ACTION TV ONLINE EPISODE GUIDE
EPISODE GUIDE INDEX
Bergerac
BBC 1981 - 1991
SEASON ONE
Picking It Up
TX : 18th October 1981
Director : Martyn Friend
Script : Robert Banks Stewart

Synopsis : Returning from an extended bout of recuperative leave, Jim Bergerac is shocked to find not only his position as a Detective Sergeant at the Bureau de Etrangers under threat, but a colleague has been murdered whilst investigating the illegal trade of arms to South Africa.

Notes :
This season was transmitted on Sunday nights at 9:10pm to 10:00pm on BBC 1.


Nice People Die In Bed
TX : 25th October 1981
Director : Martin Campbell
Script : John Kershaw

Cast : Rosemary Martin and Richard Morant.

Synopsis : The charity boss liked the good life and it's caught up with him. But they can't take the body to the undertakers just yet.


Lucky Dip
TX : 1st November 1981
Director : Ian Toynton
Script : Bob Baker

Cast : Prunella Scales and Jack Galloway.

Synopsis : When the hot potato from Paris slips through his grasp, Jim Bergerac is in for a roasting. But can he save someone else on the island from being mashed?

Campaign For Silence
TX : 8th November 1981
Director : Martyn Friend
Script : Alistair Bell

Cast : Ian Hendry, Jane Wenham and Simon Cadell.

Synopsis : Gerald Furneaux has something to sell, and he needs the money badly. But memory lane, as Jim Bergerac warns him, can be a dangerous place to wander.

See You In Moscow
TX : 15th November 1981
Director : Don Leaver
Script : Gerry O'Hara

Cast : Sara Kestelman, Bernard Gallagher and George Irving.

Synopsis : Is Margaret Semple using the "garden route" or merely being sent up the garden path?

Portrait Of Yesterday
TX : 22nd November 1981
Director : Laurence Moody
Script : Dennis Spooner

Cast : Sarah Lawson, Derek Farr and Charles Kay.

Synopsis : Who'll give the bride's mother away? Everything is set for the big Jersey wedding, but Jim Bergerac isn't exactly a welcome guest.

Last Chance For A Loser
TX : 29th November 1981
Director : Ian Toynton
Script : Philip Broadley

Cast : Patrick Mower and Sarah Douglas.

Synopsis :
Jim Bergerac has marked Eddie St.Pierre's card, but now he's out of the game. Or is he?

Late For A Funeral
TX : 6th December 1981
Director : Henry Herbert
Script : Dennis Spooner

Cast : James Cossins and Gary Watson.

Synopsis :
Two bodies from the sea provide a puzzle for Bergerac and the Bureau. One's been dead a few hours. But the other drowned over forty years ago.


Notes :
This episode attracted 17.4 million viewers and was ranked the MOST popular programme of the top twenty in this particular week. The episode was the highest-rating and highest-ranking of the series.

Relative Values
TX : 13th December 1981
Director : Martin Campbell
Script : Peter Miller

Cast : Geoffrey Bayldon, Warren Clarke, Lynda Marchal and Geoffrey Davies.

Synopsis : The meanest millionaire on the island will do anything to save a few pence. But the family warns Jim Bergerac that the old man's money will be the death of him.


Notes : This episode attracted 13.0 million viewers and was ranked the seventh most popular programme of the top twenty in March 1983, when the episode was repeated.

The Hood And The Harlequin
TX : 20th December 1981
Director : Roger Tucker
Script : Terence Feely

Cast : Greta Scacchi and Anthony Forrest.

Synopsis : Notorious French gangster Jacques Tabouis is hiding out somewhere in Europe. So when his girlfriend Annie flies to Jersey, Jim Bergerac and the Bureau are alerted.

SEASON TWO
Message For The Rich
TX : 9th January 1983
Director : Alan Grint
Script : Robert Banks Stewart

Cast : Dandy Nichols and Philip Davis.

Synopsis :
Mrs Honeyman is an ardent reader of thriller novels, but real-life crime can often spring more surprises than a paperback plot.


Notes : This season was transmitted on Sunday nights at 9:10pm to 10:00pm on BBC 1.

Always Leave Them Laughing
TX : 16th January 1983
Director : Peter Smith
Script : Robert Banks Stewart and Peter Miller

Cast : Rikki Fulton (Andy Galbraith) and Joanne Whalley (Christine Bolton).

Synopsis : For a summer show celebrity like Andy Galbraith, malicious cranks can be a hazard. But is Christine Bolton telling the truth?

Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie
TX : 23rd January 1983
Director : Michael Rolfe
Script : Dennis Spooner

Cast : William Hootkins.

Synopsis : For Jim Bergerac, Charlie Hungerford's excursion into politics poses problems - not the least of which is murder.

Prime Target
TX : 30th January 1983
Director : Henry Herbert
Script : Robert Banks Stewart and Robert Holmes

Cast : Anthony Valentine and Catherine Schell.

Synopsis : A French murder mystery turns into a case for Bergerac when the dead man proves to be from Jersey.

Almost Like A Holiday
TX : 6th February 1983
Director : Laurence Moody
Script : Alistair Bell

Cast : Norman Wisdom (Vincent Parkin).

Synopsis :
A holidaymaker is mugged in Jersey, and the Bureau comes under pressure to find his attacker. But Vincent Parkin's vivid imagination doesn't help.

Fall Of A Birdman
TX : 13th February 1983
Director : Ben Bolt
Script : Paul Wheeler

Cast : Richard Griffiths and Phillip Stone.

Synopsis :
Death interrupts the filming of a television commercial. For Bergerac the problem is - did the stuntman fall, or was he pushed?

A Miracle Every Week
TX : 20th February 1983
Director : Colin Bucksey
Script : Robert Banks Stewart and Leslie Darbon

Cast : Nicholas Ball and Dennis Lawson.

Synopsis : For Bergerac, the arrival in Jersey of a penniless Indian presents problems. Especially when he claims to be a faith healer and principal asset of a rich foundation.

A Perfect Recapture
TX : 27th February 1983
Director : Paul Ciappessoni
Script : Paul Wheeler

Cast : Ronald Hines (Inspector West) and Barbara Shelley.

Synopsis : So far as Inspector West is concerned the hunt for a wanted criminal is over. But it all seems too easy to Bergerac.

The Moonlight Girls
TX : 6th March 1983
Director : Michael Rolfe
Script : Bob Baker


Synopsis :
How did a Belgian stable girl afford the Jersey high life? When Bergerac investigates he finds a killer.


The first episode of this season benefitted from an article in the Radio Times to help promote it:

Island Of Adventure - Jim Bergerac is back in action, fighting crime in that delightful Channel Island setting. And it seems that the success of the series so far has had a marked effect on the touristic popularity of Jersey. Gordon Burn visited during filming for this new ten-part series:

It was that time of year when the season was over and the restaurants were full - or, more accurately, half-full - of the island's guest-house keepers and restaurateurs, bejeweled and bronzed and freshly returned from their own holidays, in Palm Beach and Montego Bay. Over the biggest helpings of surf and turg this side of Dallas, and bottles of the best burgundy and rafts of plump asparagus, they quickly got down to discussing next year's set-lunch prices and self-catering rates and last year's ghastly guests. "The first evening when he asked for a toothpick and started demanding his rights, I knew. He'd already asked for a bottle of red wine in his bedroom. It was all puffin' up cigars and double Remy when he was downstairs, but of course the wardrobe was full of cheap booze …".

It is Jersey's special status as a low-duty area that helps sustain a tourist industry worth around one-hundred-and-twenty-five-million pounds a year. But even with petrol at just over one pound a gallon and cigarettes at forty-eight pence for twenty, Jersey, like every other resort in Britain, had been feeling the effects of the recession: general bookings were down; a growing number of the island's twenty-five-thousand registered tourist beds were permanently unslept in. Last year, however, saw a dramatic upturn in fortune. While trade on neighbouring Guernsey continued to fall, British visitors to Jersey last summer increased by more than five per cent, and local tourist officials are in no doubt at all whom they must thank: the Balliwick, as the holiday brochures delightfully proclaim, is now "Bergerac's Island".

On the strength of a single series of ten parts, Detective Sergeant Jim Bergerac, brooding, blue-eyed hero of the Bureau des Etrangers, is a tourist attraction to rank alongside Mont Orgueil Castle and Gerald Durrell's zoo. There's a Bergerac wine cellar in Saint Helier and a Bergerac café, and houses (or "properties" as they are more often called on Jersey) are likely to be advertised "as seen on television" ("My house hasn't been used for Bergerac," was one of last year's more popular car stickers). Ritual pilgrimages are made to Queen's Valley and the rustic farmhouse where Bergerac lives. And business is booming at the "Royal Barge", his favourite watering hole - in reality the Old Court House Inn in Saint
Aubin's harbour, whose regulars surely helped nudge The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook into the bestsellers. The Old Court House Inn, in fact, is only used in exteriors, which capitalise on its very characterful, immediately recognisable, glass frontage. The interior of the pub has been mocked up at the old Forum Cinema in Saint Helier, which the BBC, rather than filming at Ealing Studios (as they did for the first series), have requisitioned as a studio.

The Forum is due to be demolished and replaced by a block of high-rise offices, but the developer, a local millionaire, has been persuaded to stay his hand at least until a third series of Bergerac is in the can. Such cooperation, it seems, is typical of the super-rich who are drawn to Jersey on account of the well-known tax facility it offers. A glance at the yellow pages suggests that their every need is met. In a couple of pages under "S", for instance, you'll find: safes and fire-protection; sailing schools; solaria; solicitors - English; stockbrokers. "Jersey's teeming with millionaires who only ever keep loose change in their pockets," a character remarks early in the new series. It is also, according to Bergerac producer, Robert Banks Stewart, teeming with millionaires who would like to see themselves or their properties on television: it is not unusual to find a handful of the island's richest men among location extras. Banks Stewart first registered the telly-potential of Jersey several years ago, as the plane he was on taxied in past an armada of Cessnas and other private aircraft. Further enquiries revealed that the island was, or had been, the home of "jockeys, boxers, pop stars, financiers, writers, off-shore bankers … The Dockers have lived there. The Butlins. The Tiarkses. Alan Whicker, of course, and Jack Higgins still do. So does the man who invented the Black and Decker collapsible work-bench, and Alfie Hinds. In film terms, there was also quite a strong element of the exotic to be found - palm trees, swimming pools, spectacular cliffs, close-packed, French-style streets".

It wasn't until the BBC asked him to come up with a successor to his enormously popular private eye character, Eddie Shoestring, however, that Banks Stewart returned to Jersey for another look. The Tourist Committee needed a little reassuring that he wasn't about to blacken their good name with a lot of bang-bang and lurid plots, and they have been vindicated in their decision to give the go-ahead in every way: Bergerac has given Jersey's tourist trade the biggest boost it has ever had. Certainly, in John Nettles, who plays Jim Bergerac, they have found the perfect spokesman for their cause. Resident in Jersey since last June, in a rented house on a headland at the edge of the sea, he is unstinting in his praise. "It is," Nettles says, "quite idyllic, really. There's such quality and variety of landscape. You can change the scene completely without trekking thousands of miles". There is also the added attraction of a basic rate of income tax of twenty per cent, but he says he hasn't had time to discover whether he actually benefits from that yet.

It is a rainy Sunday at the beginning of November and congregations are paddling away from church. John Nettles, honorary Jerseyman, had performed one of his many public duties the night before, setting light to a charity bonfire. But this morning finds him in a vaulted arcade that runs through a Saint Helier department store whose name is De Gruchy but could just as easily be "Grace Brothers"; it is not, in other words, entirely of 1982. For reasons that never become entirely clear (Bergerac plots are not easily summarised on paper) the main action centres on a racing car, a book display, a model girl and a table of sausages-on-sticks and vol-au-vents whose condition will steadily deterioriate under the lights. Extras for this episode, recruited at Madison's at the Lido de France only hours earlier, shiver off-camera in summer frocks; "sparks" wander around mumbling unintelligible things like "It's a bit over the knuckle, there; I'll out it in the gubbins box"; and John Nettles barricades himself behind the Sunday Express.

Nettles is a tightly-wound, very private, rather shy man who does not invite conversation, especially when his mind is on the job, which these days it almost always is. He is rarely to be found carousing with the crew in the bars of Saint Helier. He enjoys swimming and the peace of the countryside that, after twenty years of rough-and-tumble in the acting profession, he has recently discovered. "This has provided me with some kind of restoration," is how he puts it. He was brought up in Cornwall, the son of a carpenter who invested him with two middle names - Vivian Drummond - whose initials, ever since, have been a source of amusement and embarrassment. As "humble John Nettles", he studied for a degree in philosophy and history at Southampton University, and it was while he was there that he was spotted playing Camus' Caligula at the Sunday Times Student Drama Festival by Bill Gaskill who invited him to join the Royal Court Theatre. His time at Sloane Square, however, was not a happy one. "Acting is no life for a grown man … going round like a taxi with a light flashing a `for hire' sign, is how, in a previous interview, he tried to express the insecurity he felt in those early years. He is anxious to point out now, however, that the quote was not a Nettles original. "That was far too witty to have come from me. John Gielgud said it". Although at first he found the theatre and theatre people foreigners who spoke in a foreign tongue, he now says actors are his preferred company. "I'm very fond of my fellow actors. I like their style of life. I like their conversation. Which is why I've been so lucky with this new series. We've had people like Norman Wisdom, Ian Hendry, Dandy Nichols come over, who are like legends to me. Bergerac is a goodie. I like it".


Nettles describes his career, pre-Bergerac, as "stable". A number of years with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford was followed by a number of years on the lam. The series came just in time, he says. He says he was starting to feel exhausted. "The greatest desire of my life was to get off the road. I couldn't bear it, sailing into places and out again and not touching anybody. You gradually lose your brains after a time doing that. Plus, there was a great macho feel about the profession for some years after I started - you know. `Stand up and take your drink like a man'. I know actors who have been dressed on their backs. But all that has changed, thank God. Standards of behaviour have improved enormously in the profession".

Nettles has been able to draw on what he saw in the old days, nevertheless, for the part he is currently playing: Jim Bergerac is a reformed alcoholic with a fast car and a broken marriage. "We've created a whole background for him," John Nettles says, "which, basically, is Jersey and Jersey society - he lives and breathes and dreams this small island. Most of the time he tends to be very tense because being a policeman is a very tense way of living. He's under enormous pressure all the time, willy-nilly. Marrying out of his class was the big mistake for him: his own father was a fisherman, apparently, but he married young into a very well-heeled family. A constant reference for me is the character Sean Connery played in The Offence, the film of a John Hopkins play about a copper who cracks under the strain. But Bergerac is not a character part, and, at the end of the way, what you've mainly got to draw on is yourself. The trick is learning how to keep the professional and the personal life apart".

Outside, two British soldiers, part of an army rugby team visiting Jersey from a German base, snapped him with the Bergerac Triumph Roadster that is really too big for the narrow roads on the island. "They'll never believe this," they said, strolling away happy. The continuing drizzle on a winter Sunday meant that the street was empty. "It seemed to be getting increasingly difficult to live in London," John Nettles said. "It seemed to be getting increasingly inhuman. Always and ever there was the constant background roar. Having it removed has been a relaxation in itself". It is the sort of service he would like to see the series perform for its audience. "Nice and gentle and quiet, without being overly violent," is how he describes it. (Radio Times, January 8, 1983 - Article by Gordon Burn).



SEASON THREE
Ninety Per Cent Proof
TX : 3rd December 1983
Director : Robert Young
Script : Brian Clemens

Synopsis : Jim Bergerac faces an up-hill battle to convince friends and colleagues of his sobriety when he apparently witnesses a murder after indulging in a heavy drinking spree, prompted by his inability to secure a conviction against an arsonist he arrested.

Notes : This season was transmitted on Saturday nights at 9:10pm to 10:00pm on BBC 1.

A Hole In The Bucket
TX : 10th December 1983
Director : Ian Toynton
Script : Bill Craig

Cast : Celia Gregory and Rosy Clayton.

Synopsis : When Terri Fuller arrives on Jersey she is clearly no ordinary tourist: the woman with her has a gun …

Holiday Snaps
TX : 17th December 1983
Director : Ben Bolt
Script : Nick McCarty

Cast : Lee Montague and Michael Angelis.

Synopsis : Did Tory Morel kill his wife as the French police believe, or can Bergerac prove that he is an innocent victim of circumstance?

Ice Maiden
TX : 24th December 1983
Director : Robert Tronson
Script : Rod Beacham

Cast : Dave King.

Synopsis :
Philippa Vale is a jewel thief who never makes mistakes. Underestimating Jim Bergerac looks like being her first. Or does it …?

Come Out Fighting
TX : 31st December 1983
Director : Robert Young
Script : Alistair Bell

Cast : Lee Montague, Oliver Cotton, Tony Osoba and Eva Mottley.

Synopsis : With Jersey's first major professional fight only days away, Bergerac has no choice but to arrest the challenger.

A Touch Of Eastern Promise
TX : 7th January 1984
Director : Christopher King
Script : Brian Finch

Cast : Zia Mohyeddin and Nadim Sawalha.

Synopsis : Are the accidents which befall Charlie Hungerford's Arab guest really accidents? Bergerac has his doubts …

A Cry In The Night
TX : 14th January 1984
Director : Oliver Horsbrugh
Script : Robert Holmes

Cast : David Buck and Don Hawkins.

Synopsis : Was the death of Rupert Galliers really an accident? A lot of people have reason to treat it as one. But Bergerac is not among the.


Notes : This episode attracted 14.5 million viewers and was ranked the fourth popular programme of the top twenty in this particular week.

The Company You Keep
TX : 21st January 1984
Director : David Reynolds
Script : Tony Hoare

Cast : Mel Martin, Tony Selby, Ralph Michael and Denis Lill.

Synopsis :
Most successful robberies depend on information. Unfortunately for Bergerac so does most successful policework.

Tug Of War
TX : 28th January 1984
Director : Laurence Moody
Script : Paul Wheeler

Cast : Alan Lake, Mary Tamm, Stephen Yardley and Marianne Borgo.

Synopsis : When Jack Broughton takes his son, Geoff, on holiday, it's not just for the sun and the sand that he chooses Jersey.

House Guests
TX : 4th February 1984
Director : Robert Tronson
Script : Bill Craig

Cast : Patrick Allen, Dudley Sutton and Kate Fahy.

Synopsis : A private meeting of European Financiers attracts a lot of attention, some of it extremely dangerous.

SEASON FOUR
The Last Interview
TX : 11th October 1985
Director : Brian Farnham
Script : Robert Banks Stewart


Synopsis : Jim Bergerac's investigations into a series of minor crimes leads to a showdown with a Mafia hit squad.

Notes : This season was transmitted at 9:10pm to 10:00pm on BBC 1.


Offshore Trades
TX : 18th October 1985
Director : Robert Tronson
Script : Nick McCarty

Cast : Ian McCulloch and Bernard Archard, with Louise Jameson providing the new romance .

Synopsis :
A scuba diver's body is washed up on a Jersey beach. What is the link with the disappearance of a film star's wife? Bergerac finds the going tough and the answers hard to find in Offshore Trades, written by Nick McCarthy.

Notes : This episode attracted 15.2 million viewers and was ranked the fourth most popular programme of the top twenty in this particular week.

What Dreams May Come True
TX : 25th October 1985
Director : Ben Bolt
Script : Brian Finch

Synopsis : An anonymous telephone call leads Bergerac to re-examine what, on the fact of it, seemed an uncomplicated road accident.

Low Profile
TX : 1st November 1985
Director : David Reynolds
Script : Roger Davenport

Synopsis : Beryl Reid makes a guest appearance as Miss Broom, an elderly eccentric with a mysterious past. The hunt for a sunken ship has attracted divers, a renowned underwater archaeologist - and a notorious London gangster.

Return Of The Ice Maiden
TX : 8th November 1985
Director : Michael Custance
Script : Rod Beacham


Synopsis : An old adversary in the form of Philippa Vale reappears on the island, intent on recovering stolen jewels she was forced to abandon in an earlier episode.


Chrissie
TX : 15th November 1985
Director : David Reynolds
Script : Edwin Pearce


Synopsis :
Bergerac is under pressure to find a briefcase containing fashion designs and also a baby and her nurse who have disappeared.


The Tennis Racket
TX : 22nd November 1985
Director : Les Chatfield
Script : Terry James

Cast : Reece Dinsdale and Jonathan Stratt.

Synopsis : Jim Bergerac is given the job of protecting a spoilt young tennis star whose life seems to be in danger.

Sins Of The Fathers
TX : 29th November 1985
Director : Graeme Harper
Script : Tessa Coleman

Cast : Celia Gregory and Rosy Clayton.

Synopsis : The star of a film being made about the German occupation of Jersey upsets most of the crew and a number of the islanders. When threats to the man's safety become reality, Bergerac has an embarrassment of suspects.

Avenge, O'Lord
TX : 6th December 1985
Director : Robert Tronson
Script : John Fletcher

Cast : Bernard Hepton.

Synopsis :. Jim Bergerac is assigned to guard a prominent backbench MP, ostensibly on a fact-finding mission about the island's policing methods.

CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
Fires In The Fall
TX : 26th December 1986
Director : Tom Clegg
Script : Chris Boucher


Synopsis :
The Jersey detective investigates a case involving corruption, madness, and death, when a psychic and medium arrives on the island and digs into the truth behind the death twenty years ago of a twelve-year-old girl.


Notes : This season was transmitted on Saturday nights at 7:30pm to 9:00pm on BBC 1. This episode attracted 13.2 million viewers and was ranked the sixteenth most popular programme of the top twenty in this particular week.


SEASON FIVE
The Memory Man
TX : 3rd January 1987
Director : Graeme Harper
Script : Chris Boucher

Synopsis : Jim Bergerac begins an investigation into a man with amnesia who is found wandering around the island naked.

Notes : This season was transmitted at 9:10pm to 10:00pm on BBC 1.

Winner Takes All
TX : 10th January 1987
Director : Robert Young
Script : Robert Holmes

Cast : Michael Gambon and Connie Booth.

Synopsis : Bergerac investigates death threats against a retired computer buff.

Root And Branch
TX : 17th January 1987
Director : Baz Taylor
Script : Brian Finch


Synopsis : Bergerac goes to the aid of his ex-wife when his former father-in-law Charlie Hungerford tells him he thinks she is on the verge of a nervous breakdown because she believes she is being watched.

Notes : This episode attracted 15.3 million viewers and was ranked the third most popular programme of the top twenty in this particular week.

Desirable Little Residence
TX : 24th January 1987
Director : Robert Tronson
Script : Rod Beacham


Synopsis :
Jim Bergerac is intrigued to find out why a dilapidated property is so desirable to potential buyers.


The Deadly Virus
TX : 31st January 1987
Director : Gerry Mill
Script : Nick McCarty

Synopsis : Bergerac is faced with a catastrophe when animal rights' activists raid a research scientist's laboratory.

S.P.A.R.T.A
TX : 7th February 1987
Director : Robert Young
Script : Rod Beacham

Synopsis : Bergarc is asked by a former adversary, Philippa Vale, to help her when she is threatened with death if she does not reveal the whereabouts of a book full of incriminating evidence.

Thanks For Everything
TX : 14th February 1987
Director : Richard Bramall
Script : Nick McCarty


Synopsis : Jim Bergerac investigates the disappearance of a financier.


Poison
TX : 21st February 1987
Director : Robert Tronson
Script : John Fletcher


Synopsis :
Bergerac investigates a murder at a Masonic ceremony.


CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
Treasure Hunt
TX : 26th December 1987
Director : Tom Clegg
Script : Chris Boucher

Synopsis : The Jersey detective is challenged by an old adversary, Philippa Vale .

Notes : This episode was transmitted at 7:30pm to 9:00pm on BBC 1.

SEASON SIX
Whatever Lola Wants
TX : 2nd January 1988
Director : Nigel Finch
Script : Brian Finch

Cast : Ann Mitchell and Ronald Lacey.

Synopsis : Bergerac and his colleague Crozier are assigned to look after Reggie, a convict who has turned supergrass, when he and his mother, Lola, arrive on the island to stay in a "safe" house. Hot on their tails is a gang leader after his share of the proceeds of a diamond robbery who plans to kidnap Reggie's mother in order to force him to reveal the whereabouts of the loot.

Notes : This season was transmitted at 9:10pm to 10:00pm on BBC 1. This episode attracted 14.6 million viewers and was ranked the sixth most popular programme of the top twenty in this particular week.

Crossed Swords
TX : 9th January 1988
Director : David Carson
Script : Edwin Pearce

Cast : Cherry Gillespie and Peter Woodward.

Synopsis :
Jim Bergerac becomes involved in a long-standing feud between the Lefeures and Roussillons, two august island families, and is soon embroiled in a murder investigation.

A Horse Of A Different Colour
TX : 16th January 1988
Director : Matthew Robinson
Script : Rod Beacham

Synopsis : Bergerac's investigations into the kidnapping of a valuable stud horse for a ransom are complicated by the arrival on the island of Philippa Vale, now out of prison on parole. Her arrival also complicates his precarious relationship with Susan Young.

Notes : This season was transmitted on Saturday nights at 9:10pm to 10:00pm on BBC 1.

Burnt
TX : 23rd January 1988
Director : Robert Tronson
Script : John Fletcher

Cast : Ronald Pickup.

Synopsis : Bergerac is ordered to cooperate with inspectors from the Department of Trade and Industry who are investigating Sir Anthony Villiers, a businessman suspected of insider dealing whose headquarters are on the island. But Charlie Hungerford and others who have been a victim of Villiers' business methods decide to take action of their own.

The Sin Of Forgiveness
TX : 30th January 1988
Director : Tristan de Vere Cole
Script : John Collee


Synopsis : A Nazi hunter and a woman who has recently lost her father throw a shadow over Charlie Hungerford's Jersey International Music Festival, and Bergerac makes a connection between the hunted Nazi and the dead man.


A Man Of Sorrows
TX : 6th February 1988
Director : Geoffrey Sax
Script : John Fletcher


Synopsis :
When a dead body is found in an empty cottage on Jersey, Jim Bergerac is sent to London, where he is met by a City of London police Detective Sergeant. Bergerac is soon knee-deep in drug smugglers and crooked policemen. But then his boss arrives from Jersey and orders him off the case.


Private Flight
TX : 13th February 1988
Director : Alan Dossor
Script : Edmund Ward

Synopsis : Jim Bergerac's career is put at risk when he tries to help his ex-father-in-law Charlie Hungerford and becomes a potential victim of a blackmailer and his gang.

CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
Retirement Plan
TX : 24th December 1988
Director : Edward Bennett
Script : Edmund Ward

Synopsis : Charlie Hungerford (Terence Alexander) is on the Costa del Sol when he is pressured by a not very subtle pair of crooks who have a share in Charlie's business. Jim Bergerac (John Nettles) is summoned to help but he soon finds himself in the middle of a gangland war.

Notes : This episode was transmitted at 7:20pm to 9:00pm on BBC 1.

SEASON SEVEN
Sea Changes
TX : 28th January 1989
Director : Richard Standeven
Script : Edwin Pearce

Cast : Denica Fairman.

Synopsis : Jim Bergerac gets mixed up with a dead sailor, toxic waste and a missing girl. Helping him is a new and bright young policewoman, Maria Duuane.


Notes : This season was transmitted at 9:10pm to 10:00pm on BBC 1.

Natural Enemies
TX : 5th February 1989
Director : Geoffrey Sax
Script : Andrew Caine

Cast : Susan Penhaligon.

Synopsis :
Bergerac helps his former father-in-law Charlie Hungerford whose efforts to get up a leisure complex on the island are being hindered by anonymous telephone calls accusing him of murdering a former shareholder in his company. When Charlie's study is set on fire, Bergerac seeks the advice of Doctor Ruth Gardiner, a psychologist.

Tangos In The Night
TX : 12th February 1989
Director : Stuart Urban
Script : John Fletcher

Synopsis : Jim Bergerac is called upon to investigate the theft of diamonds from the house of Lady Cynthia Trowbridge, one of Jersey's leading socialites. He suspects there may be more to the case than meets the eye when he notices the close connection she has with society rival Rita Smith and her dance instructor.

The Other Woman
TX : 19th February 1989
Director : Peter Ellis
Script : John Collins

Cast : Celia Gregory and Rosy Clayton.

Synopsis : . Bergerac is in a difficult position when his investigations into the murder of Graham Hawkesworth lead to one conclusion and one possible suspect - Charlie Hungerford. Bergerac discovers that the Hawkesworths had an open marriage and tolerated each other's extra-martial affairs and that Hawkesworth was about to end one with an unknown local woman.

Weekend Off
TX : 26th February 1989
Director : Charlie Naim
Script : John Milne

Cast : James Faulkner.

Synopsis : Jim, looking forward to a weekend off, is assigned at the last minute to act as a minder to a visiting French electronics contractor, Anton Charet. His irritation is heightened when he discovers that the man has had an affair with his ex-wife.

When Did You Last See Your Father?
TX : 4th March 1989
Director : Alex Kirby
Script : Robert Banks Stewart

Cast : Tom St.Clements and Benedict Taylor.

Synopsis :
A young woman is attacked on the ferry to Jersey and Jim Bergerac investigates. The clues point to a young scrap-dealer who protests his innocence which Jim is inclined to believe. He is convinced the culprit is an arrogant young man down from Oxford to join his father, a wealthy company lawyer.

Old Acquaintance
TX : 11th March 1989
Director : Richard Standeven
Script : Rod Beacham

Cast : Ben Onwukwe.

Synopsis : Peter Jason, an Olympic gold medallist, becomes a problem for Jim Bergerac when he refuses to boycott an international committee on drug abuse. The athlete's life is threatened after it is revealed that he is writing a book about the use of drugs in sport.

Trenchard's Last Case
TX : 18th March 1989
Director : Mike Barnes
Script : Brian Finch

Synopsis : When Charlie Hungerford's friend and philanthropist, Olly Sutton, is harassed by a mysterious elderly tourist named Trenchard, Jim Bergerac investigates and unearths some unpleasant facts. Bergerac discovers that Sutton was once a Senior Scotland Yard detective who had been involved in a celebrated London fraud case.

Notes : This episode attracted 14.0 million viewers and was ranked the seventh most popular programme of the top twenty in this particular week.

CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
Second Time Around
TX : 23rd December 1989
Director : Ben Bolt
Script : Ian Kennedy Martin

Cast : Lee Montague and Michael Angelis.

Synopsis : A feature-length Bergerac (BBC-1, 7:20pm) has the Jersey detective up against bankrobbers, a revenge killing and a treacherous woman. There is no Christmas appearance this time by Liza Goddard but a script by the experienced Ian Kennedy Martin enlivens an often sluggish format.


Notes :
This episode was transmitted at 7:20pm to 9:00pm on BBC 1.

SEASON EIGHT
A True Detective
TX : 14th Janaury 1990
Director : Richard Bramall
Script : John Milne


Synopsis :
Jim Bergerac investigates the discovery of a dead body on the beach after an international Trade Fair Gala at the Rock Pool and finds it is linked to a ten million pound fraud operation.


Notes :
This season was transmitted at 9:10pm to 10:00pm on BBC 1.

My Name Is Sergeant Bergerac
TX : 21st Janaury 1990
Director : Michael Brayshaw
Script : John Milne

Cast : Tony Robinson.

Synopsis : Forced to vacate his office for a special mainland Customs and Excise operation, Jim Bergerac discovers he is being impersonated by a small-time crook.

The Dig
TX : 28th Janaury 1990
Director : Geoffrey Sax
Script : John Milne

Cast : Susan Wooldridge.

Synopsis : . When a group of student archaeologists dig for hidden Viking treasure on Charlie Hungerford's island, one of them is attacked, another goes missing and Jim Bergerac is forced to place the locals under suspicion.

Roots Of Evil
TX : 5th February 1990
Director : Richard Spence
Script : Brian Finch

Cast : Geoffrey Palmer.

Synopsis : Jim Bergerac investigates when one of the island's richest men is terrorised but refuses to help the police with their investigations.


Notes : This episode attracted 14.2 million viewers and was ranked the tenth most popular programme of the top twenty in this particular week.

Entente Cordiale
TX : 12th February 1990
Director : Ken Grieve
Script : Jeremy Burnham


Synopsis :
A murder hunt takes Bergerac to a small village in the South of France where his investigations lead him to the Chateau Leufroid and the beautiful Danielle Aubry.


In Love And War
TX : 19th February 1990
Director : Jeremy Ancock
Script : John Collee

Synopsis : Jim Bergerac discovers that Charlie Hungerford has the answers for a South African security agent trying to find a lead on an activist on the run from Pretoria.

Under Wraps
TX : 26th February 1990
Director : Geoffrey Sax
Script : Edmund Ward

Synopsis : A retired scientist holds a Jersey nursing home to ransom for a million pounds.

All The Sad Songs
TX : 4th March 1990
Director : Tim Fywell
Script : Rod Beacham

Cast : Gary Bond.

Synopsis : Jim Bergerac spends a day at the races and ends up in the twilight world of the cabaret circuit.

The Messenger Boy
TX : 11th March 1990
Director : Tristan de Vere Cole
Script : Cyril Williams


Synopsis :
Bergerac is in London trying to solve a kidnapping case.


Diplomatic Incident
TX : 18th March 1990
Director : Ken Grieve
Script : David Crane

Cast : Julain Glover .

Synopsis : Jim Bergerac's holiday is cut short when he is called back to guard an international VIP. But he becomes increasingly annoyed at the man's reluctance to keep a low profile.

CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
There For The Picking
TX : 26th December 1990
Director : Gordon Flemyng
Script : Desmond Lowden

Synopsis : As Jim Bergerac (John Nettles) has retired with girlfriend Danielle (Therese Liotard) to a more leisurely life in Provence, how is Charlie Hungerford (Terence Alexander) going to worm his way into the plot of this feature-length edition of the Jersey detective series? Jersey police discover a cache of grenades in a consignment of whisky. There seems to be a French connection, and Jim's old colleagues request his assistance.

Notes : This episode was transmitted at 8:00pm to 9:40pm on BBC 1.

SEASON NINE
Something To Hide
TX : 5th January 1991
Director : Tony Dow
Script : Cyril Williams


Synopsis : John Nettles returns for a final series as the former Jersey sleuth, Jim Bergerac. At least it is supposed to be the final series, but that's what they said six years ago. Jim has left the Bureau des Etrangers and is living a lotus eater's existence with his girlfriend Danielle (Therese Liotard) in the vineyards of Provence. But his rural peace is soon broken when Danielle's cousin, a clothes designer, invites him to a fashion show in Aix-en-Provence and is subsequently accused of murdering a client.

Notes : This season was transmitted at 8:10pm to 9:00pm on BBC 1.


The Dark Horse
TX : 12th January 1991
Director : Tristan de Vere Cole
Script : John Milne


Synopsis :
Jim Bergerac is persuaded to return to the Channel Islands by his former father-in-law, Charlie Hungerford, who wants him to find a friend's missing wife.


Snow In Provence
TX : 19th January 1991
Director : Tony Dow
Script : John Milne

Synopsis : Persuaded by Charlie Hungerford into house-sitting for a family in Provence, Jim discovers that he also has to mind two headstrong teenage girls and that the house is being used for cocaine smuggling.

The Evil That Men Do
TX : 26th January 1991
Director : Tristan de Vere Cole
Script : John Milne

Synopsis : Ex-detective Jim Bergerac finds himself in the midst of yet another crime when he advertises in the local newspaper as a private investigator. Reformed burglar Eddie Lyle asks him to help when he is suspected of murdering Lady Harriet Mallin.

My Friend Charlie
TX : 3rd February 1991
Director : Michael Rolfe
Script : Graham Hurley

Cast : Lee Montague and Michael Angelis.

Synopsis : Having resigned from the Jersey force and hopped it to France, Jim Bergerac (John Nettles) is back in the Channel Islands as a private eye. But the new format has done little to enliven a ponderous series. In tonight's episode Charlie Hungerford (Terence Alexander) is given an offer he finds difficult to refuse, while Jim is hired by an American to "abduct" her father and send him back to Florida, where he will stand trial for her mother's murder.

On The Rocks
TX : 10th February 1991
Director : Michael Rolfe
Script : Christopher Russell


Synopsis :
Offering to drive Charlie Hungerford to a birthday party in France, Bergerac once again gets more than he has bargained for. Mystery surrounds the disappearance of the birthday girl's valuable necklace, and Jim is called in by the insurance company to investigate.


The Waiting Game
TX : 17th February 1991
Director : Colm Villa
Script : David Crane

Synopsis : After a brief sojourn in France, Jim Bergerac returns to scenic Jersey, investigating companies seeking trade licences on the island. Danielle is sure that Jim is in danger, but cannot convince anyone.

Warriors
TX : 24th February 1991
Director : Terry Green
Script : Tony MacNab

Cast : Ursula Howells.

Synopsis : Jim Bergerac visits England to look for a runaway wife and becomes involved with a strange sect.

The Assassin
TX : 2nd March 1991
Director : Colm Villa
Script : John Fletcher

Cast : Christian Burgess (Hapgood).

Synopsis : Private investigator Jim Bergerac is summoned to a Brittany Castle by the mysterious Hapgood, who asks the private eye to find out who is threatening his life.

The Lohans
TX : 9th March 1991
Director : Terry Green
Script : Peter Palliser


Synopsis :
Apart from a Christmas special, this is positively the last appearance of John Nettles as sunny Jim Bergerac, the Jersey investigator. But they dropped the series once before, only to bring it back in the face of public outcry. Given the recent standard, such popular clamour is unlikely to be repeated. In tonight's yarn, Jim is entrusted with guarding a set of priceless porcelain figures which cheerful Charlie Hungerford (Terence Alexander) has decided to bid for. Guess what happens to them?


CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
All For Love
TX : 24th December 1991
Director : Terry Marcel
Script : John Milne

Synopsis : A feature-length episode, which looks like being positively the last appearances of Jersey Jim Bergerac. Rejected by Danielle (Therese Liotard), Jim (John Nettles) agrees to accompany Charlie Hungerford (Terence Alexander) to Bath and help him look after a priceless painting. When there, Jim falls for the treacherous charms of Cressida, who has plans for his future - including murder.

Notes : This episode was transmitted at 8:00pm to 9:40pm on BBC 1.


John Nettles as Bergerac.

In September 1979, Robert Banks Stewart introduced one of the more unusual variations upon a theme to BBC Television audiences in a programme which would prove undeniably popular and elevate its main performer, Trevor Eve, to star status. Shoestring was one of the more upbeat and interesting takes on the classic police-private-amateur detective mould, in that Eddie Shoestring (Eve) was an unlikely private detective with his own local radio phone-in programme.


Celia Imrey as Marianne Bellshade.


Over the course of two seasons and twenty-one episodes, the series cultivated healthy audiences peaking at some twenty-five-million viewers, who were not only drawn to the series as a result of the novel concept, but also the strength of the scripts, the excellent primary performances and the nature of the content, which presented believable cases which either impacted upon or arose from ordinary people and their relatively commonplace concerns.


Terence Alexander as
Charlie Hungerford.


Such was the popularity of the series that, when the second season concluded in December 1980, the imminent recommissioning of the series seemed somewhat of an inevitability. However, as is often the case with the meteoric elevation of stars in a series or serial, Trevor Eve found himself feted not only by rival network ITV but also but a flood of stage and screen offers, and with the lure too strong to resist he refused to commit to a third series of Shoestring.


John Nettles as Bergerac.


However, BBC Television, cognisant of the ratings power of this production, were quite happy to allow the series to rest for a period of twelve to eighteen months in the hope that Eve might reconsider the situation and they charged Banks Stewart with the task of devising a gap-filler to sustain the audience share the network was currently enjoying whilst their deliberations with Eve continued.


The second season of Bergerac was granted a Radio times cover for the first week of the run.


Having considered Jersey as a possible locale for the setting of a series, Banks Stewart revisited the tax haven for the rich elite with a view to devising another detective serial. His fascination with the island and its inhabitants eventually lead him to create Bergerac, a series which would primarily concern itself with the Bureau de Etrangers and one Detective Sergeant Jim Bergerac, who would emerge at the start of the series as a man having recently endured a failing marriage and returning to work after a period of recuperative leave nursing an injured leg.


The first of four novels based on the series.


The relatively unknown John Nettles was cast as Bergerac, and in a similar coup to that which Eve enjoyed under Shoestring, the series would ultimately elevate the man in question to stardom - and an audience following which has since supported his highly-successful series Midsomer Murders.


One of four novels based on the series.


A ten-episode run in October 1981 proved nicely diverting, but the corporation always intended the programme to be a one-off in place of the genuine article, but audience figures were of such a healthy stature, and with Eve's resistancing any return to Shoestring, meant Banks Stewart had the opportunity of a return visit to his collection of Jersey crime stories in a second season following in January 1983.


One of four novels based on the series.


Accompanying Bergerac in that first run was the near-aristocratic Charlie Hungerford (Terence Alexander), his father-in-law who had a capacity to sniff out trouble and often call upon his son-in-law's services to extricate himself from troublesome situations. Cases of murder, theft, blackmail and adultery had sustained the first series, and whilst the second would offer audiences more of the same, the programme branched out into more complex tales which affected (and occasionally put an end to) the lifestyles of the rich and often famous who graced Jersey with their fleeting presence.


One of four novels based on the series.


Shaped in the mould of the classic "maverick" detective, Bergerac was quietly spoken, often plodding through a case and using his mind as opposed to the "man of action" characters as exemplified in American series such as Starsky And Hutch. The series itself presented episodes with a far more measured pace to which audiences had previously been accustomed, and this languid and steady style served to provide the benchmark for the series and a considerable proportion of those which followed in its wake.

The programme went from strength to strength, continuing for another two series (in late 1983 and late 1985), however the BBC hierarchy were undecided as to whether or not the venture should continue beyond this stage. Internal ructions concerning its recommissioning reached the press, and audiences registered their protest with the network that they desired further adventures on the island of Jersey at their earliest convenience. Such was the public pressure exerted on the broadcaster that Jim Bergerac did famously return twelve months later in a feature-length Christmas special in 1986 as a prelude to a further series of adventures, though this love-hate relationship with the programme would see the corporation tout the demise of the series on two further occasions, the final of which came in with the ninth season and Christmas special in 1991. By this stage audiences had enjoyed nearly ninety outings over the course of ten years, and the decision to change the locale and profession in which Bergerac functioned had seemingly resulted in the evaporation of the programme's bankable support-base.

The series struck a delicate balance between the professional and personal life of the Bergerac, as explored through his interaction with Charlie, and a succession of female supporting characters: Deborah Grant as his ex-wife Deborah, Lindsay Heath as his daughter Kate, his one-time girlfriend Francine Leland (Cecile Paoli), beautiful jewel thief Philippa Vale (Liza Goddard) - with whom he enjoyed a dubious flirtation on no less than three occasions throughout the series, with his dogged obsession to prove her guilt, though with her ultimately seeking his help when matters became too hot to handle, and Louise Jameson as Susan Young, the girlfriend whose murder he painfully had to investigate.

This final pairing proved to be one of the most enduring and memorable over the course of a decade of episodes. Supervised by Chief Inspector (and later Chief Superintendent) Barney Crozier (Sean Arnold), writers of the series would undertake a character transformation. The pairing of Crozier and Bergerac would be relatively comfortable, based on mutual respect, at the outset of the series, but would deteriorate beyond all repair towards the conclusion of the programme, famously exemplified when he would tell his superior to "take the job and stuff it" before resigning to join his French girlfriend, Danielle Aubry (Therese Liotard) for a life of quiet retirement in France.


However, reworking the format of the series with a shift from Jersey to Provence and a change in occupation from serving Detective Sergeant to Private Investigator, proved to be the programme's undoing, and despite the best efforts of the creative team to contrive reasons for his regular return journeys to Jersey (usually at the request of Charlie for one implausible reason or another), audiences were unimpressed and started to withdraw their support for the venture.

In retrospect, this seems somewhat harsh a reaction as the programme remained loyal to its core concept, despite the change in emphasis on police procedural work and the lifestyles of the rich and indolent. The delicate mixture and blend between French provincial life, Bergerac's quest for the quiet life and his unwavering capacity for sniffing out trouble proved diverting, but would never have sustained the series for more than a further season or two. The greater creative leaps to introduce Charlie into storylines placed unwanted stress on the episodes themselves, and this marred what was (as in the instance of the comedy series Fresh Fields and its cosmopolitan cousin French Fields) an entertaining "flip-side" to the programme.

Nevertheless, the programme itself far exceeded original expectations, and boasted some of the most notable guest appearances of any series throughout the 1980s on BBC Television (a grand claim, but supported by a brief casting of an eye over the cast list): Julian Glover, Greta Scacchi, Warren Clarke, Geoffrey Palmer, Michael Gambon, George Irving, Patrick Mower and Bernard Hepton were but a handful of the high-profile actors keen to enjoy the
Jersey sunshine in the corporation's premier "I want to be in that" series.

The programme enjoyed one of the most recognised signature tunes of the 1980s, courtesy of George Fenton, who combined an element of the continent with a hint of the lazy high life as matched by wonderfully EastEnders-esque titles featuring the map of Jersey. Produced by Banks Stewart, Jonathan Alwyn and George Gallaccio, with notable directorial turns from Martyn Friend, Ian Toynton, Don Leaver, Paul Ciappessoni, Gordon Flemyng, Tristan de Vere Cole, Graeme Harper and Geoffrey Sax (amongst others), high-profile script contributions from the likes of Ian Kennedy Martin, Bob Baker, Robert Holmes, Brian Clemens, Brian
Finch and John Milne underlined the calibre of the programme.

Episodes which have lived long in the memory of audiences and critics alike, courtesy of either the strong crime element or a touch of the supernatural, included Late For A Funeral, Ice Maiden, Return Of The Ice Maiden, Whatever Lola Wants and The Dig (the last of which proved remarkably gripping and disturbing at the same time). Bergerac was a solid, reliable, well-crafted series which boasted strong performances, entertaining storylines and a calibre somewhat higher than the fare which surrounded it throughout the 1980s.

The dependable Robert Banks Stewart delivered a positively sound concept with admirable aplomb, and the programme placed John Nettles as one of the more bankable actors of the period. His subsequent success in Midsomer Murders can, in part, be attributed to this delightfully successful sojourn in the sun. The series was globally exported to enormous commercial success, though the limit of its commercial release for an appreciative audience remains a handful of television tie-in novelisations which accompanied the series.

Recent positive reappraisal of the series amongst the archive television fraternity has led to the first three seasons being issued in 2006, with further seasons released during 2007.


Text © Matthew Lee, 2005.

Characters
Portrayed By
Detective Sergeant Jim Bergerac
John Nettles
Deborah Bergerac
Deborah Grant
Kate Bergerac
Lindsay Heath
Charlie Hungerford
Terence Alexander
Chief Inspector Barney Crozier / Superintendent Barney Crozier (Series 1 - 8)
Sean Arnold
Detective Constable Terry Wilson (Series 1)
Geoffrey Leesley
Detective Constable Ben Lomas / Detective Sergeant Ben Lomas (Series 6 - 9)
David Kershaw
Detective Constable Willy Pettit (Series 6 - 9)
John Telfer
Francine Leland (Series 1)
Cecile Paoli
Doctor Leieune
Jonathan Adams
Diamante Lil (Series 1)
Mela White
Charlotte (Series 1 - 3)
Annette Badland
Marianne Bellshade (Series 2)
Celia Imrie
Susan Young (Series 4 - 7)
Louise Jameson
Peggy Masters (Series 4 - 7)
Nancy Mansfield
Detective Constable Barry Goddard
Jolyon Baker
Philippa Vale
Liza Goddard
Danielle Aubry (Series 8 and 9)
Therese Liotard
Albert Leufroid (Series 9)
Michael Mellinger
Ellie (Series 9)
Charmaine Parsons

The series was created by Robert Banks Stewart who also produced seasons 1 and 2. Seasons 3 - 5 and the Christmas specials Fires In The Fall and Treasure hunt were produced by Jonathan Alwynn. Seasons 6 - 9 and all remaining Christmas specials were produced by George Gallico.