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| BERGERAC
- "SINS OF THE FATHER" Friday 13/12/85, BBC1 reviewed by David Agnew |
August 2001
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10 miles wide, five miles from north to south. For over 10 years, the minuscule parameters of Britain's off shore island Jersey provided much scope for high drama and brought the BBC crime genre into the modern era. Worlds apart from the old hat studio-bound quality of such dinosaurs as Dixon of Dock Green and Z Cars, Bergerac, an 11th hour replacement for Shoestring and the British answer to Hawaii Five-O, was filmed entirely on location in the Channel Islands. Easy to dismiss for its alleged repetition of tax evasion storylines, the series deftly combined elements of detective drama and touristy travelogue to carve a niche for itself as a solid, redoubtable perennial for the BBC. The sight of the doggedly determined police sergeant Jim Bergerac negotiating Jersey's narrow roads in his red Triumph TR1 in time to George Fenton's memorable accordion theme tune remains one of the most enduring images of 1980s BBC telly. Bergerac undoubtedly owes much of its success to an effective employment of contrasts. Its sense of location adds a continental flair to the storylines and yet the Bureaux Des Estrangers' cases of murder, smuggling, robbery and assorted intrigue highlights an unpalatable underbelly to the palatial exteriors of St. Helier's millionaires row. Thanks to John Nettles' endearing characterisation Bergerac himself is a recovered alcoholic and a gruff, no nonsense police officer frequently at odds with his by-the-book partner (later superior) Barney Crozier and barely concealing his contempt for the unscrupulous skulduggery and decadent lifestyles of the Jersey rich. With a broken marriage to the sophisticated Deborah behind him, class conflict becomes a prominent theme of the series as Jim's ex-father-in-law, the shady but avuncular nouveau riche entrepreneur Charlie Hungerford seems to be inexplicably involved in every case Bergerac investigates. The episodes themselves offer a rich and enjoyable variance of styles - from the chilling murder mystery "Holiday Snaps" (guest-starring, in some sort of Boys from the Blackstuff convergence, Michael Angelis and Jean Boht) to the light-hearted romps involving the "Ice Maiden" (Liza Goddard excelling as the philanthropic jewel thief Philippa Vale). From the fantastical "What Dreams May Come?" (black magic on Jersey, with Charles Gray reprising his The Devil Rides Out role) to the almost surreal "A Man of Sorrows" (a tale of police corruption set on the gritty streets of a dehumanising London). For such a consistently well-produced programme, it is difficult to pick out one episode that showcases Bergerac's excellence. "Sins of the Fathers", written by Tessa Coleman and directed by Graeme Harper, was transmitted late into the programme's fourth season in 1985, its plot specifically tailored to the programme's format and location. Bergerac is assigned to protect a visiting German-born film star Henry Hoffman (Warren Clarke), "Hollywood's favourite Nazi", after death threats have been received when the making of a movie about the Nazi occupation of Jersey during World War II ignites residual tensions on the island. Hoffman's army officer father had been stationed on Jersey during the war and was executed for war crimes after being found guilty of raping a young woman, now the elderly Elizabeth Foulant (Ursula Howells) - his records are stolen from the archive at the Underground War Museum. After a number of "accidents" intended to dispose of Hoffman occur during filming, the actor is later presumed killed in a boat explosion. Who is responsible? Annette Grady (Francesca Brill), a freelance journalist pestering Hoffman on the set who is later revealed to be Elizabeth Foulant's granddaughter? Or does the explosion have no relevance to wartime grievances but is actually a ruse by Hoffman himself as he and his partner, ex-actress Joan Grant (Lynn Farleigh), hope to take advantage of the threats and cash in on the studio's considerable life insurance policy? The plot of "Sins of the Fathers" is indeed a twisting, turning thing that gains its brisk momentum through a number of key reversals. The opening scene features an island woman in 1940's fashions being chased by Nazi soldiers - an actress taking part in a scene for the film. For the Foulants, the war is a deeply traumatic memory conveyed by Elizabeth's distress at Bergerac's cloddish questioning. For Charlie Hungerford, who offers the grounds of his mansion to the crew for filming, Jersey's wartime history is perceived as a marketable commodity to be exploited for the island business community's own ends. Annette has spent years hating Hoffman's father for his crimes against her grandmother until Elizabeth finally reveals that they had in fact been lovers and Annette is Hoffman's granddaughter - sent to Guernsey by her family, she was unable to speak in his defence at his trial and prevent his execution. Cleverly linking the past to the present, "Sins of the Fathers" is by turns a whodunit, a history lesson, a love story and an opulently produced thriller. Once Bergerac has his man, a poignant scene as he and Annette visit Hoffman's grave concludes that the ghosts of the past should be finally laid to rest. A later episode, "The Sin of Forgiveness", a Boys From Brazil-style story featuring a Jewish Nazi hunter on the trail of a former Auschwitz officer now a businessman on the island, covered similar ground and benefited from thoughtful performances by John Bennett as the Wiesenthal-like figure and Susan Fleetwood as the officer's daughter. Yet with perfect awareness of both context and conceits, "Sins of the Fathers" sees Bergerac firing on all cylinders making it easily the best episode of the series. Sadly, during the late 1980s, the BBC concluded that the way forward was downmarket and began to garner massive ratings with the cheap and the formulaic - anodyne chat shows, cheesy quizzes and neutered soaps. Funnily enough, this was exactly the time when Bergerac started to go off the boil, becoming bogged down in dealing with Jim's extramural activities (Louise Jameson, having previously played dynamic female roles in Doctor Who and Tenko, valiantly served as woefully under-utilised love interest estate agent Susan Young) before finally degenerating into a French farce. Nevertheless, like much of the drama produced during the supposed "golden age" of television that was the 1970s and 1980s - Survivors, Secret Army, Poldark, Tenko - Bergerac was built to last. To watch the programme now (thanks to repeat runs on both BBC1 and UK Gold) is to appreciate what a great and important series it was, and to deplore the depths of mechanical mindlessness to which most BBC primetime drama has now sunk. Now if only Jimbo hadn't buggered off to Provence during the 1990 series ... |
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