DRAMA PLAYHOUSE PILOT

The Father Of The Regiment

TX : 23rd November 1970
Director : William Slater
Script : Robin Chapman

Cast : Richard Hurndall (Colonel Frederick Gaunt), Art Gross (Sergeant), David Downer (Willie Bright), Willoughby Gray (Doctor Rumbold), Christopher Cazenove (Richard Gaunt), Simon Williams (Eugene), Alister Cameron (Templeton), Jeffrey Wickham (Captain), Lindsay Campbell (Commandant), Ian Ricketts ("Bongo" First Cadet), Peter Davies (Cadet), Wendy Williams (Honourable Alice Gaunt), Richard Cornish (Oliver Gaunt), Wendy Allnutt (Charlotte Gaunt), Richard Wordsworth (Lieutenant Colonel Seymour), Lauriston Shaw (Officer In Mess), John Dunbar (Editor), Earl Green (Carvel), Robert Fyfe (Reporter) and Tony Harwood (Captain Grenfell).

Synopsis : In June 1895 the Colonel-in-Chief of an Infantry Regiment wrote a letter to The Times daring to criticize the structure of the British Army. This simple act led to bitter humiliation and social disgrace.

Notes : This episode was transmitted from 9:50pm to 10:40pm. This Drama Playhouse edition was repeated on BBC 1 on February 21, 1972 at the start of the first series of The Regiment.

SEASON ONE

The Father Of The Regiment

TX : 21st February 1972
Director : William Slater
Script : Robin Chapman

Publicity : "Gentlemen Joined The Regiment Because They Needed A Congenial Club - The flamboyant, easy-going round that was a British Army officer's life in the final years of the last century is re-created in a new drama series starting this week. Here Robert Lacey, with the help of two Chelsea Pensioners, looks back on those elegant days when it was "bad form" to study training manuals or go to staff college:

The British regiment has usually been courageous, almost always well-disciplined, and invariably a rewarding and enjoyable social institution for most of its members. But it has too often been an ineffective instrument of war - and that was certainly the case at the end of the reign of Queen Victoria. Its soldiers could wheel immaculately round a parade ground like the wheel of a clock, but against a real live enemy - particularly the elusive, fast-moving and well-camouflaged Boers - they were less impressive. And that stemmed directly from the character of regimental life - particularly the life in the officers' mess. Gentlemen joined the regiment because their fathers had done so before them, because they needed a congenial club, because they wanted to ride with a decent polo team, pack of hounds or set of pig-stickers, and because they were inspired by the same sense of duty and convention that sent their less martial brothers into the church. Compared with the French, Germans or Boers they were amateurs and proud of it.

"After the war the Boers challenged us to a shooting match and a sports day. They won nearly everything. They had great bushy beards, and could jump twice as high as any of us" - Sergeant Templer: Officers who talked shop in the mess, studied training manuals or went to staff college were guilty of "bad form". A cavalry officer who had to put on his battlefield uniform six times in a twelve-month period resigned his commission in protest at the crude military enthusiasm demanded of him. The men who commanded the regiment were proud to be "without knowledge and without fear of death". The Field Marshal in charge of Aldershot at that time was Sir Evelyn Wood. And whenever, in after years, he recounted how he had reformed the chief training base of the British Army, he would produce the letter which have him greatest pleasure. "I thank you for all you have done," it ran, "which is a very great deal, while at Aldershot, for the Fox Hounds". "What did we sing? `Goodbye Dolly Grey,' that was the tune all the time. But I wasn't very musical" - CSM Wood: Out in New Zealand, while the Boer commandos blended with the tawny flatness of the veld, Sir Evelyn lined his men up in a formal parade. "At nine o'clock," he wrote, "I had a second inspection of the 90th Light Infantry, looking at every man's boots, which were unsatisfactory; this took me until 11:30".

It was not that the regiment had poor equipment; its men carried the very best modern weapons: the Maxim machine-gun that, with the firepower of fifty riflemen, had mown down the Matabele and the Dervishes; automatic self-loading pistols and, most important of all, Lee-Enfield and Lee-Metford Mark Two rilfes, with which an infantryman could fire a stream of bullets at an enemy over half a mile away without betraying his position with a cloud of smoke or by standing to reload. "We had to take off our red uniforms and change into khaki. Puttees and slouch hats we wore. It made us look like Australians" - Sergeant Templer: But training methods simply had not caught up with these brand-new tools which were, in fact, through the First and Second World Wars and up to this very day, the principal small arms of the Twentieth Century. The aces of Bisley trained on stationary bull's-eye targets and considered most infra dig suggestions that they might, with profit, practice aiming at something that moved - or at least looked a little more like the real thing. Only twenty days in every year did the average regiment spend rehearsing anything like war, and that was an archaic business.

Five hours a day was considered an excessive amount of field training and in the very year before the Boer war, men on manoeuvres were seen standing up, blasting off at each other at short range like Marlborough's musketeers, without comment or reproof from either their officers or the umpires. The rest of the year the ordinary soldier spent drilling - it was, after all, meticulous parade-ground discipline that had created the victorious squares of Waterloo - guarding barracks in the middle of towns like Cheltenham or Worcester, polishing and pip-claying uniforms and acting as gardener, cook or valet to officers whose main energies were consumed by a social programme of the most demanding vigour and expense. "The Boers sneaked into one of our blockhouses one night. Next morning we found our lads inside - no weapons, no uniforms, but all alive. The Boers had just stripped them naked!" - CSM Wood:

A private income was essential to maintain horses and servants, buy ever more glorious dress uniforms for hunt and regimental balls and dinners and, until the 1870s, to purchase promotion. Life in the regimental mess was a cohensive, comforting affair leaving ample energies and leisure for a style of gracious existence that flourished on a level far removed from the barrack room, parade ground or field of battle. "Were we worried when we went out there? Not at all. I was mad to go. We were sure it would be easy" - Sergeant Templer: "They sit out-of-doors; they serve tea; they take life rationally," wrote an American charmed by a garden party of English officers and their wives. "They talk pleasantly … they abhor the smart in talk or in conduct; they have gentleness, cultivation, the best manners in the world … They give three big tea parties - one when the rhododendrons bloom and the others at stated times … England never had a finer lot of folk than these … The art of living sanely they have developed to as high a level, I think, as you will find at any time in any land". "We could march one-hundred-and-sixty-six paces to the minute. The Guards could only manage one-hundred-and-twenty. The Boers all rode ponies" - CSM Wood: :ife in the regiment was self-confident, colourful, civilized by its own lights - and the stuff of which stirring television is made. "Magnifique," as Marshal Bosquet described the Charge of the Light Brigade. "Mais ce n'est pas la guerre". (Radio Times, February 17, 1972 - Article by Robert Lacey). .

Cast : Richard Hurndall (Colonel Frederick Gaunt), Art Gross (Sergeant), David Downer (Willie Bright), Willoughby Gray (Doctor Rumbold), Christopher Cazenove (Richard Gaunt), Simon Williams (Eugene), Alister Cameron (Templeton), Jeffrey Wickham (Captain), Lindsay Campbell (Commandant), Ian Ricketts ("Bongo" First Cadet), Peter Davies (Cadet), Wendy Williams (Honourable Alice Gaunt), Richard Cornish (Oliver Gaunt), Wendy Allnutt (Charlotte Gaunt), Richard Wordsworth (Lieutenant Colonel Seymour), Lauriston Shaw (Officer In Mess), John Dunbar (Editor), Earl Green (Carvel), Robert Fyfe (Reporter) and Tony Harwood (Captain Grenfell).

Synopsis : Great Britan, 1895 - and Richard Gaunt is about to leave Sandhurst to join the Cotswolds Regiment. But when both Richard and his father express their separate doubts about the British Army, there are storms ahead.

Notes : This season was transmitted from 9:55pm to 10:45pm.

The Fortunes Of Peace

TX : 28th February 1972
Director : Darrol Blake
Script : Anthony Steven

Cast : Richard Cornish, Wendy Williams, Maria Aitken, John Levene, John Caesar, Bernard Brown, Struan Rodger, David Jackson, Richard Wordsworth (Lieutenant Colonel Gaunt-Seymour), Peter Myers, Anthony Sharp, David Troughton (Albert Flack), Christopher Neame, John Hood, Edward Seckerson, Betty Duncan and Timothy Carlton.

Synopsis : In the Cotswolds Regiment Richard Gaunt's closest ally is James Willoughby the Adjutant. They both discover that maintaining the standards expected of a British Officer is not without problems.

Days Of Betrayal

TX : 6th March 1972
Director : Rodney Bennett
Script : John Wiles

Cast : Bernard Brown (Captain Rupert Saunders), John Malcolm, Brian Worth, Nick Llewellyn, David Garth, Peter Myers, John Humphry, Maurice Quick, Wendy Williams, Maria Aitken, Barry Fletcher, Michael Brennan, Richard Cornish and Christopher Masters.

Synopsis : Captain Rupert Saunders attends a dinner party in Cape Town: matters of moment are discussed which have a lasting effect.

A Perfect Day

TX : 13th March 1972
Director : William Slater
Script : Julian Mitchell

Cast : Kenneth Benda, Bernard Brown, Maria Aitken, Wendy Williams, David Collings, Ralph Lawton, James Appleby and Terry Sartain.

Synopsis : Summer 1896 - a family picnic by the lake and time to reflect on the past, present and future …

The Recruit

TX : 20th March 1972
Director : Keith Williams
Script : Paul Wheeler

Cast : Richard Wordsworth, Roy Herrick, Peter Myers, Carleton Hobbs, Colin Vancao, Edward Evans, John Caesar, John Bryning, Jonathan Collins, Robert Oates, Stewart Jones, John Ogwen, Ifan Paab, Peter Cellier, Sebastian Breaks and Robert Sansom.

Synopsis : The Cotswolds are on manoeuvres in Wales - manoeuvres which indirectly are to change the careers of two members of the Regiment - one a Colonel, the other a Private soldier.

Gentlemen In Khaki Ordered South

TX : 27th March 1972
Director : George Spenton-Foster
Script : Jack Gerson

Cast : Roy Herrick, Peter Myers, David Troughton (Private Flack), Scott Fredericks, Rio Fanning (Corporal Sullivan), Drewe Henley, David Collings, Mavis Taylor, Jacqueline Ellis and Wendy Williams.

Synopsis : The Cotswold Regiment prepares for embarkation to South Africa. The officers will leave "their laides"; the NCOs; "their wives"; and other ranks "their women". For some, parting will be difficult - but for others …

A Gentleman's War

TX : 10th April 1972
Director : Darrol Blake
Script : Arden Winch

Cast : Leon Sinden (Cecil Rhodes), Peter Copley (Colonel Kekwich), Nicholas Hawtrey, Brett Lane, Alan Bone, Chris Cunningham, Melvyn Hayes, Philip Hinton, Del McCrae, Michael Povey and John Quentin.

Synopsis : The Regiment has arrived in South Africa and the Boer War is at its height. Cecil Rhodes, the Lion of Africa, is in his town of Kimberley - besieged.

A Lion At Sunset

TX : 17th April 1972
Director : Viktors Ritelis
Script : John Wiles

Cast : Roy Boyd (Danie Van de Line), David Forbes, Bill Stewart and Bloke Modisane.

Synopsis : Willoughby and Danie Van de Line - soldiers on different sides. But pain, anger and the heat of the sun give them a bond of mutual respect ….

Wine And Retribution

TX : 24th April 1972
Director : Darrol Blake
Script : Stuart Douglass

Cast : David Garfield (Sergeant Manners), Paul Young, Ray Armstrong, Robert Oates, Michael Povey, Graham Simpson, Wendy Williams, Richard Cornish, Brian Stanyon, Jeremy Child, Bernard Martin and Derek Anders.

Synopsis : The Boer War continues and the Cotswalds are now involved in the disastrous fight for Magersfontein Hill. The losses are great and at home Alice Gaunt and her family suffer deeply during this Black Week. Back in South Africa the strain is beginning to tell on the men of the Regiment - even the sergeants.

A Gentleman From Europe

TX : 8th May 1972
Director : Viktors Ritelis
Script : John Cresswell

Cast : Anne Gordon, Roger Nott, Jonathan Blake, James Hall, Edwin Van Wyk, Derek Martin (Private Jones), Roy Herrick, Simon Merrick, Wendy Williams, Elaine Donnelly, Raf de la Torre, Paul Greaves, Maria Aitken, Tim Pigott-Smith (The Lieutenant) and David Butler.

Synopsis : The Frenchman is a dangerous stranger; the Le Blancs are father and son. Loyalties are tested - and then Charlotte Gaunt gets involved …

Dragon's Teeth

TX : 15th May 1972
Director : Brian Farnham
Script : By Nick McCarty

Cast : Rio Fanning, James Mellor, Michael McKevitt, Harry Burgess Wall, Sheila Allen, Christopher Asante, Colin Mayes, Bernard Brown, Barry Hooper, Pat Gorman and Maria Aitken.

Synopsis : "Let their eyes be darkened that they see not" … but perhaps Richard Gaunt's eyes are closed against his will. This is a war that must be won - and women are bound to be hurt …

Christmas At The Cape

TX : 22nd May 1972
Director : Viktors Ritelis
Script : Richard Daniel

Cast : Maria Aitken, Richard Cornish, Bernard Brown, Wendy Williams, John Cunningham, Norman Eshley (Simon Haworth), Maria O'Brien, David Steele and Joy Harrington.

Synopsis : Richard and James take leave in Cape Town and the Gaunts are united for Christmas. But the reunion leads to disaster - both for the family and the Regiment.

SEASON TWO

Ambush

TX : 23rd February 1973
Director : Eric Hills
Script : Nick McCarty

Cast : Sean Caffrey, Philip Hinton, Hugh Cross, Rio Fanning (Private Sullivan), Marika Mann and David Bailie.

Publicity : Stiff Upper Lips In The Cyprus Sun - What were the Cotswolds doing in Cyprus? And what did the puff of smoke mean on the horizon? Ann Leslie followed The Regiment on location for Friday's new series and brought back this report …:

The desert quivers like a gong under the hammering of the noonday sun. A camp has been pitched and groups of soldiers, sweltering in the khaki uniforms, sit slumped in the shade of the tents and clean their kit while they mull over rumours of cholera rife in the area. The Regiment, decimated after the Boer War, have now arrived for duty in India. The time is March 1904. In reality "India" is Cyprus, the cholera camp is situated about thirty miles out of Nicosia, and the time is 1972. I am watching the filming of the sixth episode of the new series of The Regiment - which traces the fortunes of the "Cotswolds" through the lives of two families: the Gaunts, notably Richard Gaunt, the blond, blue-eyed, clean-cut hero played by Christopher Cazenove, and the Brights, headed by RSM William Bright (Michael Brennan) who has a face like a potato and a bark like a bull seal.

Brennan is finding the midday heat unbearable - "I did my stint in the Army during the war and that was enough," he is heard to murmur - and so, it seems, is Frederick Treves. Treves, alias Colonel Cranleigh-Osbourne, mops the liquefying orange make-up on his brow and flings himself under a sun-brolly beside producer Terence Dudley. A puff of smoke curls over the horizon. "Ah," says Treves with a knowledgeable air, "that's The Incident. They've been expecting one, you know". He is referring to the cynical theory in circulation that both Greeks and Turks have a vested interest in keeping the high-spending United Nations peace-keeping forces on the island, and therefore tend to create a suitable "incident" whenever the UN look like leaving. Dudley murmurs gloomily: "A civil war - that's all we need!". One's heart bleeds for him. Cyprus must have seemed an ideal location for the shooting of the second series of The Regiment. It has an authentically oriental atmosphere and can lay on not only a suitable desert or two but even a handy mountain range that can pass for the Himalayan foothills and countryside that resembles the South African veld. But a producer's lot is not a happy one.

Turks won't work in Greek areas; Greeks aren't allowed to set foot in Turkish areas. Turks for some reason come cheaper than Greeks, so a Turkish watchman is hired to guard the tents at night: as soon as he learns the camp is pitched in a Greek area, he announces that he's not going to hang around waiting to have his throat cut. Deaf to entreaties, he beetles off home. As if all this were not enough, one member of the crew has gone down with sunstroke and Penelope Lee, the leading lady, has fallen from a horse-drawn "tonga" in which she was meant to be pursuing rebel tribesmen, and ended up in hospital with concussion. Meanwhile, back at Ledra Palace Hotel in Nicosia, considerable distress has been experienced among the trendier actors by the fact that Edwardian army officers did not wear long hair: indeed, the corridors resound with plaintive cries of "we should be getting mutilation money for this" uttered by hirsute victims as they leave off lolling by the pool to be sheared by the make-up department.

Cazenove seems to wear his regimental hair-do with greater conviction than most, perhaps because like Gaunt, the character he plays, he comes from a military family: "My father was a brigadier, my brother is in the Coldstream Guards and I was destined for a service career - but I failed to get in". He also ("to my considerable relief") failed to get into university, and spent two years working as an au pair to a peer's family and as a chauffeur before he plucked up courage to tell his father that what he really wanted to be was an actor. "He was so stunned that he couldn't bring himself to speak to me for a whole weekend". The brigadier's surprise was understandable, since his son's acting achievements had been limited up to that date to a couple of plays at Eton where for some mysterious schoolboy reason he was always known as Bog-Brush. But his father needn't really have worried:

Cazenove (whose surname is of Huguenot origin) is now successful enough to own a house in Battersea, an Alfa-Romeo and a Porsche, and at twenty-six can afford to say "I really must admit I'd hate to be poor now. I love to eat well and live well and I'm afraid I'm terribly extravagant". Fresh-faced, mild-mannered and with a hint of rather disarming vulnerability, Cazenove is, you feel, like Gaunt, part of that vanishing species known as the Thoroughly Decent Chap. He's probably more complex than he seems: "I'm really an awfully uptight sort of person, partly a result of my upbringing. I think I worry terribly about things and I wish I could feel more relaxed socially - and in my work. Which is why I'd really prefer to play character parts: you acquire another personality when you put on false noses or beards. You see, I suspect I haven't really got much of a personality of my own". Three days later the lolling by the pool is brought to a chilly end as the unit transfers to the Troodos mountains where the weather breaks with a vengeance. Torrential rain-slashing through whistling pine forests blot out the plains below and the sky shudders with purple light. As we move into the bleak, curtainless, out-of-season hotel (instantly nicknamed Colditz) someone mutters "It's Brian Farnham's weather here again, folks!".

Farnham is the director whose ill-luck with weather is notorious. "Put Brian in the Sahara and they'll have their first hail storm in years. We're thinking of loaning him out to the underdeveloped countries in times of drought". The next morning brings no lift to the weather or to our morale. "Might as well be on bloody Bagshot Heath," grumbles one of the crew. Those not wanted on set huddle for warmth in the location buses, keeping their spirits up by swigging bottles of wine tasting of turps, and singing rousing choruses. Someone is even moved to remark: "Lucky old Penny having concussion - at least she's down in the sun!". Penelope Lee plays the missionary Doctor Mary Mitcheson. The day I meet her she is recuperating in a friend's house overlooking the pretty port of Kyrenia. "I don't think I've ever admired anybody I've been asked to play more. She's a totally good person - and yet at the same time she's not at all self-righteous or stuffy. It's quite one of the toughest briefs I've had as an actress". When I leave her in the gathering darkness, I have to drive over the mountain road to Nicosia which passes through a Turkish enclave. The road has an eerie atmosphere: controlled by the UN, policed by Turks, its progress is dotted by signs forbidding one to take photographs or stop for any reason - interspersed by others describing alleged Greek atrocities. I have to stop to extract something from my eye. All of a sudden three men loom up, flashing torchlights, waving guns and shouting in Turkish. And for a terrifying moment I am sharply reminded of the fact that this island, where the Regiment has had such fun performing its paper heroics, is used to acting out an altogether more deadly game … (Radio Times, February 15, 1973 - Article by Ann Leslie).

Synopsis : "It's not a matter of your delicate conscience. You're merely the arm that enforces. That is your work. And if you can't see that then you're no soldier".

Notes : This season was transmitted from 9:25pm to 10:15pm.

Depot

TX : 2nd March 1973
Director : Pennant Roberts
Script : Robert Holmes

Cast : David Rowlands, Michael Elwyn, Roy Herrick, Neil Curran, Nicola Davies and Bernard Finch.

Synopsis : "I've got the Cotswolds. I looked 'em over today and they're far worse than anything I imagined. They'll take a lot of licking into shape!"

Courtship

TX : 9th March 1973
Director : Brian Farnham
Script : Jack Ronder

Cast : Brian Glover, Jo Kendall (Gertle), Bernard Finch, Neil Curran, Jean Holness and Wilfrid Carter.

Synopsis : An officer and a sergeant fighting about an actress? She must be some sort of actress!"

Troopship

TX : 16th March 1973
Director : Eric Hills
Script : Jack Ronder

Cast : Isla Blair (Lucy Franshawe), John Ogwen, Basil Moss, Michael Elwyn Jean Challis, Noel Coleman, Roy Herrick, Brian Grellis, Susan Penhaligan, Patrick Harvey, Nigel Winder, David Rowlands and Desmond Cullum-Jones (The Padre).

Synopsis : "Your Regiment's had its misfortunes. You've just had that disastrous affair with Major Saunders' wife - and now this strange business with Major Slingsby and the acting girl!"

Setting In

TX : 23rd March 1973
Director : Brian Farnham
Script : Brian Hayles

Cast : Roy Herrick, Michael Elwyn, Edward Underdown, John Gowen, Jaron Yalton, David Rowlands, McDonald Hobley, Costas Demetriou, Madhav Sharma and Veronique Voulior.

Synopsis : "Mihanpur has a first-class private army. Cavalry. Very clever on their horses. We might get a chance to take them on … at polo".

Cholera

TX : 30th March 1973
Director : Brian Farnham
Script : Jack Ronder

Cast : Roy Herrick (Captain Sissons), Hussein Kanatli, Tariq Yunus, Michael Elwyn, David Shaw, John Rolfe, Christopher Holmes, William David, Robert Harwood and Michael Pitsilides.

Synopsis : "Too many dead, Sahib …".

Riot

TX : 6th April 1973
Director : Pennant Roberts
Script : Ian Curteis

Cast : George Zenios, Peter Hager, Norman Ettlinger, Bob Babenia, Renu Setna, Nadim Sawalha, Tariq Anwar, June Bolton, Scheherezade, Bruno Barnabe and Peter Howell.

Synopsis : "One of the City Police has been found murdered in a back alley. The Commissioner seems to think it's our fault".

Famine

TX : 13th April 1973
Director : Eric Hills
Script : Jack Gerson

Cast : Madhav Sharma (The Maharajah), Salmaan Peer (Doctor Noshir), Marc Zuber, David Graham, Jagdish Kumar, Charubala Chokshi, Ishaq Bux, Ronald Swire and Talat Hussain.

Synopsis : "In two years you have learnt nothing, Captain Gaunt. We live with natural cataclysm. We live with death. We need it!".

Women

TX : 20th April 1973
Director : Terence Dudley
Script : Carey Harrison

Cast : Madhav Sharma (The Maharajah), Sheila Keith (Miss Hagan), Michael Elwyn, Julian Sherrier and Zohra Segal.

Synopsis : "Now, you want a donkey … what d'you say … is a milk-white ass of the very purest bread a fair exchange for a bundle of old women?"

Heat

TX : 27th April 1973
Director : Brian Farnham
Script : Martin Worth

Cast : Michael Elwyn (Lieutenant Harry Percival), Bill Stewart (Private Dobb), Saeed Jaffrey (Punkah-Wallah), Ajit Chauhan, John Nightingale, Don Hawkins, Donald McIver, Michael Elwick, Sam Sewell, Bill Herbert, Albert Moses, Paul Antrim, McDonald Holbey, Norman Wittlinger and Rudolph Ramillo.

Synopsis : "The position is that unless evidence of mitigating circumstances can be called in his defence, Dobb's own confession will hang him".

North West Frontier

TX : 4th May 1973
Director : Pennant Roberts
Script : Robert Holmes

Cast : Philip Madoc (Captain Pomeroy), Michael Elwyn, Howell Evans, Stephen Berkeley, Tariq Yunus and Nik Zaran.

Synopsis : "When you reach Dera Khel … finally … over the bodies of your dead…do you imagine for one moment you'll find Miss Gaunt alive?"