Edward Woodward as Jim Kyle in 1990.

The 1960s was a decade of high-hopes, higher aspirations, a sense of prosperity for all and a time when the word "swinging" could be applied to the time and to the sexual proclivities of those who lived through it. Over the course of ten years, fashions swiftly leapt from one extreme to the other, scientific breakthroughs changed lives, and a creative explosion showered the music and television industries (particularly in the United Kingdom) with some of the best output the world would ever see. BBC Television launched Z-Cars, Doctor Finlay's Casebook, Maigret, Softly Softly, The Troubleshooters and Doctor Who, carving out audience appreciation and dramatic programme schedules, which have long-since been envied by current incumbents at the network.



ITV produced a wide range of medical and espionage serials, but perhaps the programmes which typified the optimism of the decade were The Power Game and The Plane Makers, potent mix of boardroom-bedroom battles which kept audiences returning on a weekly basis. Devised by Wilfred Greatorex, the two series elevated actor Patrick Wymark to stellar status and became, alongside The Avengers, one of the most successful productions the network transmitted over the course of the decade. The 1970s, on the other hand, was virtually diametrically opposed, with fashions taking a turn for the worse (brown proving popular for ten years, and then readily abandoned in favour of bright and vibrant colours in Thatcher's Britain of the 1980s), the world enduring a series of mild recessions, the question of a united Europe dominated the headlines, and public awareness of the power and purpose of government, the measures steadily introduced to control civil unrest, and the sudden realisation that the freedoms enjoyed ten years earlier had evaporated almost overnight.

Into these changing times came Wilfred Greatorex, invited by BBC Television to devise and create a programme as equally compelling as his ITV turns, portraying the "concerns of our time" with a deftness of touch which had become his trademark over the years. Television, film, theatre and literature had often utilised its capacity to reach the mass populace to question and criticise contemporary ways of life, from Chaucer to Dickens and Kennedy Martin to Potter. Some were more successful than others, but the most enduring dramatic device proved to be the futurescape, providing a setting for an attack on contemporary life to further explore the dangers of pursuing a line of reasoning which could only damage the social fabric still-further. George Orwell's 1984 became the most famous example of the successful deployment of this device, and Greatorex took this as his starting-point for the new series, the essential premise of which was best summarised as "1984 Plus Six".

Setting his new series, entitled 1990, in a totalitarian near-future state of a heavily-controlled United Kingdom, Greatorex seems to have responded to his own plight at the hands of the increasing number of VAT men plaguing the general populace. He also capitalised on the paranoia people felt at increasing bureaucracy and administration by government departments, seemingly answerable to no-one. The series took as its "hero" journalist Jim Kyle (Edward Woodward), a dissident-sympathiser working for one of only three remaining newspapers as a Home Affairs correspondent who shared the concerns of Greatorex and the general public. Behind the scenes, he works covertly alongside resistance movements against the all-powerful Department of Public Control (PCD), smuggling academics and victims of the state out of a England in which the populace are constantly under electronic surveillance, food is heavily rationed and visas and permits are required for travel within and outside the country. His struggle against the PCD brought him into direct conflict with Herbert Skardon (Robert Lang), the department's ruthless controller and a man determined to prove Kyle's complicity at every opportunity.

Over the course of eight episodes in Autumn 1977, the power struggle between the two was seen to culminate in a farcical trial in which the department used all the services it could muster in a bid to prosecute Kyle, which failed to strip him of his citizenship. Such was the popularity of what was essentially a thriller serial, and in opposition to some media criticism concerning the programme's carping tone, 1990 returned in Winter 1978 for a further eight hour-length episodes in which Kyle continued his efforts against the Establishment (as personified by Skardon) and the female minister, Lynn Blake, portrayed by the attractive Lisa Harrow. As equally popular as the first outing, 1990 rapidly fell into cult status over the course of its broadcast, and remains today an outstanding example of a televisual 1984.

The series provided a platform for Edward Woodward to consolidate the strengths inherent in his previous high-profile role in Callan, and extend the limitations of that role far further as Kyle, a character with true depth, conviction and emotional range. He succeeded in breaking away from the stigma which had dogged his career since Callan, and was ably supported by the likes of Paul Hardwick, Barbara Kellermann, Clifton Jones, John Savident, Michael Napier Brown, George Murcell, Yvonne Mitchell and Clive Swift. Produced by reliable BBC hand Prudence Fitzgerald, the programme featured script contributions from Greatorex, Edmund Ward, Jim Hawkins and Arden Winch, with directorial turns from Alan Gibson, David Sullivan Proudfoot, Kenneth Ives, Rob Bird, Peter Sasdy and Roger Tucker. The series was globally exported, but the only commercial spin-off were two television tie-in novelisations spanning both series of the programme. A complete run of both seasons exist in the BBC Archive, but the series is not currently avaialbel in either VHS or DVD format. A release is long overdue.

Text © Matthew Lee, 2004.