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Publicity : The Big M: After two-and-a-half years and two-hundred-and-twenty-two transmissions of thriller serials, producer Alan Bromly is taking a holiday before starting to prepare a series of full-length thriller plays. During this remarkable run of thriller serials, there have been twenty different stories by sixteen writers, using twelve directors and more than one-thousand performers. Bromly himself directed four of them, including the latest by Lester Powell, "The Big M" in six parts, the first of which you can see tonight. "This thriller differs considerably from anything else we have done," he says. "It's what you might term a `twisted' love story, set against the background of a hot, decadent, south-west Britain. The `M' in the title stands for manana, meaning `tomorrow' and typifies the `leave-it-till-tomorrow' mood - a lethargy engendered by the heat". A strong acting cast includes Michael Bryant and Mitzi Rogers. Bromly considers this is one of the tautest thrillers he has handled - and he should know! What makes a thriller-serial writer? "Many authors can turn out a good play," says Bromly, "but those who can construct a six-part serial are rare. Most seem to be novelists, the exception being Peter (Modesty Blaise) O'Donnell who is, of course, a strip-cartoon writer. But then he has imagination and a discipline from working on newspapers. He is used to thinking visually". Thriller serials are one of BBC Television's best overseas sellers and have been sold to countries ranging from Norway to Malaya, Zimbabwe to Australia. (Radio Times, August 24, 1967). Notes : Episodes were originally transmitted 10:00pm to 10:25pm on BBC 2.
Synopsis
: The
premature death of a client brings a rush of business
to Johnny Treherne's seaside detective agency. Suddenly,
everyone, including Johnny, wants to know why the client
came to him.
Publicity : The Unassuming M - Michael Bryant, an actor who doesn't take himself too seriously, talks to Gay Search: A blazing hot day down by the Serpentine in Hyde Park. Through the usual crowd of half-dressed, lunchtime sunbathers came Michael Bryant, clad in a thick navy-blue track suit and white plimsolls, running athletically behind a mobile camera. It was the eighth time he'd done the one-hundred-yard stretch - passing vehicles and curious spectators had spoilt the other seven - and although he'd had to be up at three that morning to start filming, he still looked remarkably fresh. He was filming sequences for a Wednesday Play The Man Behind You to be seen on BBC Television in the autumn, his third big television role this year. His first was as Alan in John Hopkins' highly praised quartet of plays Talking To A Stranger, and the second in the thriller serial The Big M (the third part of which you can see tonight) in which he plays Johnny Treherne, the rather seedy private detective. His relationship with television has been rather a "love-hate" one. "I hated it all at first," he says, "because I didn't know how to do it". Now though, on closer acquaintanceship, he enjoys it, and thinks that it is the medium where most good new plays and writers are to be found. But Michael is still a comparative newcomer to television. Up to two years ago his acting career had been almost exclusively in the theatre. He was in repertory at both Worthing and Oxford. "Worthing used to do commercial plays. They often weren't very good plays, but they used to do them well, and the audience would come and support them. At Oxford we did a much, much higher class of work - and emptied the theatre!". In 1961 he came to the West End and took over from Alec Guiness in Ross. After that he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. He was there for two years but left because "it was a bit like school". All his experience in repertory theatre he considers invaluable, and he's something of a rarity in the acting profession because his performances, he says, are technique not inspiration. "I'm not a natural actor," he says. "I've had to learn it all". One of his favourite modern playwrights is Harold Pinter, but when the Royal Shakespeare Company took Pinter's The Homecoming to New York, Michael, one of the original cast, refused to go. "It sounds awfully rude," he says, "but I can't stand going to New York. I suppose I ought to see a psychiatrist. I was there for fourteen months with Five Finger Exercise and it nearly drove me mad. I hated it - the air of barbarism is very frightening". Since then he has stuck pretty well to acting on television in England, but surprisingly he is hardly ever recognised in the street by strangers. "Almost never," he says gleefully, "so I can travel on buses and trains and things. Great". The idea of belonging to the glamorous world of "showbiz" doesn't appeal to Michael at all. Acting he looks on as his job - something to be got on with, so that he has time for other things like photography, his boat, and his family. His eldest son aged eight is the only one of his four children who's seen him on television. "But I don't think it registered," says Michael. "I think he wondered what I was doing there and sitting with him at home". And what about ambitions for the future? "Retirement," he says with a grin. It's certainly refreshing to find an actor who takes neither himself nor his profession too solemnly. (Radio Times, September 7, 1967 - Article by Gay Search). Synopsis : Johnny suspects that Hassett was paying protection money to the same gang that killed his father. He returns to check the evidence in his office files, but arrives too late.
Synopsis : Johnny finally gets tape-recorded evidence on the protection gang from Hassett's widow, Candy. But when she returns from their rendezvous, Stratton is waiting for her.
Publicity : The Big M: Tonight Johnny Treherne finds himself more deeply involved with members of the Hassett family - both dead and alive - than he'd like. Says Michael Bryant who plays the part in this thriller serial, "He's a rather cowardly private detective who doesn't want to get involved - just wants to sit about and do nothing". But the activities of Seymour Tancred (Reginald Marsh) ensure that he can't do that … (Radio Times, September 21, 1967). Synopsis : Johnny is overpowered in his office and the tape-recording stolen. He regains consciousness to find Inspector Spain waiting to arrest him on suspicion of murdering Candy Hassett.
Synopsis : The protection gang devise a cliff-top road smash for Scott's car. Johnny survives. But when he finally reaches Sidwell he finds Stratton dead - apparently by suicide.
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The series was created and written by Lester Powell and produced and directed by Alan Bromly. |
