Somehow I managed to stagger through reading this in the latest “Round The Archives" podcast from Lisa and Andrew (available at https://soundcloud.com/user-868590968/rta040-episode-40) - this is the text for anyone who couldn't understand my burbled nonsense...
PODCAST ARTICLE 22 (FOR EPISODE 40) – SHOESTRING
PODCAST ARTICLE 22 (FOR EPISODE 40) – SHOESTRING
Sometimes a popular television series is hard to like.
Everybody else is going on and on about just how great it is, and you sit there,
feeling perplexed because it does nothing whatsoever for you, and you begin to
wonder whether there’s something wrong with you because you’re so far off-track
with what the rest of the world seems to find quite enjoyable.
GAME OF THRONES did nothing for me, and I’ve never felt the
need to watch CALL THE MIDWIFE, LINE OF DUTY, HAPPY VALLEY or STRICTLY COME
DANCING, despite the viewers being drawn to all of these like bees to honey.
Several of those strike me as looking too bloody miserable, or too bloody
family-wamily, for me ever to want to see them, but if they make other people
happy, then so be it.
I’ll just slip another DVD into the machine and leave them
to get on with it, whilst I wallow around with some telly from a different era,
and try to fathom just what it might have been that made these shows the unmissable
viewing of their times.
Which brings us to SHOESTRING, a fondly-remembered detective
show starring Trevor Eve found lurking at the back end of the 1970s and the
dawn of the 1980s, a series which staggered through twenty-one episodes across
two years before vanishing forever and being replaced with BERGERAC for the
remainder of the 1980s.
It’s a little bit of a Marmite-y series, to be honest. Some
people really, really liked SHOESTRING, but some people never really took to
it, and it’s easy to see why.
It is, after all, based around local radio and gives it a
Beeb-related self-importance that few of us might recognize, and it does also
come across as being a tiny bit smug from time-to-time, but, perhaps because it
was 1979, and the series launched during the ITV strike so that there were
literally no other channels to watch apart from BBC2, and it faced little to no
competition, at least at first, SHOESTRING became very popular indeed.
For “reasons” outlined in the first episode,
down-on-his-luck Private Investigator Eddie Shoestring ends up becoming the
“Private Ear” for Radio West, and this becomes the trigger point for the
various stories which result from listeners ringing in and having him look into
their crime-related problems.
So far, so snoopy, and – possibly – so bloody irritating.
But then, with a backstory of mental health issues, a bright
red (or – if you prefer - orange) Mark Three Cortina estate, and some parts of
Bristol that I do have a burning nostalgia for, well, really… what’s not to
like?
Well, I suppose that all depends upon how much you like
SHOUTING TREVOR or not. To be fair, the SHOUTING TREVOR of WAKING THE DEAD is
very much suppressed throughout much of the run of SHOESTRING, although it does
surface from time-to-time until everyone remembers that he’s supposed to have
put a lid on his anger because of his therapy.
And, because I was very influenced by things on the telly
around that era, due to being that sort of age back then, I do think that,
perhaps subconsciously, I modelled my look – minus the moustache (I’m not
insane!) – on SHOESTRING as I staggered through my college years.
Kicking off on September the thirtieth in nineteen seventy
nine, when there was nothing much on ITV due to the strike, the opening episode
is called “Private Ear’ and is very much the origin story for a series which
would end its original two series just before Christmas the following year,
with Eddie slumping down on a sofa having just saved Christmas in a Christmas
themed episode a mere fifteen months later.
And because SHOESTRING is based around a radio station, lets
go through the first episode as a Top Twenty chart rundown.
In at number twenty are “THE OPENING CREDITS” - Created by name
to conjure with Sid Sutton, in which, once the Radio West fanfare has trilled,
a somber bluesy number plays as Eddie mooches around a chilly looking Bristol
having been transmogrified by the power of radio and split screenery, so we get
to see a tiny glimpse of the inner workings of the magical world of radio as he dozes
on park benches, blows on his chilly hands, and becomes fascinated by pillar
boxes, and has a snack as new “hi-tech” dot matrix signs tell the people of
Bristol just how chilly it is.
Alright?
At nineteen is “FLIPPIN’ STACY DORNING!” - The former child
star horse botherer, playing – how could we forget? – Sarah Marshall. She’s
picked up by a red Morris Marina taxi at the Bel Aire Sauna, the kind of back
street dive frequented by old gentlemen, not ‘arf. Sarah wears dark glasses as
she leaves and goes home far too tired to chat to Laurie the taxi driver –
played by Patrick Durkin - as, rather surprisingly, he listens to the local
radio station, Radio West, as, it seems, does absolutely every other person in
the series, despite that bloody jingle and the essential dreariness of DJ David
Carn’s radio show.
Hang on. That voice is familiar! It’s only William bloody Russell!
With him in the pilot, this thing’s bound to run for fifty years.
Okay?
Sarah Marshall, you won’t have forgotten, runs a bath,
whilst listening to David droning on about old soldiers and the like, the crazy
young thing that she is. Then, despite being “very tired” – know what I mean? -
gets called back to work for a super-important “special” job, which means she
heads out in a ghastly pink coat and we get a close up of her amazingly shocked
eyes.
Alright?
In at eighteen is “I DON’T WANT TO BE LIKE DAVID CARN” - In
the studios of Radio West, David Carn is broadcasting his late night nonsense to
the west country, as Don Satchley - Michael Medwin - arrives to do his “boss of
the radio station” schtick, which does, at least, lead to the unexpected sight
of that lovely Mr Chesterton from DOCTOR WHO flicking the Vs straight down the camera lens.
At home, Sarah Marshall – remember her? – tries to make an
angry phone call, then runs through the streets to Radio West where we meet Liz
Crowther’s “lovely but never at home” receptionist Sonia, who takes Sarah’s name
– whatever that might be - and tries to get David Carn to come out and talk to
her, and when he refuses to do so, she heads outside singing the current gritty
drama hit of the day “Bar Stewards!”
At seventeen it’s “SAD SARAH” – This is the last we see of
the unforgettable Sarah Marshall – as she nicks a white Rolls Royce from the
radio station’s car park, which arch-narcissist David Carn has permanently tuned
to his own show apparently, and, as David drones on with marriage guidance
advice and sniffs at his signature yellow rose, Sarah Marshall – who’s that? –
knocks back the booze and pills and drives to the beach, freeze framing on a
close up once she’s screamed the last line of that “Bar Stewards” song
“Bar Stewards, all of them…!”
A catchy little ditty, right?
And her body lies on the beach next to the Rolls Royce of
David Carn – for it is his - the following morning.
At sixteen, “EDDIE GOES TO WORK (Part One)” - Eddie
Shoestring starts his latest working day by coming downstairs and swiping the
morning paper from under the very letterbox of his landlady, prosecuting
attorney Erica Bayliss, as played with a “Will-they, won’t they?” (SPOILER
ALERT: They will!) charm by Doran Godwin. Their domestic arrangements seem very
fluid as they discuss his prospects, or lack of them, his lack of petrol,
office, and clients.
There’s then a strange little interlude as he goes out,
intercepts the postie, and a jump cut from him posting the letters through the
door himself and the toast popping up from the toaster in their kitchen, and we
see that the sad story of the fate of Sarah Marshall – remember her? – has made
the front page.
In at fifteen, it’s a “SAD DAY AT THE MORGUE” as there’s the
sad interlude of the sad parents having to make a sad visit to the sad mortuary
to identify a sad little body of their sad little girl, and we hear the sad
tale of a sad teenage runaway. Kenneth Gilbert and Sally Sanders play the sad Nolans,
these sad parents of sad Sarah Marshall who was once, presumably, one of the sad
Nolans.
But then we return to sixteen “EDDIE GOES TO WORK (Part
Two)” as, in a bizarre edit, having gone out earlier, Eddie is now back in the
kitchen, with the radio on, shaving over the sink, and quirkily choosing to
wear his pyjama jacket as a shirt whilst discussing Erica’s imminent appearance
on Radio West, which establishes a connection which might prove jolly handy in
driving the plot along, and bringing disparate worlds together later, alright?
Back at fifteen, “SAD DAY AT THE MORGUE” (Side Two) - the
inquest into the death of Sarah Marshall – whoever she was - opens, and is
adjourned, and we hear this on the radio news bulletin as Sonia is wrangling her
typewriter in the lobby of Radio West and, because Sonia is brilliant, a trait
which goes criminally unnoticed throughout, that name seems awfully familiar to
her from a certain late night encounter in that very reception not so very long
ago.
At thirteen, it’s “EDDIE’S THE MAN” - Don Satchley is having
a post-interview coffee with Erica where he brings up the matter of ethics
surrounding his number one broadcaster (Lord help him), and she suggests
(TA-DAH!!!) that he might employ a Private Investigator to look into the
situation, and it looks as if our worlds are about to collide and our series is
made.
Eddie is lounging around on the knackered old boat which
apparently saved his sanity, but which is also rarely seen again. It’s supposed
to be his private space, but she barges in anyway with this offer of work, and
despite the fact that he claims to be busy, she points out that he’s lying down
which leads to a “lateral thinking” zinger, but he does end up meeting Don in a
bar built inside an old lightship, where they discuss a back story of four
marriages as Eddie Shoestring doodles caricatures on the back of beermats –
it’s his Art Therapy, don’t you know, and probably saved his sanity – and admits
that his name really is Shoestring and that he’s had to double his fees because
of it.
Oh the witty banter and wordplay is really flowing now,
isn’t it?
Anyway, he agrees to look into the background of the dead
girl for him. So that’s nice.
At twelve it’s “OILY PINSTRIPES” - Two dodgy businessman
types in ghastly suits and seedy offices (played by Sean Arnold as Mr Tony Hendry,
and Brian Miller as the nervous Mr Willis), discussing the story in the
newspaper, those dark secrets, and, to nobody’s real surprise, that the Bel
Aire Sauna is really a front for a Call Girl service.
At number eleven, it’s “DODGY GEEZERS” - in another bar,
which may or may not be more of a party boat, or the same bar redressed, Eddie
meets the jazz-loving dodgy geezer Len Tilley, played wearing a fedora and
overcoat by a not-yet-KINVIG Tony Haygarth, who used to employ Sarah Marshall
when she first moved to the city. He tries to be amiable as he explains his
investigations, but the conversation takes a dark turn as he does another of
his doodles and is threatened, but he does manage to fob off the proposition
made by two of Len’s girls by the deft repositioning of a handbag.
Eddie then meets one of the sinister businessmen in the
lobby of a classy but seedy hotel. and we get to hear the back story of how
Eddie used to be an executive zombie, and his subsequent breakdown, smashing up
a computer, being carted off to a lunatic asylum, his analysis, and how drawing
helps to keep him sane. The businessman, Mr Willis, then counters all of this
backstory by trying to bribe Eddie, which doesn’t work.
In with a bullet at ten, “INVESTIGATIONS” - Eddie then
breaks in to Sarah Marshall’s apartment, and mooshes through a photo album
which includes several other familiar faces including Len Tilley, and, in
another poignant scene, he is interrupted by her mother, who has come to sort
out Sarah’s things and Eddie has to pretend to be a policeman to explain why
he’s there.
Eddie then meets up with Laurie the taxi driver who drove her home “once or twice” and has no axe to grind, seeing her profession as just
one of the ways of the world, no questions asked. Anyway, for a tenner, and a
swift portrait for the wife (“It looks nothing like her!” Ho-ho!) Eddie is
finally pointed in the direction of…
Straight in at number nine, it’s “THE BEL AIRE SAUNA” - Where
the dodgy businessmen are nonplussed to discover that this thorn in their sides
has just booked in and is asking questions. And so, whilst rather lovely and helpful
Barry (Richard Domfe) arranges to meet with some information in fifteen
minutes, bad things then naturally happen to Barry as he is overheard by Len in
his two-tone shoes and also by his burly henchman, and Barry, the one-hit
wonder - is never seen again.
At eight, “ONLY EDDIE COULD GO TO THE CHINESE” – Eddie heads
out to buy a Chinese meal, and is intercepted as he waits for his Sweet &
Sour by the sweetly sour Len and his henchman, and whilst nothing at all
happens in the Chinese Takeaway apart from some sinister threats, Eddie ends up
being driven, bag of takeaway still in hand, in a car, late at night, to a
meeting in an abandoned, much-vandalised railway carriage.
There he meets up with the sinister Mr Tony Hendry, who
explains that “This city is owned by businessmen and run by businessmen” in a
tedious interlude which somehow proves that nothing really ever changes. To
stave off the boredom, Eddie draws Hendry’s face in the muck on the windows,
and makes some remarks about big fleas and little fleas, as he is being told in
no uncertain terms to back off.
Naturally, he is beaten up – but not killed – by Len’s
Bouncer mate, and the next we see of Eddie is him arriving home, looking
slightly the worse for wear, but still bearing his now very cold takeaway which
needs reheating, and hoping that Erica can bend her ethics enough to give him
the address for the car number plate he’s noticed and memorised.
At seven, it’s “THE FILTHY POTTER” in which Eddie meets an
everso flirty young pottery student who seems to be rather enjoying her other
life as a call girl.
At six, it’s “AT HOME WITH DAVID CARN” - Eddie visits David
Carn in the garden of his house, and we know that winter is coming as he turns
up his jacket collar as David tells him all about his relationship with Sarah
Marshall, and how she knew where he kept the spare key to his Rolls Royce.
At five, “IN AT THE DEEP END” - Eddie meets Mr Tony Hendry
at the swimming pool of the private sports club all of this is happening from,
and he threatens him with Sarah’s “Little Black Book” that he retrieved from
her flat, and, with a rather subdued prototype of the “Angry Trevor” acting we
would see later in several episodes of WAKING THE DEAD, he chucks him into the
pool, noticing a list of companies on the wall as he departs.
At four, “IT’S SNOWING IN LONDON” - as Eddie finally meets
Sarah Marshall’s father, who, it turns out, in one of those tragic twists of
fate that can only happen in these sorts of drama, was the urgent appointment
that Sarah Marshall was sent out to service on that fateful night. It all gets
rather poignant in a way as we learn about their history and his remorse over
the whole terrible incident.
At three, it’s “PRIVATE EAR” as Eddie sketches his own
silhouette around the Radio West 324 logo and announces to a frazzled Don
Satchley that David is indeed in the clear, and he’s not going to tell him why
he knows this, even though Don’s still planning on packing David off on holiday,
never to be seen again. Meanwhile none of the Radio West executives have
managed to come up with any decent ideas for programmes to fill in for him.
Sonia, of course, connects the dots, looks at the modified logo, and suggests a
new programme idea of her own… Which means…
Bubbling under the top spot, at number two, it’s “THAT PROGRAMME IDEA IN FULL” as David Carn hands over to “Unnamed Presenter Played
By Stuart Bevan” who basically reads out the programme pitch - or Radio Times
listing - for the entire series with Eddie Shoestring about to join Radio West as
their very own Private Eye, so, if you’ve got a problem, just call 27232 right
now…
The main problem for me in this particular introductory episode
is that it seems to try rather too hard to be self-consciously quirky, several
of these quirks seem to be set up precisely to make Eddie seem far more interesting
than he actually is, and many of which seem to get forgotten about as the
series progresses, unless one of the writers happens to pick that particular
trait as a hook to hang a story on.
And, boy! Does Eddie Shoestring have some quirks…!
There’s the rumpled suits, and the ratty ties; the pyjama
jackets worn as shirts; that rather lovely but knackered red car; the fact he
had a breakdown after working as a computer programmer; the fact that he’s a
part-time cartoonist; the fact that he owns – and sometimes sleeps upon – a
boat; oh, and if that wasn’t enough, he also sometimes wrangles a yo-yo.
You see…?
QUIRKY!
Do you get it?
QUIRKY!!!
And writ large his quirkiness is, too.
That, and the on-again, off-again relationship he has with
his landlady Erica adds to the general air of quirkiness, too, as he doesn’t
have the sort of proper home life that the rest of us do, but one of those “TV
Detective” home lives that’s quirkily abnormal enough to make him interesting
and lovable and makes enough of the viewing demographic want to take care of
him.
The theme tune, starting with that RADIO WEST fanfare, before
segueing into something far more jazzy and moody is nice enough, and has that
film noir mean streets sleaze vibe to it which seems to be the kind of feel the
series seems to be aiming for from time-to-time, with Eddie channeling the kind
of down-at-heel gumshoe popularised by Raymond Chandler and his pals back in
the day…
Although similar “pastiche-noir” ground had been trodden by
Nicholas Ball as HAZELL the year before, so there’s nothing too innovative
about that really, other than it’s been given a bit of a BBC polish and pushed
out as something new and quirky and innovative.
An astonishing array of guest stars turn up in this, too,
alongside that rather impressive – if much underused - main cast, including the
likes of Harry H Corbett, Shirley Anne Field, Christopher Biggins, Philip Bond,
Diana Dors, Michael Craig, Toyah Willcox, Burt Kwouk, Roy North, Lynda
Bellingham, Gorden Kaye, Sylvia Coleridge, and a whole load of people who would
end up as EastEnders one day.
Some of the supporting cast of sidekicks really are terribly
under-used, though, which is something of a shame, but, perhaps if they were
planning to make further series, those characters had more interesting
storylines lined up for them which were not to be.
So, here I find myself pondering upon SHOESTRING, broadcast
on the BBC over those two series in 1979 and 1980, and I do have to remind myself
that it was very popular indeed. So much so, in fact, that when its star Trevor
Eve refused to make any more and go off and pursue his stage career instead,
the BBC had to sit down with its producers and come up with something similar
but different, and because, as I mentioned earlier, that “something” turned out
to be the phenomenally successful BERGERAC, it all turned out rather well in
the end really, given that Jim Bergerac did have his own set of quirks, but
fewer of them, so lessons had obviously been learned.
And, of course, “Shouting Trevor” would get back on the BBC
eventually with the long-running WAKING THE DEAD series - in which he got to
shout a heck of a lot – so all is ultimately forgiven in telly-land.
But SHOESTRING is something of a curate’s egg of a series;
good in parts, and sometimes very good indeed, and, even when it does fall
towards the risible, it’s still a terrifically “watchable” series, one which I
found myself devouring all twenty-one episodes of in slightly over a fortnight
earlier on in the year, so it can’t be all that bad, can it?
Martin A W Holmes,
August 2019
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