Series 2 – Episode 5
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Frank Marker
Phil Lyons Vivien Green David Bowen Ella Bowen Police Sergeant Harper Dan Tashin Don Barmaid Nurse Dodge Heather Bowen |
Alfred Burke
William Lucas Miranda Connell Barry Letts Elizabeth Kentish Timothy West Lloyd Lamble Dermot Tuohy Christopher Sandford Nina Baden-Semper Alex Marshall Gillian Wray |
The rehearsal script also called for the non-speaking character of Phil Lyons’s secretary, Mrs Carlyon, who may have been played by the one of the female extras named on the right
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Uncredited cast:
Thugs (one of whom may be called Charlie) Policemen Stunt double for Alfred Burke People at Don’s Dan Tashin’s horse |
Brian Doyle, Roger Squires, Jack Delaney Tony Wade, Leslie Adams Ray Austin Danny Nickalides, Toby Burleigh, Steve Hardy, Christian Fletcher, Tony Dworzek, Carol Sandford, Carol James, Diane Keen, Anya Marsden, Everetta Davies Andy |
Production
Series based on an idea by Roger Marshall and Anthony Marriott
Theme Music composed by Robert Earley Floor Manager: Patrick Kennedy Stage Manager: Daphne Lucas Production Assistant: Christine Thomas |
Wardrobe Supervisor: Diana Bennett
Make-Up Supervisor: Mimi Kimmins Designed by Mike Hall Edited & Produced by Richard Bates Directed by Guy Verney |
Rehearsed from 10.30am on Friday 20 May 1966 at Rehearsal Room 2A, ABC Television Studios, Broom Road, Teddington, Middlesex
Camera rehearsed from Wednesday 1 June 1966 at Studio 2, Teddington
Recorded from 6.05pm to 7.15pm on Thursday 2 June 1966 at Studio 2, Teddington
Camera rehearsed from Wednesday 1 June 1966 at Studio 2, Teddington
Recorded from 6.05pm to 7.15pm on Thursday 2 June 1966 at Studio 2, Teddington
TV World Synopsis
Saturday 11.30: Bowen’s farm. Leave car on main road and discreetly find Mrs. Bowen. Her daughter was drowned in the canal last week – wonder if that’s what she wants to talk about.
Click here for detailed synopsis
Click here for detailed synopsis
Transmission
Monday 25 July 1966, 9.37pm (Rediffusion)
Friday 29 July 1966, 8pm (Anglia, Border, Channel, Grampian, Southern, Tyne Tees and Westward)
Saturday 30 July 1966, 9.10pm (ABC Midlands, ABC North and Ulster)
Sunday 31 July 1966, 11.05pm (Scottish)
Wednesday 12 October 1966, 8pm (TWW)
Ratings: 4,700,000 (=11th)
Friday 29 July 1966, 8pm (Anglia, Border, Channel, Grampian, Southern, Tyne Tees and Westward)
Saturday 30 July 1966, 9.10pm (ABC Midlands, ABC North and Ulster)
Sunday 31 July 1966, 11.05pm (Scottish)
Wednesday 12 October 1966, 8pm (TWW)
Ratings: 4,700,000 (=11th)
Archive
Rehearsal script – held in the BFI Special Collections
Behind-the-scenes clip (Digital Betacam videotape taken from 16mm monochrome film negative) – held in the Media Archive for Central England (MACE)
Behind-the-scenes clip (Digital Betacam videotape taken from 16mm monochrome film negative) – held in the Media Archive for Central England (MACE)
Story Notes
The rehearsal script bears the working title You Know What You Can Do with the Medal, though within the script the line spoken by Marker (to the police sergeant near the end of Act Two) matches the episode’s broadcast title, You Can Keep the Medal. Perhaps an earlier version of the script had Marker saying, “You know what you can do with the medal”, and the line was adjusted before the title was updated to match.
In this version of the script, Vivien’s surname is Mansell.
The deceased Heather Bowen does not feature as a character within the rehearsal script, only being referred to in dialogue spoken by other characters. Nevertheless, actress Gillian Wray was credited with playing the part in the final production. Contemporary press coverage (see Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?, below) reveals that Heather was seen in silent flashbacks as various characters remember the dead girl. This aspect has been incorporated into this site’s detailed synopsis. Though Heather does not appear in the main body of the rehearsal script, her name is listed in the cast of characters on the second page, so the production team may have already hit upon the idea of the flashbacks by the time the character list was typed.
Julian Bond’s script does not specify what Marker has for his snack lunch during Act Two, only that “The ingredients are pretty lousy, but he sets them out with a certain style.”
In the script, when Marker reacts badly to the revelation that Phil Lyons runs an escort service, the inquiry agent explains, “It’s the Puritan in me.” A review of this episode in Television Today (again, see Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?, below) suggests that the line was revised to “I have a strong puritanical streak.”
It is unclear whether Charlie is a character’s real name, a nickname, or just a name conjured up by Phil Lyons as part of his attempt to deter Marker in Act Two. The name appears in the character list at the beginning of the rehearsal script, but is only heard in dialogue within the script proper. Lyons tells Marker about “A man called Charlie”. Later, at Don’s, Marker says, “They told me I might find Charlie here” and “I was hoping to have a word with Charlie.” In ABC publicity material for You Can Keep the Medal, the name is attributed to Don’s “chief dope pusher”, whom Marker meets near the canal. However, in scripted directions, the thug whom Marker initially assumes to be Charlie is described only as “the man” and “the man Marker met”, while Don’s gang are referred to collectively as “the figures of men” or just “the men”. The choice of name may also be a coded reference to the illegal drug that Marker is supposedly offering to sell – Charlie is street slang for cocaine, so called because it has the same initial letter.
Unusually, Marker smokes in this script. At the club, while waiting for Don to return, “Marker lights a cigarette, eyeing the customers.” It is unlikely that this behaviour was retained in the recorded episode, as Marker declines the offer of a cigarette in both of the surviving episodes from Series 2, and states that he doesn’t smoke in Works with Chess, Not with Life. Therefore, the cigarette has been omitted from the detailed synopsis.
In Act Three, when Harper says, “I mean, if you’re going to get mixed up in a scandal, you do wish it had, at least, been fun at the time,” he echoes the feelings of Hugh Clayton in Julian Bond’s previous script, I Could Set It to Music. In that episode, when accused of continuing an extramarital affair that he had claimed was over, Hugh says to his wife, “If you still aren’t sure whether I’ve finished with her, all I can say is I wish to God I hadn’t.”
Again echoing I Could Set It to Music (specifically, the compromising photograph of Hugh Clayton and Ann Maitland), the shocking contents of Heather’s suicide note are kept off screen. A direction in Act Three states that “we don’t see what it says, but it shakes Marker.” A little later, when David Bowen reads the note, “again we don’t see what it says but only its effect on David, which is absolutely shattering.”
In this version of the script, Vivien’s surname is Mansell.
The deceased Heather Bowen does not feature as a character within the rehearsal script, only being referred to in dialogue spoken by other characters. Nevertheless, actress Gillian Wray was credited with playing the part in the final production. Contemporary press coverage (see Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?, below) reveals that Heather was seen in silent flashbacks as various characters remember the dead girl. This aspect has been incorporated into this site’s detailed synopsis. Though Heather does not appear in the main body of the rehearsal script, her name is listed in the cast of characters on the second page, so the production team may have already hit upon the idea of the flashbacks by the time the character list was typed.
Julian Bond’s script does not specify what Marker has for his snack lunch during Act Two, only that “The ingredients are pretty lousy, but he sets them out with a certain style.”
In the script, when Marker reacts badly to the revelation that Phil Lyons runs an escort service, the inquiry agent explains, “It’s the Puritan in me.” A review of this episode in Television Today (again, see Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?, below) suggests that the line was revised to “I have a strong puritanical streak.”
It is unclear whether Charlie is a character’s real name, a nickname, or just a name conjured up by Phil Lyons as part of his attempt to deter Marker in Act Two. The name appears in the character list at the beginning of the rehearsal script, but is only heard in dialogue within the script proper. Lyons tells Marker about “A man called Charlie”. Later, at Don’s, Marker says, “They told me I might find Charlie here” and “I was hoping to have a word with Charlie.” In ABC publicity material for You Can Keep the Medal, the name is attributed to Don’s “chief dope pusher”, whom Marker meets near the canal. However, in scripted directions, the thug whom Marker initially assumes to be Charlie is described only as “the man” and “the man Marker met”, while Don’s gang are referred to collectively as “the figures of men” or just “the men”. The choice of name may also be a coded reference to the illegal drug that Marker is supposedly offering to sell – Charlie is street slang for cocaine, so called because it has the same initial letter.
Unusually, Marker smokes in this script. At the club, while waiting for Don to return, “Marker lights a cigarette, eyeing the customers.” It is unlikely that this behaviour was retained in the recorded episode, as Marker declines the offer of a cigarette in both of the surviving episodes from Series 2, and states that he doesn’t smoke in Works with Chess, Not with Life. Therefore, the cigarette has been omitted from the detailed synopsis.
In Act Three, when Harper says, “I mean, if you’re going to get mixed up in a scandal, you do wish it had, at least, been fun at the time,” he echoes the feelings of Hugh Clayton in Julian Bond’s previous script, I Could Set It to Music. In that episode, when accused of continuing an extramarital affair that he had claimed was over, Hugh says to his wife, “If you still aren’t sure whether I’ve finished with her, all I can say is I wish to God I hadn’t.”
Again echoing I Could Set It to Music (specifically, the compromising photograph of Hugh Clayton and Ann Maitland), the shocking contents of Heather’s suicide note are kept off screen. A direction in Act Three states that “we don’t see what it says, but it shakes Marker.” A little later, when David Bowen reads the note, “again we don’t see what it says but only its effect on David, which is absolutely shattering.”
Production Notes
According to a rubber stamp on its front cover, the rehearsal script was “RECEIVED 12 MAY 1966 FOR OVERSEAS SALES”. This was a Thursday, eight days before rehearsals began with a read-through at Rehearsal Room 2A on Friday 20 May.
The opening scene of the script takes place against a “LIMBO BACKGROUND”. In set design terms, limbo refers to a nondescript and usually small area of the television studio, intended to save on studio space and the cost of designing and building scenery for a setting that will not be on screen for long. Such a background had previously been used in Act Three of They Go Off in the End – Like Fruit, when a policeman is briefly seen patrolling his beat. In You Can Keep the Medal, the limbo background also creates mystery, in that it is not immediately apparent where Ella, David and Vivien are. Julian Bond’s script calls for “Enormous close-ups – they could be anywhere.” Of the disagreement between Ella and Vivien, the script says, “We don’t know what it’s all about – only that it’s violent and harrowing.” Only when Vivien runs out of the building, in footage recorded on location, does it become clear that she is emerging from the coroner’s court.
Given their nature as flashbacks, Gillian Wray’s scenes as Heather may have been pre-recorded as videotape inserts prior to the main recording session on Thursday 2 June 1966.
Music played during the scenes at Don’s included Bikini Beach, performed by Lad Busby on a 1960 Conroy recording (BM 248-B); Never Leave Your Baby’s Side, written by Robert Dobyne, Charles Jones and Robert Staunton, performed by Tony Jackson and released by CBS in May 1966 (CBS 202069); Sweet Sweet Morning, written by Roger Fennings and performed by Roger Young via Columbia in March 1966 (DB 7869); and Misty Morning Eyes, written by Barry Mason and Les Reed, and performed by Barry Mason for a May 1966 Decca release (F 12401).
You Can Keep the Medal made its debut on Monday 25 July 1966 at 9.37pm on Rediffusion owing to coverage of the World Cup semi-final between West Germany and the Soviet Union. This placed it opposite the filmed US courtroom drama The Defenders on BBC1, while the Friday 29 July screening at 8pm was up against The Hippodrome Circus, an excerpt from the 1966 show in Great Yarmouth. The viewing figures were again strong, with the gritty suicide tale ranking equal sixth in the Southern region.
The opening scene of the script takes place against a “LIMBO BACKGROUND”. In set design terms, limbo refers to a nondescript and usually small area of the television studio, intended to save on studio space and the cost of designing and building scenery for a setting that will not be on screen for long. Such a background had previously been used in Act Three of They Go Off in the End – Like Fruit, when a policeman is briefly seen patrolling his beat. In You Can Keep the Medal, the limbo background also creates mystery, in that it is not immediately apparent where Ella, David and Vivien are. Julian Bond’s script calls for “Enormous close-ups – they could be anywhere.” Of the disagreement between Ella and Vivien, the script says, “We don’t know what it’s all about – only that it’s violent and harrowing.” Only when Vivien runs out of the building, in footage recorded on location, does it become clear that she is emerging from the coroner’s court.
Given their nature as flashbacks, Gillian Wray’s scenes as Heather may have been pre-recorded as videotape inserts prior to the main recording session on Thursday 2 June 1966.
Music played during the scenes at Don’s included Bikini Beach, performed by Lad Busby on a 1960 Conroy recording (BM 248-B); Never Leave Your Baby’s Side, written by Robert Dobyne, Charles Jones and Robert Staunton, performed by Tony Jackson and released by CBS in May 1966 (CBS 202069); Sweet Sweet Morning, written by Roger Fennings and performed by Roger Young via Columbia in March 1966 (DB 7869); and Misty Morning Eyes, written by Barry Mason and Les Reed, and performed by Barry Mason for a May 1966 Decca release (F 12401).
You Can Keep the Medal made its debut on Monday 25 July 1966 at 9.37pm on Rediffusion owing to coverage of the World Cup semi-final between West Germany and the Soviet Union. This placed it opposite the filmed US courtroom drama The Defenders on BBC1, while the Friday 29 July screening at 8pm was up against The Hippodrome Circus, an excerpt from the 1966 show in Great Yarmouth. The viewing figures were again strong, with the gritty suicide tale ranking equal sixth in the Southern region.
Home and Away
OB recording in Birmingham began on Thursday 26 May 1966 with Marker visiting Harper’s house in Act Three and then arriving at the Bowens’ farm to meet Ella and David in Act One. The latter sequence was shot at Hill Farm in the village of Fenny Drayton (see Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?, below). Following the taping of Vivien fleeing the courthouse only to be intercepted by Phil Lyons in Act One, Friday 27 May was then spent at Gas Street Basin (see Nobody Wants to Know, below) for the scenes of Marker meeting the police sergeant in Act One, Marker considering what to tell David in Act Three and the night-time sequence of Marker being met and then thrown into the canal by Don and his thugs in Act Two. The rehearsal script indicates that the exterior of the police patrol car was also to be seen on location, when Marker exits the vehicle in Act Two, but it is not known on which day this short scene was recorded – if, indeed, it was retained in the finished programme at all.
The day-time OB work at Gas Street Basin was covered by a 16mm film unit from the Midlands early evening local news programme ATV Today, with reporter Reg Harcourt watching as director Guy Verney supervised Marker’s first encounter with the police sergeant (played by Timothy West), before chatting to Alfred Burke during a tea break. The five-minute report contains no actual footage from You Can Keep the Medal, but shows almost an entire canal-side scene being shot, representing about two minutes of the episode.
The rehearsal script contains a bit of action at the start of the scene that is not included in the behind-the-scenes clip. As scripted, the scene begins at a position looking towards the road from the canal towpath, showing the patrol car passing by and backing up again. The policemen are then seen leaving the vehicle and running down an alleyway towards the canal. It is possible that this action was dropped from the completed episode, or that it was simply out of shot of the ATV Today camera crew. In the documentary footage, the policemen run into frame close to Marker and the car is not visible.
A small amount of dialogue from the scene is not captured in the ATV Today report, in between the police sergeant helping Marker up and Marker telling the policeman that he is inspecting the scene of a crime. These few lines have been sourced from the rehearsal script for the purposes of the detailed synopsis. The rest of the dialogue for this sequence comes from the behind-the-scenes footage.
Marker’s response, “You always do,” to the police sergeant’s statement, “We’d need a lot of convincing,” was added during rehearsals. In the script, Marker merely says, “Tell me about Don’s.” Conversely, a line at the end of the scene was dropped. Before assuring the policeman that he will call out at the first sign of trouble, Marker was scripted to say, “I’m no hero.”
The day-time OB work at Gas Street Basin was covered by a 16mm film unit from the Midlands early evening local news programme ATV Today, with reporter Reg Harcourt watching as director Guy Verney supervised Marker’s first encounter with the police sergeant (played by Timothy West), before chatting to Alfred Burke during a tea break. The five-minute report contains no actual footage from You Can Keep the Medal, but shows almost an entire canal-side scene being shot, representing about two minutes of the episode.
The rehearsal script contains a bit of action at the start of the scene that is not included in the behind-the-scenes clip. As scripted, the scene begins at a position looking towards the road from the canal towpath, showing the patrol car passing by and backing up again. The policemen are then seen leaving the vehicle and running down an alleyway towards the canal. It is possible that this action was dropped from the completed episode, or that it was simply out of shot of the ATV Today camera crew. In the documentary footage, the policemen run into frame close to Marker and the car is not visible.
A small amount of dialogue from the scene is not captured in the ATV Today report, in between the police sergeant helping Marker up and Marker telling the policeman that he is inspecting the scene of a crime. These few lines have been sourced from the rehearsal script for the purposes of the detailed synopsis. The rest of the dialogue for this sequence comes from the behind-the-scenes footage.
Marker’s response, “You always do,” to the police sergeant’s statement, “We’d need a lot of convincing,” was added during rehearsals. In the script, Marker merely says, “Tell me about Don’s.” Conversely, a line at the end of the scene was dropped. Before assuring the policeman that he will call out at the first sign of trouble, Marker was scripted to say, “I’m no hero.”
During the interview with Reg Harcourt, Alfred Burke reported, “It’s going very well,” before qualifying his statement with an acknowledgement that, as usual with exterior work, it involved “a great deal of hanging about”, which was “cosmically boring”. He then described the differences between acting on location and in the television studio: “Working in the studio, everything is much more under your control. On the other hand, when you’re out here, everything is real. You’re enabled to be a great deal more spontaneous, because you’re in a real street by a real canal – or on a real farm, as we were yesterday.” Bemoaning the lack of location work during Series 1, the actor revealed, “There were a good, sort of, dozen occasions where we could have gone outside and widened the scope a bit, particularly with this character, who does a great deal of footwork, from door to door.” Asked why Birmingham had been chosen as the setting for the second series, Burke replied, “Because Birmingham hasn’t, in fact, been exploited on the television screens – in fact, it’s hardly been seen, to my knowledge, certainly over the whole country – and a big city, with all sides of life that it contains – the seediness and the squalor as well as the smart, residential areas – is the sort of area in which Marker operates and gets most of his employment.” The actor also commented on how much the city had changed since he had worked there in rep more than a decade earlier.
The ATV Today bulletin was broadcast in the ATV Midlands region at 6.15pm on Friday 3 June 1966. Following its sole transmission, the footage survived to be rediscovered by researcher Philip Leach in early 2004. It was included, in a slightly edited form, as a special feature on the Network DVD releases Public Eye: The Complete 1971 Series (issued on Monday 13 December 2004), Public Eye: The ABC Years (published on Monday 27 August 2012) and subsequent boxed sets. Photographs from the day- and night-time canal-side shoot were used on the cover of Marker Calls the Tune, an original Public Eye novel written by series co-creator Anthony Marriott and published by Fontana in January 1968. The front cover (see above left) depicted Marker being menaced by Don and his heavies towards the end of Act Two, while the back cover (see left) showed the inquiry agent talking to the police sergeant and his driver in Act One. Despite the use of imagery from the Gas Street Basin shoot, the events of the novel took place in London, with Marker still operating out of his Clapham office. Of the evening action sequence, in which Marker ended up in the canal, Alfred Burke recalled in January 1995: “We had a stuntman who did it – Ray Austin. He went in the river, got out, dried off, got in his Jag, went back to London. I walked into the river for the coming-out-of-the-river shot and I spent the whole of the next evening being sick. And I didn’t even jump in.” He remembered the incident again when interviewed by Chris Perry in August 2008 for the DVD release Kaleidoscope Talks to Alfred Burke (released on Monday 9 March 2020): “I wasn’t thrown in. The double was thrown in. He was thrown in, and came out, and went back home in his very smart car. And I put on the wet suit – that he had worn – for the rest of the sequence.” However, when asked by Perry if he had caught pneumonia as a result, Burke recalled no ill effects: “No, fortunately, I didn’t. That would have been a good story.” |
Many a Slip
Complaints about the sound quality of television programmes are nothing new, as evidenced by Marjorie Norris’s review of the episode in Television Today on Thursday 28 July 1966 (see Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?, below). “Marker’s move to Birmingham has coincided with the inclusion of location filming,” she observed, “and this has strengthened the stories by making it much more obvious that a private eye’s biggest expense is in shoe leather. But the search for varied backgrounds can lead directors to forget (as it did in You Can Keep the Medal) that an interesting picture does not necessarily compensate for inaudible dialogue. The scenes on the farm were spoiled by wind getting into the microphone.”
Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?
On Friday 3 June 1966, the Atherstone Herald (see below) reported on the location shoot at Hill Farm in Fenny Drayton, a village and former civil parish that now resides in the parish of Witherley, in the Hinckley and Bosworth district of Leicestershire. It lies near the Warwickshire boundary, three miles south-east of the market town of Atherstone in the Coventry postcode area. Actors and actresses from London and around 25 technicians from Manchester descended on the farm to record material for the episode, which was expected to be broadcast in August. The horse being put through its paces by David Bowen (Barry Letts) was revealed to be male (played by Andy, a hunter loaned by a Mr George Hall), marking a departure from the rehearsal script, in which Dan Tashin (Dermot Tuohy) tries to sell David a mare. After a few moments of nervousness in front of the cameras, Andy “trotted round the yard while microphones were waved above him as if he had done it all his life. The fact that almost everyone from the director of the programme to the call boy had endless supplies of lump sugar in their pockets probably helped.” Within minutes of the scene being captured, the newspaper’s cameraman was invited into the OB unit’s recording van by the chief engineer to be shown how it looked on screen.
“I had a most unusual experience recently, even for a columnist,” wrote the Midlands entertainer Brian Doyle in his Brum Club Scene column (see above left) in The Stage on Thursday 16 June. “In the company of Roger Squires the TV magician from Wolverhampton and our own comedian, Jack Delaney, all three of us had a ‘punch up’ with three policemen, and finished up throwing a chap into the canal. Not only this, but we were also paid for it.” He was describing his uncredited role as one of Don’s thugs in the set-piece action sequence in Act Two of You Can Keep the Medal, which, he assured his readers, would be screened some time around mid-August.
Another uncredited performer was Carol Sandford (see above right), who appeared as one of the patrons at Don’s. She was also the wife of Christopher Sandford, the actor playing Don, as revealed in the Daily Mirror on Monday 25 July, the date of the Rediffusion transmission.
The London broadcast drew plaudits from Sally Cobb of the left-wing daily newspaper the Morning Star on Wednesday 27 July, when her review, Medal for Marker (see below left), declared Public Eye to be “One of the most believable series on the private eye”. Relating the “pretty sordid story” of call girls, dope dealers and suicide, the critic remarked, “One is filled with gratitude for a number of things. It is set unmistakably in Britain – Birmingham. The role of the private detective is excellently acted by Alfred Burke. He is frankly middle-aged and seedy, has no blonde bombshell around, and has not so much as a dilapidated Ford to snake around Birmingham in.” Though seeming to disapprove of the dead girl’s “sexual aberration”, Cobb promised, “Personally, I shall be around to see Public Eye as often as is possible.”
Another uncredited performer was Carol Sandford (see above right), who appeared as one of the patrons at Don’s. She was also the wife of Christopher Sandford, the actor playing Don, as revealed in the Daily Mirror on Monday 25 July, the date of the Rediffusion transmission.
The London broadcast drew plaudits from Sally Cobb of the left-wing daily newspaper the Morning Star on Wednesday 27 July, when her review, Medal for Marker (see below left), declared Public Eye to be “One of the most believable series on the private eye”. Relating the “pretty sordid story” of call girls, dope dealers and suicide, the critic remarked, “One is filled with gratitude for a number of things. It is set unmistakably in Britain – Birmingham. The role of the private detective is excellently acted by Alfred Burke. He is frankly middle-aged and seedy, has no blonde bombshell around, and has not so much as a dilapidated Ford to snake around Birmingham in.” Though seeming to disapprove of the dead girl’s “sexual aberration”, Cobb promised, “Personally, I shall be around to see Public Eye as often as is possible.”
The following day, Marjorie Norris of Television Today also looked at the episode, in her piece, Change in Marker not for better: More easily shocked now (see above right). “Frank Marker, ABC’s unglamorous Private Eye in Public Eye, was involved in some good, painstaking detective work in Julian Bond’s story,” she noted. “The plot belonged to the true-blue aristocracy of pure detection, with the investigator moving relentlessly towards a solution following clues false and true.” The truth Marker discovered “was a last, unexpected twist in a well-constructed story full of legitimate red herrings,” while the actor portraying him “was, as always, consistently admirable in the way he so subtly underplays the drama of Marker’s cases.” Norris’s “only complaint about this latest series” (well, apart from the sound quality – see Many a Slip, above) was that “Marker has lost much of the wry, sardonic humour that gave his earlier cases a lift. His original and unshockable disillusionment has given way to a tendency towards censoriousness and a distinct touch of the holier-than-thou’s. He was, in fact, given a line of dialogue in this story in which he described himself as having ‘a strong puritanical streak’. Presumably a policy decision, the change is not to my taste.” The quoted line may seem inconsistent with previous episodes, particularly in view of what Marker told his client James Birch in another Julian Bond script, I Could Set It to Music: “I don’t shock easy. Can’t afford to.” However, it is worth bearing in mind that, in You Can Keep the Medal, the inquiry agent is expressing his disdain for Phil Lyons’s escort business, which aligns with his disapproval of pimps and prostitutes in episodes such as ‘And a Very Fine Fiddle Has He’ and The Morning Wasn’t So Hot.
“Appearing in ITV’s play You Can Keep the Medal on Saturday is Gillian Wray, who trained with Lincoln Theatre Royal Company,” noted the Tele-Topics column of the Lincolnshire Echo on Thursday 28 July. “Gillian, an attractive brunette, is seen but not heard in this play; she appears only in the thoughts of other people.” The unusual nature of Wray’s role was also reported on the Week-end Television and Radio page of The Coventry Evening Telegraph on Saturday 30 July. On this occasion, the newspaper also included a photograph (see above) of Wray kneeling, possibly as her character is remembered by Vivien Green in Act Three.
“Appearing in ITV’s play You Can Keep the Medal on Saturday is Gillian Wray, who trained with Lincoln Theatre Royal Company,” noted the Tele-Topics column of the Lincolnshire Echo on Thursday 28 July. “Gillian, an attractive brunette, is seen but not heard in this play; she appears only in the thoughts of other people.” The unusual nature of Wray’s role was also reported on the Week-end Television and Radio page of The Coventry Evening Telegraph on Saturday 30 July. On this occasion, the newspaper also included a photograph (see above) of Wray kneeling, possibly as her character is remembered by Vivien Green in Act Three.
Elsewhere, the Leicester Mercury on Friday 29 July depicted Miranda Connell as Vivien (see left), while the Liverpool Echo on Saturday 30 July showed Nina Baden-Semper as the barmaid (see below).
The programme billing in TV World (30 July–5 August 1966) was accompanied by a photograph of Marker with Vivien. |
The Leicester Mercury provided further coverage on Monday 1 August. “One weekend programme which impresses more and more is Public Eye, wrote the reviewer, ‘T.J.D.’ “Its private detective Frank Marker (Alfred Burke) is a character who does not, perhaps, make an immediate impact. On longer acquaintance, he emerges as a warm, likeable personality. Not over-smart, not too heroic, he makes a welcome antidote to the many smoothies among television detectives. His assignments are not over-glamorous but, like his investigation into a girl’s suicide in Saturday’s episode, You Can Keep the Medal, they all have the ring of truth.”
On Wednesday 12 October, “Alfred Burke, that very human private detective” was once more a Forth’s Choice for that night’s viewing in Wales and the West of England. Marker was beginning to drop off Peter Forth’s radar, however, as this was the reporter’s only mention of Public Eye in the Western Daily Press during the whole of October and November.
On Wednesday 12 October, “Alfred Burke, that very human private detective” was once more a Forth’s Choice for that night’s viewing in Wales and the West of England. Marker was beginning to drop off Peter Forth’s radar, however, as this was the reporter’s only mention of Public Eye in the Western Daily Press during the whole of October and November.
Nobody Wants to Know
In this episode, Marker increases his rates slightly to six guineas a day plus expenses, which he quotes to David Bowen in Act One. The guinea was originally a coin, minted in Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained about a quarter of an ounce of gold. Its name came from the Guinea region of West Africa, from where much of the gold used to make the coins was obtained. After the guinea coin went out of circulation, the guinea remained in use as a unit of account worth 21 shillings (one pound and one shilling, or £1.05 in decimalised currency). The guinea had aristocratic connotations, so professional fees as well as prices for land, horses, art, bespoke tailoring, furniture, white goods and other ‘luxury’ items were often quoted in guineas until a couple of years after decimalisation in 1971.
Gas Street Basin is a canal basin in the centre of Birmingham, where the Worcester and Birmingham Canal meets the Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN) Main Line. It is situated on Gas Street, off Broad Street and between the Mailbox and Brindleyplace developments. A canal basin is an expanse of waterway alongside or at the end of a canal, and wider than the canal, constructed so as to enable boats to moor or unload cargo without impeding other traffic (like a land-locked harbour) and to allow room for turning. During the 1990s, much of the area around Gas Street Basin was redeveloped and older buildings were refurbished.
In Act Three, Vivien Green greets Marker with the mock salute, moritura te saluto. This is a feminine singular adaptation of morituri te salutant (“those who are about to die salute you”), a well-known Latin phrase quoted in De vita Caesarum (The Life of the Caesars, or The Twelve Caesars), a collection of biographies of 12 Roman emperors written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. Though popularly associated with gladiators, there is no evidence that the phrase was ever used by them as a customary greeting to their emperor. Rather, it appears to have been a plea for mercy uttered on a single recorded occasion, in AD 52, not by true gladiators but by naumachiarii (captives and criminals sentenced to die fighting in mock sea battles) in the presence of the emperor Claudius.
Marker’s attitude towards Heather’s homosexuality is somewhat at odds with You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere. He is slow on the uptake when Vivien tells him that Heather “didn’t like men” (“Come again?” he replies), is deeply shocked by Heather’s suicide note (“it shakes Marker”) and is complicit in concealing the facts behind Heather’s suicide from the girl’s mother. By contrast, what had appalled Marker in You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere was not the fact that Harry Lawford was gay, but that Harry and his wife were prepared to live a lie rather than face up to the truth. This may indicate less acceptance by Marker of gay women as opposed to gay men – or simple naivety regarding lesbianism. It may be pertinent to note that, even after the events of You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere, Marker seems not to consider the possibility that the wife of Mr Tatlow in It’s a Terrible Way to Be might be having an affair with Mrs Theobald. This, in turn, might suggest an antiquated assumption that sexual desire is primarily a male experience and that women can be expected to tolerate or endure sexual activity rather than necessarily enjoy it, as encapsulated in the cliché, “Lie back and think of England”. There is further evidence of this in Julian Bond’s previous script, I Could Set It to Music, in which Marker finds it difficult to believe that Ann Maitland could be content with a purely physical relationship with Hugh Clayton. “Him, I can understand,” says Marker, “But you?” To which Ann replies, “Funny the way men expect women to be romantic about sex. We’re much more matter-of-fact about it than you, really.”
Gas Street Basin is a canal basin in the centre of Birmingham, where the Worcester and Birmingham Canal meets the Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN) Main Line. It is situated on Gas Street, off Broad Street and between the Mailbox and Brindleyplace developments. A canal basin is an expanse of waterway alongside or at the end of a canal, and wider than the canal, constructed so as to enable boats to moor or unload cargo without impeding other traffic (like a land-locked harbour) and to allow room for turning. During the 1990s, much of the area around Gas Street Basin was redeveloped and older buildings were refurbished.
In Act Three, Vivien Green greets Marker with the mock salute, moritura te saluto. This is a feminine singular adaptation of morituri te salutant (“those who are about to die salute you”), a well-known Latin phrase quoted in De vita Caesarum (The Life of the Caesars, or The Twelve Caesars), a collection of biographies of 12 Roman emperors written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. Though popularly associated with gladiators, there is no evidence that the phrase was ever used by them as a customary greeting to their emperor. Rather, it appears to have been a plea for mercy uttered on a single recorded occasion, in AD 52, not by true gladiators but by naumachiarii (captives and criminals sentenced to die fighting in mock sea battles) in the presence of the emperor Claudius.
Marker’s attitude towards Heather’s homosexuality is somewhat at odds with You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere. He is slow on the uptake when Vivien tells him that Heather “didn’t like men” (“Come again?” he replies), is deeply shocked by Heather’s suicide note (“it shakes Marker”) and is complicit in concealing the facts behind Heather’s suicide from the girl’s mother. By contrast, what had appalled Marker in You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere was not the fact that Harry Lawford was gay, but that Harry and his wife were prepared to live a lie rather than face up to the truth. This may indicate less acceptance by Marker of gay women as opposed to gay men – or simple naivety regarding lesbianism. It may be pertinent to note that, even after the events of You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere, Marker seems not to consider the possibility that the wife of Mr Tatlow in It’s a Terrible Way to Be might be having an affair with Mrs Theobald. This, in turn, might suggest an antiquated assumption that sexual desire is primarily a male experience and that women can be expected to tolerate or endure sexual activity rather than necessarily enjoy it, as encapsulated in the cliché, “Lie back and think of England”. There is further evidence of this in Julian Bond’s previous script, I Could Set It to Music, in which Marker finds it difficult to believe that Ann Maitland could be content with a purely physical relationship with Hugh Clayton. “Him, I can understand,” says Marker, “But you?” To which Ann replies, “Funny the way men expect women to be romantic about sex. We’re much more matter-of-fact about it than you, really.”
With thanks to Jonny Davies, Andrew Pixley, the BFI Special Collections, the British Newspaper Archive, Kaleidoscope Publishing 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.