Hunter-Bruton announces that she is going upstairs to have a bath and change for dinner, adding, “I could do with a brisk rub down.” “Brisk rub down,” mocks Lord Timothy Trepolwyn, after she has gone, “Ruddy girl thinks she’s a horse now!”
The end of Act Two continues for a little longer in the rehearsal script than it does in the synopsis presented on this site. In the script, after Marker has told Jean that Pat is male, “She looks at him blankly for what seems like a century. Then she turns and goes slowly to the window. She looks out, absolutely stunned. Marker watches her. Fordyce looks from one to the other, then helplessly down at his desk.” However, the writer’s own recollection of the scene – “‘Pat is not a woman.’ End of Act … Sensation!” – suggests that it may have been made snappier prior to recording.
In the script, during his penultimate scene with Jean, Marker “picks up his hat and coat, about to leave.” This description has not been retained in the synopsis, because Marker does not usually wear a hat, and a photograph from his final scene (with Harry having joined them in the sitting room – see left) shows that the inquiry agent is not wearing or carrying his overcoat. |
Production Notes
The director of this episode was Sholto David Maurice Robertson (1928–2012), better known as Toby Robertson. The son of naval officer David Lambert Robertson and playwright Felicity Douglas, Robertson was educated at Stowe School, Buckinghamshire, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Though christened Sholto, he became known as Toby as a result, so he claimed, of reciting Hamlet’s famous “To be, or not to be” speech from an early age. He appeared in a Marlowe Society production of Romeo and Juliet at the Phoenix Theatre in London’s West End in 1952, and with the Elizabethan Players in Richard II in Kidderminster in 1954. He also performed at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1957 in Peter Brook’s production of The Tempest with John Gielgud (whom he also understudied). The following year, he made his professional London debut in Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, directed by Peter Wood, at the Arts Theatre. Robertson worked in television between 1959 and 1970, directing more than 25 single dramas, including several for ITV’s Television Playhouse and Play of the Week strands (while working at ATV and then at Associated-Rediffusion), ABC’s Armchair Theatre and BBC1’s The Wednesday Play. Less frequently, he directed episodes of drama series such as No Hiding Place (for Associated-Rediffusion) and Callan (for ABC). For Public Eye, Robertson would direct one further episode, the appropriately Shakespearean titled There Are More Things in Heaven and Earth, in Series 2. He also assisted Peter Brook on his 1963 film adaptation of William Golding’s 1954 novel Lord of the Flies. However, despite the financial rewards of screen work, Robertson’s first love remained the stage, especially touring theatre. He became involved as a director with the Prospect Theatre Company, which had been launched at the Oxford Playhouse in 1961. When the company found a permanent base at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, in 1964, Robertson became its artistic director, staging three or four classical plays each year, and helping to launch the careers of such performers as Derek Jacobi, Prunella Scales, Dorothy Tutin and Timothy West. As with You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere, he was not afraid to court controversy, as in 1969, when a production of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II, starring a young Ian McKellen as the homosexual monarch, sparked a storm of protest in Edinburgh, being labelled “an outrage”. Councillor John Kidd took offence at the play’s depictions of male affection, particularly since it was being performed in the Church of Scotland’s Assembly Hall. The police visited the production but reported “no problem”. Robertson, with a wry smile, later commented that it “Kept the box office busy.” Large and enthusiastic, with a Falstaffian relish about him, Robertson was an ebullient, swaggering figure, commanding the respect not only of his immediate colleagues, but also of the Arts Council and other influential patrons. In the words of theatre critic Michael Coveney, he “re-established the good name and reputation of touring theatre in the UK after it had become a byword for second-rate tattiness in the 1950s.” Robertson ran the Prospect Theatre Company until 1978, the year in which he was awarded the OBE, and was subsequently the artistic director of Theatr Clwyd in Mold, Flintshire, from 1985 to 1992, where he raised that company’s profile considerably.
The list of sets in the rehearsal script for You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere indicates that only the corner of the Lawfords’ bathroom should be designed and constructed, as very little screen time is spent in that room.
Martin Worth’s script also suggests a few visual flourishes to convey the passage of time that takes place in the Lawfords’ sitting room towards the end of Act One. After Sonia goes to the distraught Jean and tells her to listen, the vision mixer is instructed to cut to the clock on the mantelpiece, as this begins to strike eleven. The script then calls for a lighting change in the room as the clock continues striking (though, strictly speaking, it should already be dark at a quarter past five in early November, when the fox-hunting season traditionally used to begin in the UK). “On the last three or four strokes,” the script continues, “pan off to see that the room is now in darkness – with moonlight coming in from [the] window. Then a car driving up to [the] house.” It is unclear from the script whether the car was to have been seen (perhaps represented by approaching headlights) or merely heard as a sound effect.
Peter Jeffrey and Jane Carlyle both pre-recorded some of their dialogue as Harry Lawford and his secretary Deirdre Wallis.
Music played in the background during the episode included Black Orchids, by Harold Geller, performed by Paul Franklin and His Orchestra (PR 729); Silver Star, by Cyril Stapleton and Len Stevens, performed by Patrick Michael and His Orchestra (BM 428); and Allegretto grazioso in A major: Frühlingslied (Spring Song), composed by Felix Mendelssohn during 1842–4.
You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere debuted on Saturday 17 April 1965 at 9.10pm in the Southern Television region. The ABC transmission followed a week later, on Saturday 24 April at 10.10pm. That night, the episode aired against a new line up on BBC1, with various shows filling the late-night slot over the coming weeks. This week and next, these offerings included the closing minutes of The Rogues, followed by the news and sport, and comedy with Ted Ray.
Ulster chose to save this controversial instalment until the end of its run of Series 1 episodes, on Saturday 1 May at 10.10pm. The following week, the programme was replaced by ABC’s new science-fiction thriller Undermind, which had entered production in February under producer Michael Chapman (who would subsequently produce and write for Public Eye).
Grampian’s truncated run of 12 episodes also concluded with You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere, on Tuesday 21 September at 10.35pm, after which the slot was eventually taken over (from Tuesday 5 October) by the ABC anthology series Armchair Mystery Theatre.
The list of sets in the rehearsal script for You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere indicates that only the corner of the Lawfords’ bathroom should be designed and constructed, as very little screen time is spent in that room.
Martin Worth’s script also suggests a few visual flourishes to convey the passage of time that takes place in the Lawfords’ sitting room towards the end of Act One. After Sonia goes to the distraught Jean and tells her to listen, the vision mixer is instructed to cut to the clock on the mantelpiece, as this begins to strike eleven. The script then calls for a lighting change in the room as the clock continues striking (though, strictly speaking, it should already be dark at a quarter past five in early November, when the fox-hunting season traditionally used to begin in the UK). “On the last three or four strokes,” the script continues, “pan off to see that the room is now in darkness – with moonlight coming in from [the] window. Then a car driving up to [the] house.” It is unclear from the script whether the car was to have been seen (perhaps represented by approaching headlights) or merely heard as a sound effect.
Peter Jeffrey and Jane Carlyle both pre-recorded some of their dialogue as Harry Lawford and his secretary Deirdre Wallis.
Music played in the background during the episode included Black Orchids, by Harold Geller, performed by Paul Franklin and His Orchestra (PR 729); Silver Star, by Cyril Stapleton and Len Stevens, performed by Patrick Michael and His Orchestra (BM 428); and Allegretto grazioso in A major: Frühlingslied (Spring Song), composed by Felix Mendelssohn during 1842–4.
You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere debuted on Saturday 17 April 1965 at 9.10pm in the Southern Television region. The ABC transmission followed a week later, on Saturday 24 April at 10.10pm. That night, the episode aired against a new line up on BBC1, with various shows filling the late-night slot over the coming weeks. This week and next, these offerings included the closing minutes of The Rogues, followed by the news and sport, and comedy with Ted Ray.
Ulster chose to save this controversial instalment until the end of its run of Series 1 episodes, on Saturday 1 May at 10.10pm. The following week, the programme was replaced by ABC’s new science-fiction thriller Undermind, which had entered production in February under producer Michael Chapman (who would subsequently produce and write for Public Eye).
Grampian’s truncated run of 12 episodes also concluded with You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere, on Tuesday 21 September at 10.35pm, after which the slot was eventually taken over (from Tuesday 5 October) by the ABC anthology series Armchair Mystery Theatre.
Home and Away
This episode was realised entirely within the confines of Studio 2 at Teddington. Two scenes denoted in the script as “EXT. LIFT.” are not actually exteriors at all – in this instance, “EXT.” merely indicates the outside of the lift in the shared office building that houses Sidgwick & Partners.
Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?
The “special press release” that Martin Worth recalled being issued by ABC (see Story Notes, above) was unusually short and avoided the subject of homosexuality entirely, revealing only that “Jean Lawford (Zena Walker) suspects her husband Harry (Peter Jeffrey) of having an affair with Deirdre, his secretary (Jane Carlyle).” The details of Marker’s findings were kept deliberately vague, with a reference to the character of Sonia Fordyce being thrown in as a red herring: “Marker gradually uncovers a situation which also involves Jean’s best friend, Sonia Fordyce (Lillias Walker), and which is so subtle and profound that it lies outside the scope of a detective’s activities.”
Unfortunately, reviewer T. C. Worsley, writing in the Financial Times on Wednesday 21 April 1965 after presumably catching the Southern transmission of You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere, did not find the detective’s activities either subtle or profound. In a piece entitled Beginning, Middle and End, the critic admitted to breaking his “self-denying ordinance against Saturday trash-viewing” and tuning in for Public Eye. “It was really an astonishing affair,” he wrote – and not for the intended reasons. “For the story was what might be deemed highly sophisticated, but it was reduced by the treatment to exactly this simple, basic, beginning, middle and end formula.” He described the plot, concluding that “told, as it was, in the flat, over-simple, unaccented narrative style of the strip advertisement, with dialogue which advanced the plot but nothing else, with reach-me-down images and unpersonalised characters, it was of the very slightest interest … Its interest was on the level of the strip advertisement.”
The TV World (24–30 April 1965) listing for this episode was accompanied by a small shot of Marker, and the magazine also carried two additional short, illustrated articles. The People column commented on how Peter Jeffrey liked to relax by driving his car along country lanes. Meanwhile, in the Women section, it was emphasised that, although Sylvia Coleridge was playing a fox-hunting MC, she herself was very much against blood sports: “The idea of dressing in silly clothes and chasing a poor fox – why, it’s horrid,” she remarked. “How a woman could bring herself to do that sort of thing is beyond me.”
Unfortunately, reviewer T. C. Worsley, writing in the Financial Times on Wednesday 21 April 1965 after presumably catching the Southern transmission of You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere, did not find the detective’s activities either subtle or profound. In a piece entitled Beginning, Middle and End, the critic admitted to breaking his “self-denying ordinance against Saturday trash-viewing” and tuning in for Public Eye. “It was really an astonishing affair,” he wrote – and not for the intended reasons. “For the story was what might be deemed highly sophisticated, but it was reduced by the treatment to exactly this simple, basic, beginning, middle and end formula.” He described the plot, concluding that “told, as it was, in the flat, over-simple, unaccented narrative style of the strip advertisement, with dialogue which advanced the plot but nothing else, with reach-me-down images and unpersonalised characters, it was of the very slightest interest … Its interest was on the level of the strip advertisement.”
The TV World (24–30 April 1965) listing for this episode was accompanied by a small shot of Marker, and the magazine also carried two additional short, illustrated articles. The People column commented on how Peter Jeffrey liked to relax by driving his car along country lanes. Meanwhile, in the Women section, it was emphasised that, although Sylvia Coleridge was playing a fox-hunting MC, she herself was very much against blood sports: “The idea of dressing in silly clothes and chasing a poor fox – why, it’s horrid,” she remarked. “How a woman could bring herself to do that sort of thing is beyond me.”
On Saturday 24 April, the Daily Mirror’s Ken Irwin considered that night’s instalment of Public Eye to be part of “A ‘kinky’ trend” hitting British television. “In their search for ‘different’ plots, more and more writers and producers are bringing weird, off-beat plays to the screen,” he said, in an article entitled The March of the Anything-goes Plays (see above). “In Public Eye, on ITV 10.10 tonight, Alfred Burke, as no-nonsense private eye Frank Marker, tries to track down a husband’s girlfriend – and finds the husband is having an affair with a man.” Other adult-oriented programmes under discussion included that week’s edition of The Wednesday Play, Auto-Stop, a sexually frank piece about a young man’s infatuation with an older woman; The Horror of Darkness, another play from the same BBC1 anthology strand that had been screened during March, “in which Nicol Williamson played the role of a homosexual who tried to win a man away from his wife”; and the previous evening’s concluding instalment of the off-beat Granada crime thriller It’s Dark Outside, “one of the kinkiest series ever to hit the small screen.” The episode in question, The Gatling’s Jammed and the Colonel’s Dead, dealt with sadism, while across the series “they have had strip scenes in bedrooms, a peeping Tom, a man using a two-way mirror to watch a love scene, kinky parties with suggestions of homosexuality, brutal killings and colour prejudice.” The reporter predicted that “we haven’t seen the end of the kinky play era by a long way”, with Six Shades of Black, a short series of black comedies produced by Granada, beginning next week. The article was illustrated with a photograph of I Went to Borrow a Pencil and Look What I Found actress Nyree Dawn Porter, who was due to appear in the fourth episode, A Loving Disposition, as “a vivacious blonde … who lives in a London penthouse flat with her husband, five lovers – and a pet python.” ABC’s The Avengers, “with all its kinky boots and off-beat plots,” was also due back on screens later in the year. The fact that ABC had used a real-life private eye to advise on the authenticity of Public Eye’s scripts was emphasised, with Richard Bates commenting that “We have tried to get away from the fantasies of The Avengers by producing down-to-earth stories. We always try to get some kind of truth in the plays, even though they may not always be very appetising. The episode about the husband with a boyfriend is probably the best thing we’ve done in the whole series.”
A different press statement to the one described at the beginning of this section was quoted by ‘Monitor’ on the Week-end Television and Radio page of The Coventry Evening Telegraph on Saturday 24 April (see near right). ABC described You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere as having “the most serious script in the series. The author (Martin Worth) has written with understanding and compassion about the reasons which underlie the threatened break-up of a marriage between a prosperous city stockbroker, who lives in the country and hunts on Saturdays, and his emotionally unstable wife.” The article then covered more familiar ground, noting that “Zena Walker stars as the wife, Jean Lawford, who suspects her husband Harry (Peter Jeffrey) of having an affair with Deirdre, his secretary (Jane Carlyle). Frank Marker is hired to watch Harry, but soon finds himself in a difficult situation.” |
Meanwhile, Staffordshire’s Evening Sentinel (see above, far right) ran a photograph of Zena Walker, on the telephone in Act Three as Jean Lawford, “whose marriage is in difficulties in tonight’s episode of Public Eye”.
“You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere was almost certainly the most serious production in the realistic Public Eye series,” declared the reviewer (credited only with the initials C.V.) for the Television column of the Leicester Mercury on Monday 26 April. “If it had been presented as a play, doubtless it would have received careful consideration from critics. It is an interesting and welcome fact that writers now give as much care and thought to a series’ script as previously lavished on a single play.” Martin Worth’s script was deemed to be “an understanding and compassionate analysis of the reasons underlying a threatened break-up of a marriage. It treated a ‘difficult theme’ in a frank and adult way and, most important, with taste and skill.” The reviewer found the episode “much more convincing” than the previous night’s Armchair Theatre presentation, The Incident, written by Alan Plater and directed by Alvin Rakoff, “which failed to exploit to the full its original theme.” The Incident, which concerned the effect of a road block suddenly being put in place to halt migration, featured All for a Couple of Ponies’ Pauline Munro among its cast as an Army captain’s secretary, Miss Creswell.
The serious and difficult themes of You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere were not enough, however, to keep Glasgow viewer S. McKinnon awake, owing to the 11.05pm Sunday-night time slot given to Public Eye on Scottish Television. “Just what public is this meant for?” asked McKinnon, in a letter published in Glasgow’s Sunday Mail on 15 August. “When it comes on I’m getting ready for bed and by the time it finishes it’s nearly the next day. Last time I watched it, I fell asleep half way through and wakened at 4am, frozen stiff and with a blank screen in front of me. Come on, STV, call it a day and let’s see the programme – and get a good night’s sleep.” The letters editor contacted the broadcaster, but the prognosis was poor for sleep-deprived Public Eye fans: “Sorry folks, nothing doing. STV say there’s ‘no hope’ of it being shown earlier.”
“A really top-line series, this,” wrote Peter Forth in his preview of the TWW transmission in the Western Daily Press on Saturday 4 September, “though,” he cautioned, “not to be recommended to the squeamish viewer or those who like their crime sugar-coated.”
“You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere was almost certainly the most serious production in the realistic Public Eye series,” declared the reviewer (credited only with the initials C.V.) for the Television column of the Leicester Mercury on Monday 26 April. “If it had been presented as a play, doubtless it would have received careful consideration from critics. It is an interesting and welcome fact that writers now give as much care and thought to a series’ script as previously lavished on a single play.” Martin Worth’s script was deemed to be “an understanding and compassionate analysis of the reasons underlying a threatened break-up of a marriage. It treated a ‘difficult theme’ in a frank and adult way and, most important, with taste and skill.” The reviewer found the episode “much more convincing” than the previous night’s Armchair Theatre presentation, The Incident, written by Alan Plater and directed by Alvin Rakoff, “which failed to exploit to the full its original theme.” The Incident, which concerned the effect of a road block suddenly being put in place to halt migration, featured All for a Couple of Ponies’ Pauline Munro among its cast as an Army captain’s secretary, Miss Creswell.
The serious and difficult themes of You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere were not enough, however, to keep Glasgow viewer S. McKinnon awake, owing to the 11.05pm Sunday-night time slot given to Public Eye on Scottish Television. “Just what public is this meant for?” asked McKinnon, in a letter published in Glasgow’s Sunday Mail on 15 August. “When it comes on I’m getting ready for bed and by the time it finishes it’s nearly the next day. Last time I watched it, I fell asleep half way through and wakened at 4am, frozen stiff and with a blank screen in front of me. Come on, STV, call it a day and let’s see the programme – and get a good night’s sleep.” The letters editor contacted the broadcaster, but the prognosis was poor for sleep-deprived Public Eye fans: “Sorry folks, nothing doing. STV say there’s ‘no hope’ of it being shown earlier.”
“A really top-line series, this,” wrote Peter Forth in his preview of the TWW transmission in the Western Daily Press on Saturday 4 September, “though,” he cautioned, “not to be recommended to the squeamish viewer or those who like their crime sugar-coated.”
Nobody Wants to Know
In Act One of the script, Harry Lawford indicates that the area covered by his local hunt includes a quarry at Melton. There are two places by that name in England: the village of Melton, in Suffolk, and the Borough of Melton, a district of Leicestershire. The latter was formed in 1974 from the Melton Mowbray Urban District and the Melton and Belvoir Rural District, and is named after its main town, Melton Mowbray. However, the Melton in Martin Worth’s script appears to be a fictional location situated elsewhere. Both of the real-life Meltons lie north of London, a city to which Harry Lawford and John Fordyce regularly commute to work. The village of Melton is 80 miles from the capital, while the Borough of Melton is another 20 miles more distant. Later on in the first act, Harry refers to himself, his wife and the Fordyces “Squatting in our snazzy houses thirty miles from London, commuting up to town with one another in the same trains”. Jean similarly suggests that London is geographically north of the village in which they live, describing Harry “going up to London every day with the bowler hat brigade”. John Fordyce echoes this towards the end of Act One, telling Marker that he and Harry “go up to town every day on the same train.”
Harry also mentions a place called Furzehill, which again shares its name with a variety of real locations, none of which is near enough to London to be the Furzehill in the story. The closest to the capital is Furze Hill, a 14-acre biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Cambridgeshire, which lies 50 miles away. This site is private land with no public access. The most distant Furzehill is a hamlet in Devon, located 180 miles outside of London. Furze Hill (or Furzehill), a hamlet in Hampshire, and Furzehill, an area in Dorset, at least meet the criterion of being south of the City, though they are situated 90 miles and 100 miles from London, respectively. Harry’s local hunt also takes in an area called Blackstone Wood, which appears to be entirely fictitious.
Judging by the rehearsal script, it seems that Marker made his latest first appearance in this episode. His debut scene, at the end of Act One, begins on page 24 (of 71), just over a third of the way into the story. In terms of screen time, based on the typical running time of an ABC episode of Public Eye (about 47 minutes), this would suggest that Marker made his entrance about 16 minutes into You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere.
Harry also mentions a place called Furzehill, which again shares its name with a variety of real locations, none of which is near enough to London to be the Furzehill in the story. The closest to the capital is Furze Hill, a 14-acre biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Cambridgeshire, which lies 50 miles away. This site is private land with no public access. The most distant Furzehill is a hamlet in Devon, located 180 miles outside of London. Furze Hill (or Furzehill), a hamlet in Hampshire, and Furzehill, an area in Dorset, at least meet the criterion of being south of the City, though they are situated 90 miles and 100 miles from London, respectively. Harry’s local hunt also takes in an area called Blackstone Wood, which appears to be entirely fictitious.
Judging by the rehearsal script, it seems that Marker made his latest first appearance in this episode. His debut scene, at the end of Act One, begins on page 24 (of 71), just over a third of the way into the story. In terms of screen time, based on the typical running time of an ABC episode of Public Eye (about 47 minutes), this would suggest that Marker made his entrance about 16 minutes into You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere.
With thanks to Jonny Davies, Andrew Pixley, Barbara Toft, the BFI Special Collections, the British Newspaper Archive and Network Distributing.
The Missing Markers is a not-for-profit fan website written and edited by and copyright © Richard McGinlay. All rights reserved.
Public Eye (the ABC years) is copyright © StudioCanal. No attempt to infringe this copyright is intended.
The Missing Markers is a not-for-profit fan website written and edited by and copyright © Richard McGinlay. All rights reserved.
Public Eye (the ABC years) is copyright © StudioCanal. No attempt to infringe this copyright is intended.