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Post by dem on Jun 9, 2008 12:03:35 GMT
Bernard Picton - The Expert (Sphere, 1976) A Casebook Of Death
Dr John Hardy's job as a forensic pathologist meant that he was called out at all hours of the day and night to help the police.
After a long holiday to try and escape from the sharp memories of his wife's tragic death, he was back to the strenuous routine of work.
This time, when the phone rang at midnight, it summoned him to a case of rape and murder. And the vicious killer was to strike again and again before Hardy's evidence could put him in front of a jury.
THE EXPERT is based on the BBC Television series devised by Gerard Glaister and N.J. Crisp and starring Marius Goring as Dr John Hardy. does anyone remember/ know anything about this series?
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jun 9, 2008 15:32:07 GMT
I think this was one of those Beeb One after the news at 9.25 pm things. Never saw the show but for some reason I recall seeing the early evening ads for it. Sure Marius Boring wore some round specs.
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Post by redbrain on Jun 9, 2008 18:04:14 GMT
One scary cover there!  |
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Post by weirdmonger on Jun 10, 2008 8:22:32 GMT
One scary cover there! Yes. He looks as if he might have two shadows. |
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Post by dem on Jun 10, 2008 8:55:16 GMT
I think this was one of those Beeb One after the news at 9.25 pm things. Never saw the show but for some reason I recall seeing the early evening ads for it. Sure Marius Boring wore some round specs. Apparently, there were three series' in all, beginning in 1968 and finishing in 1976, and The Expert was the first color programme to appear on BBC2. From Marius Goring's Obituary at BBC News: Goring (1912-1998) played many major roles with the leading stage companies of the 1930s and 40s but despite his reputation as a "brilliant" Shakespearean, he soon became known for playing villains.
Nazis, mass murderers and what Goring himself described as "generally bonkers chaps" featured prominently on his CV.
He even claimed to have played every rank that exists in the German Army, "from private to field-marshal".
Ironically during World War II he was on the real Nazi hit list because of his propaganda broadcasts to Germany which were set up by the Foreign Office as an antidote to German broadcasts by Lord Haw-Haw.
In the 1960s and 70s, he was best known as the star of the BBC series The Expert in which he played forensic scientist Dr John Hardy.
Goring researched the role by watching post mortems at a London teaching hospital, an experience he did not relish.
He said: "I went green but the professor was very understanding. He just pointed to the washbasin and told me that everyone, even him, had been through the sick and fainting stage." Full article: Actor Marius Goring dies at 86 |
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Post by pulphack on Jun 10, 2008 17:17:03 GMT
god, i remember that show - never knew it was called that, though. weird how it's always been in my head but i couldn't have told you what it was called even if you'd tied me down and used hot knives to...
anyway, it may have been before the news, in the 8.10 slot at some point, as i was only about 8 when it started, and i remember watching it with my mum before i went to bed (and she wondered why i turned out as i did). i think that, Doomwatch, and Special Branch (which kind of form a line from genre to genre, with old Marius in the middle) shaped my tastes forever.
well, that and jason king, obviously...
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Post by pulphack on Jun 10, 2008 17:23:46 GMT
bugger, forgot the main reason i was posting! yes, i remember the programme pretty well. it was very downbeat and dour, with a lot of emphasis on the angst that our hero was suffering as a widower (now, i may have been a bit young to fully appreciate it, but as my mum had only been a widow for a few years it resonated with me in a way i couldn't have explained then). it was very 'softly-softly' (the programme) in the sense that there was some exteriors, but an awful lot of interior sets - offices, labs etc - that made it feel claustrophobic next to the things i usually watched. 'juliet bravo' springs to mind, as well - provincial, enclosed, almost stifling, with flat lighting. very beeb drama for the seventies.
only realsied now, writing this, how much of a presence it had in my memory. knocks crappy Silent Witness into a cocked hat - will anyone without the box sets remember that in thirty five years time?
if the adaptor has done a decent job, it should be absorbing - Crisp and Glaister were very big BBC drama names, and for a good reason.
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Post by dem on Jun 11, 2008 18:51:38 GMT
if the adaptor has done a decent job, it should be absorbing - Crisp and Glaister were very big BBC drama names, and for a good reason. I'll bear that in mind, pulps, and thanks for the info, although it's still a good way down the terrifying 'to read' pile. |
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jun 13, 2008 21:25:43 GMT
 More Sphere/Beeb 1970s melodrama. A nasty crime thriller set in Birmingham. Series two took a different view. |
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