Synopsis: One of the most popular programmes on BBC Television is The Troubleshooters. Wildcat is a novel based on characters and events from this series and concerns Peter Thornton (played in the series by Ray Barrett), who is faced with personal and business problems that could change his whole future with Mogul Oil.

Review: Wildcat is another adaptation of the story of the same name from the first series of the programme (under the Mogul banner). As in the case of The Mogul Men, the adaptation is virtually a scene-by-scene rendition of the television equivalent, however in this instance the fact that one story is afforded a one-hundred-and-forty-two-page treatment ensures that the characters are more fully-rounded and more descriptive passages flesh out the story.

Synopsis: The BBC Television series The Troubleshooters once again provides characters and incidents for a novel, the third to be published by Corgi Books. In The Big Rig, Alec Stewart, promoted to Head Office by Brian Stead, is sent on a mission, the outcome of which will determine his future with Mogul Oil.

Review: Conrad Frost adapted the episode If You Can't Lick 'Em from Series 2 of the programme (now under the banner title of The Troubleshooters) which had originally been scripted by David Weir. In this story, Alec Stewart (portrayed by Robert Hardy) and Jane Webb (Phillippa Gale) are sent to Rumania by Brian Stead. Their mission is to buy a man for Mogul, and if Stewart fails, his promotion to Head Office will be followed shortly thereafter by directions to the nearest exit. An entertaining and more full-bodied novelisation, the title completed the trilogy of stories presented by Souvenir Press / Corgi Books.

Synopsis: Forward by Paul Fox, Controller, BBC-1. The story of the birth of a great television drama series, from February 1964, when the BBC agreed that John Elliot should go ahead with the idea of making programmes about an oil company which he called Mogul, to January 1966 when he sat on a beach in Tobago and wrote the first script for episode one of The Troubleshooters - the first of a long line. It all grew from the very simple thought: that we had little literature about the material sinews of modern life. "I chose oil, not only because it is unusually unseen and explosive in every sense, and therefore mysterious in its power". By the time the first episode of The Troubleshooters went on the air, over two years' work and something like a hundred thousand pounds had been spent on it; and a thousand people had been involved in its making. There were the exciting trips made by the author, living in oilfields in Nigeria, Libya, Trinidad and the Middle East; the miles of film supplied by the oil companies, the rehearsals - and the translation of the real world of oil business into studio sets and fictitious situations. It is, to an extent, a personal account; but it is above all an attempt to recreate, several years and a hundred episodes later, the excitements and worries, failures and delays, technique, and satisfactions of so odd an undertaking. Nothing like it has been written before.

Review: Whilst this text does not entirely devote its content to Mogul and The Troubleshooters, Peter Graham Scott played a pivotal role in the development and nurturing of both projects amidst a myriad of other television projects for BBC and ITV. Chapter 6 (1965-1968: Oil On Dramatic Waters) is devoted entirely to the behind-the-scenes machinations between John Elliot and BBC Television as the original Mogul project eventually managed to find its feet, and ventures into production difficulties experienced throughout the initial thirteen-part production, and the transition of Mogul into The Troubleshooters and beyond. This chapter is particularly fascinating in that it draws the reader through the various difficulties which face a writer and those which pose problems for the production unit, and provide a wonderful insight into BBC Television's bureaucratic mentality during the 1960s. The book itself devotes time to programmes such as This Man Craig, The Onedin Line, Court Martial, Jenny's War and Danger Man, and provides fascinating insights into the wide variety of programmes in which Scott became involved (in varying capacities). British Television: An Insider's History is not only a rare example of a publisher taking a genuine interest in the thoughts and motivations of a popular producer from the 1960s, but is also virtually one of the only modern examples of a text which deals in any particular depth with regard to Mogul and The Troubleshooters.