Softly Softly Task Force: Series 1 [DVD]

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Following on from the 1966 show Softly Softly (which itself was a spin-off from the classic Z Cars), Softly Softly : Task Force starred Stratford Johns as Barlow – the head of Thamesford Constabulary CID and the supervising officer of their Task Force group. In 1976 he had appeared in the inaugural season of Theatr Clwyd, in Mold, north Wales, one of his favourite venues. For the last 20 years of his life, he lived in Chester. This left the way clear for Watt to come out of Barlow’s shadow and take command in his own right, with the reliable assistance of Hawkins. Barlow was widowed in 1972 and left Thamesford when he was headhunted by the Home Office – which became another spin-off series, Barlow at Large. Many of the original Softly, Softly broadcasts are believed lost, especially from the first two series, the majority of which were transmitted live. As a result, 84 episodes are currently missing from the archives. (By comparison, all episodes of the follow-up Taskforce survive.)

Find sources: "Softly, Softly: Task Force"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( February 2007) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Bearded in later years, he was a loyal and enthusiastic regular at the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon and the Barbican, particularly for Trevor Nunn. For Nunn and John Caird, he was Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor at Stratford in 1979, which transferred to the Aldwych the following year, with Ben Kingsley and Timothy Spall. He was assisted by Inspector Watt (Frank Windsor) and Detective Sergeant Hawkins (Norman Bowler) under the guidance of Chief Constable Cullen (Walter Gotell).

Barlow had moved from Liverpool (the location of Z Cars) to the South-West Midlands and earned a promotion to Detective Chief Superintendent, while Watt had become a Detective Chief Inspector.The revamped series began in November 1969, the week BBC1 went into colour. One 1970 episode showed Evans being carpeted by the chief constable (Walter Gotell, usually cast as a villain), and the following year, he and Watt (Windsor) clashed when both had "projects" on a "heavy night". Softly, Softly is a British television police procedural series produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It was created as a spin-off from the series Z-Cars, which ended its fifth series run in December 1965. The series took its title from the proverb "Softly, softly, catchee monkey", the motto of Lancashire Constabulary Training School. [1] Series outline [ edit ] Stratford Johns left the Taskforce series in 1972 (Barlow had his own spin-off series Barlow at Large) and it continued until 1976 with Watt in command. Segments from Rigby's abbreviated autobiography, begun shortly before his death, are included in the book by his long-time friend, the television and radio dramatist Juliet Ace, Rigby Shlept Here: A Memoir of Terence Rigby 1937–2008. Along with correspondence and interviews with his friends and theatrical colleagues, Ace's memoir draws on her own diaries and shows much of the working actor and private man who remained a mystery to those close to him. It was published in November, 2014.