The Troubleshooters episode guide season 3

Episode Guide

SEASON THREE
Originally transmitted between 9:05pm and 9:55pm on Monday nights.

Words Are Softer Than Oil

TX : 30th January 1967
Director : James Gatward
Script : John Gould
Cast : Robert Hardy (Alec Stewart), Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), Michael Hawkins (John Stead), Camilla Brockman (Claire Cooke), Anthony Newlands (Prince Diaz), Sandor Eles (Marco), Virginia Wetherell (Julie Serres), Arnold Diamond (Cor Hazenberg) and John Byron (Peter van Meeran).

Synopsis : As the new series begins, a power struggle for a vacant place on the Board is looming. Danger in the North Sea - more hazards on the dry land of Europe - when Brian Stead's son joins Mogul, Peter Thornton is threatened with disaster.

A Damn Great Lump Of Iron

TX : 6th February 1967
Director : Peter Graham Scott
Script : James Mitchell
Cast : Robert Hardy (Alec Stewart), Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), Nigel Stock (Arthur Rogers), Felix Aylmer (Lord Ravenscar), Ann Bell (Ellen Jardine), Norman Claridge (Poulter), Joss Ackland (Sam Jardine), Cameron Miller (Charlie Jackson), Fred Hugh (Chairman), Michael Brennan (Matt Lawson), Donald Oliver (Stobbs) and Virginia Wetherell (Julie Serres).

Radio Times publicity : February 2, 1967 - Mogul wants a sister ship for the newly-launched Mogul Emperor super tanker. The problem is that Brian Stead wants it at the same price and it is Stewart's job to get the shipyard companies to agree. Tonight's story is a sequel to the very successful episode in the last series called "Do Your Best For The Lads". Written by the same author, tonight's episode "A Damn Great Lump Of Iron" has the same guest stars Nigel Stock, Ann Bell, and Joss Ackland.

My Daughter Knows Her Way Around

TX : 20th February 1967
Director : Lawrence Bourne
Script : David Weir
Cast : Robert Hardy (Alec Stewart), Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), George Pastell (Doctor Qadir), Deborah Stanford (Roz Stewart), Peter Bowles (Abbas Ramzi), John Horsley (Andrews). Amber Kammer (Sally Andrews), Valerie Saruff (Miss Hilma), Maxwell Shaw (Georges Najja) and Peter Zander (Ali Nessim).

Radio Times publicity : February 16, 1967 - International oil has long been an aspect of international politics, and there's no getting away from the fact - however much the big companies disclaim any desire to "meddle". So when in tonight's Troubleshooters story Alec Stewart (Robert Hardy) arrives in Egypt to make a cautious reconnaissance of the business possibilities there - unexamined since Suez - the reactions produced by his visit are by no means all commercial. He soon finds himself talking politics with a rebel leader Doctor Qadir (George Pastell). At the same time the trip threatens to create an extremely delicate personal problem for Stewart.

Home And Dry

TX : 27th February 1967
Director : Roger Jenkins
Script : John Lucarotti
Cast : Robert Hardy (Alec Stewart), Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), Philip Latham (Willy Izard), Virginia Wetherell (Julie Serres), Colin Blakely (Commander Cardino), Deborah Stanford (Roz Stewart), Annette Andre (Tammy Gervais), Karel Stepanek (Carl Reinhardt), Douglas Ditta (Professor Gordon), Windsor Davies (Chief Petty Officer), Bryan Kendrick (Doctor), Barry Lowe (Mike Graweski), Bari Johnson (Sam Fletcher), Talfryn Thomas (David Morgan) and George Roubicek (John Anders).

Synopsis : Danger and fear lurk three hundred feet below the sea when Peter Thornton goes underwater for Mogul.

Trivia : Diving Sequences featured in this episode were provided by Diving Services Limited.

Radio Times publicity :February 23, 1967 - The Troubleshooters: Two stars of this tough, tense series talk to Bernard Adams. Ray Barrett - Acting with Hardy: "We work well together - strike sparks off each other". Ray Barrett is thirty-nine and not looking forward to being forty. Otherwise he is a realist. The pitted, rough-hewn face? "Acne," he says, straight-from-the-shoulder. His professional dream? "To keep working: I just want to be a good actor; good actors stay employed". Since he came to Britain from Australia in 1959 he has achieved that particular ambition. "I came because I thought I was getting to the age when I had to find out if I was any good or not, and to do that you have to come to a world market," he explains. In Australia he began acting - unwillingly - at the age of ten, and he was a radio announcer for six years in Brisbane. Then he became a radio actor with ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and has his own light-entertainment show. The year before he left he was playing Jimmy Porter all over Australia in a company led by Margaret Rutherford. Since he came to Britain Barrett has been a considerable success on television, but the theatre has been generally unprofitable for him. He would like very much to do a classical season and he finds it exciting working with a "classical" actor like Hardy. "We work well together: we strike sparks off each other," he says. "While you're doing a series like this you're totally involved. Sometimes, because of the pre-filming, you find you are doing three episodes at once. If I do get a week out I like to work on the house". He has bought a terraced cottage in Richmond and has enjoyed modernizing it. "I love working with my hands; I've always done it since I was a child". We talked at a public house beside the drill hall in Putney where he was rehearsing for The Troubleshooters. He drank stout and when he told stories he acted all the characters in them with great gusto. His normal voice now shows only the slightest Australian influence; he has the curious neutral tone which so many actors slip into as their career develops. Nowadays he calls London "home". Like most Aussies he likes sunshine and sport - although he's not fanatical about either. He plays golf at Richmond (to a seven handicap), sails (he used to do ocean-racing in Australia, and plays cricket ("very badly," he claims) for the Lord's Taverners. About sunshine he intends to do something shortly. Troubleshooters has not made him enormously rich, but he hopes soon to be able to buy what he calls "a foreign place" - in the sun. Meanwhile he's content with improving his present house, driving to rehearsals in his Mini - a straightforward apparently uncomplicated Aussie who, like Peter Thornton, has made good in a highly-competitive field. Robert Hardy - "A change and a challenge for a flamboyant, un-modern sort of actor". "I was coasting along after I had finished The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. I took a sabbatical - I thought it was time to take stock. Then the telephone rang". Robert Hardy, describing - over a bottle of St.Emilion in a Shepherd's Bush restaurant - how he came to be invited to take the part of Alec Stewart in The Troubleshooters. For a primarily classical actor to take on an intensely demanding twenty-six-part television series dealing with a subject - the oil business - about which he knew nothing was clearly something he had to consider carefully. "I talked to my agent, and I thought it was dangerous. But I was excited about presenting something related to the business world". He saw himself as a rather "flamboyant, un-modern sort of actor," so the series and the part of Stewart provided a change and a challenge - which he has accepted with great success. Now after dozens of episodes of The Troubleshooters he says: "I can't make up my mind about whether one's performance is better or duller". Hardy is a modest and serious man. He is very concerned, for example, about how the audience take The Troubleshooters. He finds its form (half-documentary, half-play) fascinating and would love to write an episode himself one day. Already he has some experience in the documentary field. In 1963 he wrote and narrated a highly-praised film called The Picardy Affair which told the story of the Battle of Agincourt. He lived in Hollywood for several years but now, married to Glady's Cooper's second daughter, he has a house near Henley-on-Thames. There he indulges his medieval obsession by making longbows and practicing archery. Each day he drives down the M4 to rehearsals in a very un-medieval car - a Lancia Flavia. In some respects his career runs slightly parallel to Alec Stewart's. Hardy went into the R.A.F towards the end of the war but, unlike Stewart, he had only time to train before the war finished. Then he went up to Oxford where he read English and encountered a vintage theatrical year, meeting Peter Brook, Kenneth Tynan, and Richard Burton - who was briefly an enemy but now is among Hardy's oldest friends. Then began a broad Shakespearean training at Stratford. "I started off learning the business, getting better and better parts as I went along". He has done the full gamut of Shakespearean roles, including Henry V with the Royal Shakespeare Company on television. But Hamlet - which he played on the stage in America not long before The Troubleshooters began - is the role which satisfied him the most.

We're None Of Us Perfect

TX : 6th March 1967
Director : David Proudfoot
Script : James Landry
Cast : Robert Hardy (Alec Stewart), Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), Philip Latham (Willy Izard), Deborah Stanford (Roz Stewart), Richard Shaw (Gaffney), Camilla Brockman (Claire Cooke), Virginia Wetherell (Julie Serres), Vernon Dobtcheff (Peebles), Paddy Joyce (Clancy), Will Stampe (Frowd), Isobel Black (Eileen O'Rourke) and Jon Rollason (James Nichols).

Synopsis : Alec Stewart's job, hopes and home are in danger when a plan backfires. Writer James Landry is a pseudonym for Thomas Clarke.

Think Big

TX : 13th March 1967
Director : Roger Jenkins
Script : John Elliot
Cast : Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Philip Latham (Willy Izard), Robert Hardy (Alec Stewart), Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), Deborah Stanford (Roz Stewart), Virginia Wetherell (Julie Serres), Camilla Brockman (Claire Cooke), Geoffrey Chater (Charles du Cros), Olaf Pooley (Aircraft Captain), James Bree (Jack Lang), Phil McCall (Driver), Leslie Blackater (Morag) and Douglas Murchie (Road Man).

Synopsis : A dream of greatness brings crisis for the troubleshooters - Brian Stead decides to leave Mogul.

Trivia : Following the success of its entry in the Comedy Playhouse series, Ken Hoare and Mike Sharlan's comedy Beggar My Neighbour was expanded into a series, which premiered on this date. Peter Jones and June Whitfield starred as The Garveys, with Reg Varney and Pat Coombs as The Butts. The programme reunited Jones and Varney, who had previously worked together on the popular comedy series The Rag Trade, also for BBC Television.

Some Days You Just Can't Win

TX : 20th March 1967
Director : James Gatward
Script : John Lucarotti

Cast : Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Robert Hardy (Alec Stewart), Philip Latham (Willy Izard), Virginia Wetherell (Julie Serres), Ronald Rubin (American Voice), Richard Steele (English Voice), Leonard Grahame (Jack), Carole Gosheron (Secretary), Dennis Alaba Peters (Ambassador), John Le Mesurier (Kemp), James Beck (Dave Sandy), Rex Rowland (Manager), Sydney Johnson (Doorman), Brian McDermott (Chaplet), Tommy Eytle (Prime Minister), Derek Sydney (Goulani), Norman Bristow (Captain), Lyndon Brook (First Officer), Philip Ryan (Nairobi Controller), Terence O'Connor (Salisbury Controller) and Neville Becker (Beira Controller).

Synopsis : Brian Stead's life is in Peter Thornton's hands when the Rhodesian oil ban takes them to Africa.

Radio Times publicity : March 16, 1967 - Who's The Girl On Granny's Bike? It's Virginia Wetherell who plays Thornton's girl every week in The Troubleshooters. Saying goodbye to his "swinging chick" Julie Serres is among the tougher assignments in Peter Thornton's career as a Mogul troubleshooter. Julie is played by Virginia Wetherell, honey-voiced, flaxen-haired, and with eyes large and blue enough to keep any man's mind off rock-crushers and oil drills. Though London-born, Virginia was reared on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. "How I'd love to go back," she says. And then, with a peep at The Troubleshooters rehearsing, she shakes her head. "Well, no; not just yet". The truth is that the glamorous Miss Wetherell finds herself at twenty-three in just the television part she might have prayed for. Her only previous series was Doctor Who, quite some time ago. "I came in with the Daleks as a goody". Does "goody" ring true? Consigned to Britain from Mauritius in 1957, she landed up at a girls' boarding school in the Home Counties - "a sort of St.Trinian's and, to me, absolutely horrific. I escaped, but the police caught me, so back I went till it was time for drama school in London". Virginia is much in her element at Mogul; her father happens to be in oil on the accountancy side. At home she goes for Continental cookery, evolving recipes of her own by making a hash of printed ones. Outside The Troubleshooters, Virginia has a genuine boyfriend now working as a television producer in Germany. And, off the set, she easily evades recognition, weaving her way through London's traffic from Holland Park to the Putney rehearsal rooms on a grandma-type bicycle complete with basket on the handlebar. After The Troubleshooters? "I've no dream part in mind. I want to do it all - good parts in good plays with good producers. Watching these wonderful actors, I'm learning every week. But I'm not ready yet for Ophelia". Tonight Julie Serres says goodbye once again, and the fact that Peter Thornton's hazardous air trip to the Madagascar means little. To Virginia, though, Madagascar spells magic. It is only a swallow's hop to Mauritius.

Nothing To Do With Mogul

TX : 27th March 1967
Director : David Proudfoot
Script : Eve Martell
Cast : Robert Hardy (Alec Stewart), Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), Deborah Stanford (Roz Stewart), Virginia Wetherell (Julie Serres), Joby Blanshard (Police Sergeant), Colleen Stirks (Marilyn), Stephanie Bidmead (Elsie Parker), Bill Hepper (Clerk Of The Course), Hamilton Dyce (Arthur Masters), Nancie Jackson (Jean Bagnall) and Noel Johnson (Jimmy Satchell).

Synopsis : An Easter tragedy forces Alec Stewart to choose between his personal life and Mogul.

No Sentiment In Business?

TX : 3rd April 1967
Director : James Gatward
Script : Roy Russell
Cast : Robert Hardy (Alec Stewart), Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), Philip Latham (Willy Izard), Virginia Wetherell (Julie Serres), Roy Purcell (Harry Telfall), Jane Walker (Pet Nixon), George A Cooper (George Ward), Sarah Taunton (Freda Muller), Wendy Craig (Maggie Telfall), Stafford Byrne (James Barber), John Rees (Eric Dexter) and Tommy Jenkins (Van Driver).

Synopsis : Death brings opportunity for Mogul, a test of a loyalty for Peter Thornton.

Journey From The Interior

TX : 10th April 1967
Director : Roger Jenkins
Script : Ian Kennedy Martin
Cast : Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Philip Latham (Willy Izard), Alan Gifford (Harriman), Willie Jonah (Guide), Sammy Claude (Garageman), Fulton MacKay (Major Ruthven), Carmen Munroe (Sister Domitilla), Susan Chaloner (Mara), Horace James (Army Driver) and Bari Johnson (Minister Of The Interior).

Synopsis : Peter Thornton hits trouble in Africa and faces a perilous journey with strange companions.

Trivia : At 9:30pm on BBC-1, ten minutes prior to The Troubleshooters, A Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Conservative and Unionist Party was transmitted. This broadcast also featured on BBC-2 and BBC Wales.

Radio Times publicity : April 6, 1967 - Mogul's Master Mind: Ernest Thomson meets Geoffrey Keen at his home in Surrey. Brian Stead is the Troubleshooters tycoon, Geoffrey Keen the actor who plays him. Stead stays mostly in the executive suite; Keen shuttles around rehearsal rooms and television studios and a small book-lined snuggery overlooking Richmond Park. Stead is dynamic and sometimes ruthless; Keen is easy-going and professionally detached. Once a week, though, television fuses the two into one. "Did you ever, for sheer devilry, go to the City in black jacket and bowler, and study high-power business at close quarters?". Before answering, Geoffrey Keen leaned back in his study chair, dug his hands in his cardigan pockets, and let out a belly laugh. "As a matter of fact, I did. Not for devilry, though. I had no option". The idea came from Malcolm Keen, his distinguished acting father, who, incidentally, is still flourishing at seventy-nine. "He intended me for a business career. I'd recently left Bristol Grammar School at fifteen and was living in London. My father knew `someone in the City' who might help. One morning, in dark suits and bowlers, we set off with one rolled umbrella between us. The friend took several looks at me and recommended business studies. I went to the London School of Economics. After six abortive weeks I gave up". Already he has tasted blood, having "very stupidly" joined a Bristol repertory company as general dogsbody and small part player. Now he wanted to go back, but to damp down the urge he was sent for a year to his brother's home in France. Back in England, he was now mature enough to be awed by his father's reputation and frightened by the possibility of failure. However, the parental viewpoint had changed. After a spell at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, young Geoffrey won the Bancroft Gold Medal. In March 1936, at the age of seventeen, he appeared with the Old Vic Company in The Winter's Tale. From Florizel the lover to Stead the oil tycoon, Geoffrey Keen's story covers virtually everything in the acting line except farcical comedy. "A sense of humour? Who can know whether they've got one? All I can say is that I worked in Stars In Battledress with Ken Connor". The "power roles" he so often plays have gone the whole gamut. "In films I had a run of corporals and then sergeants. In The Angry Silence I was a works foreman and in Born Free they made me a district commissioner". "What do you really feel about Brian Stead?". Geoffrey Keen stiffened slightly, grinned, and took another sip of gin-and-tonic. "I try to remember he's a human being. Of course he's got to be tough; he's responsible for the company's money. Identifying myself with Stead, I took my father's advice. "If you're playing a devil, you must show why he's a devil". Unlike Peter Thornton and Alec Stewart, who go trouble-shooting all over the globe, Stead is seen most of the time in the one office. "Stead's is a key part, all the same. When he's giving those instructions, don't forget he's also outlining the plot".

Long Knives Cut Deep

TX : 17th April 1967
Director : David Proudfoot
Script : Ray Jenkins
Cast : ERobert Hardy (Alec Stewart), Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), Philip Latham (Willy Izard), Peter Madden (Tom Sammelson), Doreen Aris (Sally Brooke), Maureen Norman (Mrs Matlock), Eric Lander (Gordon Faulkner), Wilfred Pickles (Will Faulkner), Ian Masters (Charlie Matlock), Camilla Brockman (Claire Cooke), John Wentworth (Sir Richard Costello) and Norman Scace (Herbert Gold).

Synopsis : One man blocks Mogul's hopes for North Sea gas. Can Alec Stewart buy him - or break him?

Women And Business Never Did Mix

TX : 24th April 1967
Director : Lawrence Bourne
Script : David Weir
Cast : Robert Hardy (Alec Stewart), Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), Philip Latham (Willy Izard), Virginia Wetherell (Julie Serres), Deborah Stanford (Roz Stewart), Harold Innocent (Kuhn), Margaret Ward (Joan Izard), Arnold Peters (Arthur Clark), Joan Benham (Mrs Barnes), Phyllida Law (Mary Fielding), Corbet Woodall (Newsreader), Robin Bailey (Richard Harvey) and Doreen Hepburn (Mrs Sinclair).

Synopsis : Willy Izard fights Brian Stead and Alec Stewart when they take over a German firm. Stead's plan is brilliant - but Izard finds powerful friends.

Trivia : For the first time, at 8:05pm BBC-2 presented Verdi's La Traviata, a complete opera direct from the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, the opera featured Mirella Freni, Renato Cioni and Piero Cappuccilli. At three hours and fifteen minutes in duration, it seems inconceivable that viewers would not have drifted across to The Troubleshooters!

There's Always A Next Time

TX : 1st May 1967
Director : Moira Armstrong
Script : David Weir
Cast : Robert Hardy (Alec Stewart), Geoffrey Keen (Brian Stead), Ray Barrett (Peter Thornton), Philip Latham (Willy Izard), Deborah Stanford (Roz Stewart), Rani Dube (Miss Khan), Jack Gwillim (Sir Giles Bliss), Leslie French (Sir Richard Tomalin), Peter Jeffrey (Heritage), Camilla Brockman (Claire Cooke) and Saeed Jaffrey (Right Honourable Mohammed Khan).

Synopsis : Brian Stead and Alec Stewart clash bitterly. In this fight there can be no second place.

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