Review for Storyboard - The Complete Series

Another curio from Network. This time a series of television ‘plays’ which provided a filtering mechanism for piloting a variety of possible series. Indeed, this particular run contained the pilots for what would become ‘The Bill’, ‘King & Castle’ and ‘Lytton’s Diary’. Though these are among the stronger offerings there are some close runners too alongside the less impressive.

Filmed on video and airing in the mid-eighties they positively exude the era with the exception perhaps of a couple of period pieces. (Listen to that mega-mix from the LWT ident into the ‘Storyboard’ typewriter theme for all the evidence you need that this heralds from the eighties).

Each episode filled an hour slot (running time 50 minutes) and each featured the efforts of different writers.

Here’s what you get across the four discs:

Disc 1

Inspector Ghote Moves In kicks off the series and, in my view, is amongst the worst of the offerings. (If you get the set, persevere – it gets so much better!). CID officer Ghote (Sam Dastor, I, Claudius) arrives from Bombay to learn something from Scotland Yard and is to stay with an elderly couple (Irene Worth and Public Eye’s Alfred Burke). Only they seem a bit surprised when he arrives. The old man is turning senile (a surprisingly hammy and overly theatrical turn from Burke sadly) and his slightly simple wife and Indian maid are planning an insurance scam to keep the finances coming in as they care for him. Ghote soon ses the lay of the land and must make choices about the morality of what is happening and his duty as a policeman. It’s a dull play that seems to have nothing further to offer than this very slight one off, so unsurprising that it went no further. A disappointing start to an otherwise strong set. 



Judgement Day ups the ante somewhat in a classic tale of ‘Thatcher’s Britain’ where it’s no longer enough to plod along as you always had with a new, ruthless ambition permeating even the civil service. Leslie Schofield (who used to be a neighbour of mine and a thoroughly decent sort) turns in a predictably good performance to help set the scene – a young Solicitor is set to be promoted over an old school solicitor who is not beyond bending the rules to help a youngster out of a tight spot. Interestingly it’s easy to sympathise with both sides and, had this been made into a series, you could easily see how this could have shaped up to become a public sector ‘The Power Game’ for the eighties. 


Secrets: Miles Longstreet is an intriguing tale of a security vetting womaniser who investigates a female economist who is line for a specialist job in Cheltenham. What he discovers is intensely personal and before long he becomes utterly bewitched leading to inevitable disappointment and lack of professional judgement. Again a play that has just the right amount of mystery and intrigue and soap-like drama to really sustain a series should one have arisen. And a real reflection of eighties London too for those interested in the time-travel qualities of the set.


Woodentop – At its simplest, the pilot episode for ‘The Bill’. PC Carver (Mark Wingett), a new cop on the beat, is as keen as mustard on his first day in the role though he learns fast that military discipline and instant judgement are not great qualities for a cop so wet behind the ears. All great fun and understandably a good kick-start for a new style police show with cinema-verite style filming and sub-plot strands aplenty. Fans of The Bill may well think this episode worth the price of entry alone. 

Disc 2

The Traitor is more akin to sixties cold-war influenced programmes like The Prisoner and The Avengers than something from eighties Britain (though nostalgia lovers will enjoy the opening scenes at London’s Waterloo station which show people smoking as they brose the magazines in WH Smith). Mr. Palfrey, a senior SIS investigator is interviewing a field agent who has been on a straight-forward surveillance operation. Hi subject, a scientist from Aldermaston appears to visit the same park bench in London once a month for no particular reason which is highly suspicious. However, we soon realise that this is a red herring – the real conversation here is about someone who is leaking information. Is the interrogator or the interrogated guilty, and who can anyone trust?


Lytton’s Diary is one of the highlights of the set and features the inimitable Peter Bowles in the title role as an incorrigible gossip columnist for a national tabloid. After he has been set up to publish a story that is false, leaving his reputation in tatters, het sets out to wreak revenge. The whole thing reflects a world devoid of morals or conscience and Bowles is superb in the title role of what appears to be based on an idea of his own. And all in a deliciously internet-free age too. This episode spawned a short-lived series of the same name. 


Singles Night is housed on disc two as an ‘extra’ as it was filmed for the series but not aired as part of it but as a one-off in its own right, though I know not why. Apart from the opening theme it fits right in here. Penned by Eric Chappell ( Rising Damp) it’s a cruelly observed comedy about thirty-something singletons meeting at a singles club and which later became the series ‘Singles’. It’s curious that the club is filled with divorcees rather than ‘first-timers’, probably in stark contrast to speed-dating and match-making clubs today. It features a slightly predatory Robin Nedwell (Doctor in Charge) though it’s not long till we relaise that he has met his match. Great fun if a little dated, even for the mid-eighties.

Disc 3


King & Castle – the series that fell-out of this never appealed to me. After all, Nigel Planer was the hippy from ‘The Young Ones’ and I just couldn’t imagine him in any role, let alone a fairly serious one. But that was my loss if this play is anything to go by. It’s great fun and somehow manages to mix all the bravado of shows like ‘The Sweeney’ with the emerging sensitivity of the ‘new man’. 

King is a bit a lad. A bent copper who has come to the end of his run looking for a new way to make a bob (Derek Martin - EastEnders). He meets Castle (Nigel Planer) a clean-living martial arts teacher entirely by accident when he mistakes him for a heavy. But when it’s apparent that gentle man Planer can more than handle himself against even the toughest foes, and that he needs money to prove himself worthy of taking custody of his own little boy, they agree to work together in a new debt collecting venture. Though on paper it sounds unlikely, it works and provides a thoroughly entertaining 50 minutes.


Ladies in Charge is a slight drama based around a young lady who tries to help a young boy who is travelling on the same train as her but who seems reticent to go home. As she and two friends dig deeper they discover all kinds of issues and resolve to join forces to set up an agency to help those less fortunate than themselves. Starring Carol Royle, Julia Hills, Amanda Root and Rosemary Williams it was decidedly not my cup of tea, though tightly directed. Period drama just isn’t my thing.


Thank you Miss Jones is a fun story about a pool typist in an insurance firm who spots a supposedly missing woman shopping in Selfridges and sets about proving to her doubting employers that she is alive and well and enjoying the spoils of her husband’s insurance claim. There are twists and turns aplenty and, rather unsatisfyingly, despite being right, we see someone else get all the credit. It features a particularly impressive performance from Susie Blake (Coronation Street) in the title role. 

Disc 4


Making News is the eighties in a nutshell featuring a really top notch cast. A young Bill Nighy plays a small role alongside Paul Darrow (Blake’s 7) who plays a vain newsreader who, when all is said and done, is the consummate professional. Based around a fast moving TV News channel, it’s really more soap than serious drama with a new owner determined to create a more down-market, tabloid style show and a steely editor putting his job on the line to protest. Loads of fun and a shame it didn’t herald a series. 


Snakes and Ladders is perhaps the series best episode in my view. Playing out like ‘The Power Game’ it features a typical eighties property developer, a man who we know started out as a plumber but has become a brilliant, scheming business-man who is tough enough to do what it takes to win the deal. With the banks on his back and a striking work-force he battles through, large mobile phone in hand, to win the day. Brilliantly played by Peter Blake (Ralph in comedy ‘Dear John’) it’s a criminal shame that this didn’t spawn a series as I think it would have been TV gold. 


A Question of Commitment is another spy themed piece where no one can quite be trusted and, we learn, you can never really leave the service if you know too much. The eighties heralded the fag-end of our historic fascination with all things cold-war (9-11 changed all that amongst other things sadly) and this episode does feel slightly dated and irrelevant as a result.


Hunted Down ironically closes the set with a duffer (just as it opened) with a period piece which breaks the third-wall with some awful pieces straight to camera. It’s actually a play based on a little-known short story by Charles Dickens and, perhaps as a result of some hammy playing and a video-taped look, just seems to fall very short of what we have come to expect and enjoy in relation to such things.

Though a mixed bag, ‘Storyboard’ is great fun with a huge amount of drama to enjoy. The quality is as good as you could expect from a video-taped series and if you feel nostalgic about Britain in the eighties then it works as a veritable time machine to take you directly back.