There is no two ways about this, I adore Strange Report. I've watched this series a few times, and I'm trying to work out what I like so much about this show. It certainly isn't a childhood memory because I only discovered the series when it was shown on ITV4 about 7-8 years ago.
What I love about the show is not only the setting, 'Swinging Sixties' London (my favourite period of history), but also the brilliant chemistry between the three stars, as well as the way the series often didn't shy away from some of the topical issues of the day, not to mention the great theme tune (like so many other memorable ITC shows). You can listen to it here: Strange Report Opening Theme (The title sequence gives you all the information about the show that you might want to know!)
The show stars Anthony Quayle as Adam Strange, a retired Home Office criminologist with friends in high places, Kaz Garas as an American postdoctoral science researcher Hamlyn (Ham) Gynt, who works at the British Museum, and Anneke Wills as Evelyn McClean, model, artist, secretary, cook, kooky girl-about-town, etc. Strange is often asked to take on cases from his ex-colleagues at the Home Office, and with the help of Ham and Evelyn, Strange travels around London in a black taxi-cab getting involved in student demonstrations, dodgy surgeons, epidemics, and fraud.
Quayle is probably best known for playing the German spy in Ice Cold in Alex (1958), and the unfortunate Major Roy Franklin in The Guns of Navarone (1961). Quayle was a big star in the '60s and seeing him appear in an adventure series likes this adds something special to the show. Quayle is such an understated actor, and I love his performance here. He carries a remarkable air of authority, you just know that when he asks you to do something you feel as if you couldn't refuse - a kindly, no-nonsense patriarchal figure - his bemused take on Evelyn's new abstract painting of their landlord's cat in this episode is priceless.
I don't know much about the early career of Kaz Garas, but I do know he is still acting. I last saw him in an execrable 1996 TV remake of Roger Corman's Humanoids from the Deep. After his role in Strange Report, Garas' IMDB entry reads like a roll call of my favourite American TV shows from the 1970s, including parts in The Virginian, The Mod Squad, High Chapparal, The F.B.I., Marcus Welby M.D. (man I loved that show), The Snoop Sisters, Barnaby Jones. etc. Garas as Ham is a mixture of action-man and scientist, and Strange often calls on him to carry out different types of forensic research. For example, in this episode Ham has to find out whether the blood type of a racist politician suspected of murdering a priest matches the blood found at the scene of the crime (spoiler alert: it doesn't, it's all part of a dastardly plot)
Finally Anneke Wills, Doctor Who fans will know Anneke as Polly one of William Hartnell's Tardis companions. I really am too young to remember her in that (I come in during the Troughton\Pertwee era). After Strange Report Wills retired to run a craft shop in Norfolk, but I know she continues to give newspaper and television interviews about her acting career. Evelyn is Strange's next door neighbour, and she is often used by Strange as a "go-to" girl. For example, if Strange needs information on an organisation he will go to Evelyn and ask her to find out anything she can. In other episodes she is often asked to infiltrate offices under suspicion by Strange - but I'll get to that in later blogs.
I selected "Racist" as the first Strange Report episode for this blog because it was made after Tory MP Enoch Powell's notorious "Rivers of Blood" speech, in which he warned the British public about the dangers of immigration into the UK. His speech was so controversial, Edward Heath the leader of the Conservative Party at the time asked him to resign from the cabinet. "Racist" features the MP Glyn Crowley (played by Guy Doleman who turned up as the first No. 2 in last week's blog The Prisoner). Crowley, and his associates in the Pure British League (the National Front were unfortunately lurking in the background of UK politics at this time), is arguing for the repatriation of black migrants. Strange is called in by a contact at the Home Office after Crowley (Strange refers to him as "bigot-on-Thames") is accused of murder.
There are several things I really like about this episode. I like the small amounts of cultural references, something that is not often associated with adventure series like this. For example, Strange convinces Ham to help him by referring to the Notting Hill riots of the late 1950s, "We've had riots before Ham. Never again!" I also like the point where Rick, a West Indian who had earlier been the target of thugs from the Pure British League, points out to a crowd of protestors that their problem is not black people but, "Problem with jobs! Problem with representation! Problem with housing!" This episode is a reminder that no matter how much some things change, unfortunately there are things that stay very much the same.
One last word. This episode also features one of my favourite actors from the 1960s - Jane Merrow as Crowley's pro-immigration daughter. She pops up in loads of ITC shows during this period, but her most memorable appearance, as far as I'm concerned, is her role as the sultry, pouting, outrageously flirtatious secretary Angela Roberts in the fantastic Night of the Big Heat (1967) directed by Hammer Studios Terence Fisher.
Next Week: An episode from Man in the Suitcase.
