Dick Emery can be an odd mixture for some people at times. His film appearances for me work surprisingly well, from his lead films like Ooh...You Are Awful (1972) to his co-starring in The Big Job (1965), not least because he proved to be a rather underrated actor who could also do comedy. His TV series he did in the 1970's however proved less palatable for me, due to the fact that so many of his characters in that show were either conniving or spiteful, such as Lampwick, College the Tramp, or the female neighbours/friends where Emery's character was particularly vile to Pat Coombs. So when I came across this rare TV series, I wondered which category of Emery's comedy this would fall into. Thankfully it falls into the former segment - indeed, I'd go so far to say this is one of the best things that Dick Emery ever did in his career.
This 6 part mystery series concerns two struggling private detectives, Bernie Weinstock and his assistant Robin Bright (Barry Evans), who earns more money doing a part time milk round than what the sleuthing duo make in solving crime. Their latest case is trying to find a client's missing cat, which they have still failed to do (it's fate shows Emery's rather cruel side in comedy at times), while they face the arrival of a debt collector called Marley, (the wonderful Michael Robbins from On the Buses) who gives them 28 days to pay up before he'll send his boys round. He admits he's only giving them that long as Bernie's excuses for missing payments is "the best load of codswallop I've heard all year." Luckily for the duo they receive a call from a solicitor called Roland Tolhurst (Richard Vernon), who is acting on the behalf of Lord Algrave (Emery again, in a number of roles he plays in this). Not revealing who he is working for, he tells the duo that they are to try and trace the whereabouts of six people on a list and give them a sealed envelope. They are also to ask each person two questions "Who was the timekeeper?" and "How long before the Indian Princess arrived?" to prove who they are, with £5,000 given for each person successfully brought back - but only if they are brought back alive. Needless to say, it all goes belly up for the detective duo, and there seems to be a number of people interested in the peculiar hunt for six random strangers, such as Lord Algrave's estranged sister Monica Danvers-Crichton (guess who?) and her two sons. Then there is the shady Soho gangster Joe Galliano (yep, Emery again), who runs a strip club and who receives a mysterious tape delivered to him. Intriguingly he is also one of the people mentioned on the list, but avoids the duo's inquiries and instead follows them as they try and track down the other people on the list.
There is great fun in the detective duo trying to track down the names on the list, not least because you know some awful fate is going to befall those people. And there are a variety of inventive ways in which the various victims die, with the highlight being the way in which the vicar meets his maker (and you can guess who's playing him, can't you?). In every case there seems to be a sinister limping figure behind it all, giving leave for you to wonder whether they are a hired assassin, one of the suspects either known to the duo or one of the people on the list - or possibly someone as yet unknown to the duo. I have to say I didn't guess the culprit by the end of it, but unlike some shows it does play fair with the audience. It also takes the duo all over the place, from the gritty streets of London to the countryside of Somerset, to across the world from France, Tunisia, America and even Haiti, where Bernie and Robin encounter the sinister world of voodoo (leading to yet another inventive death along the way). Indeed, this mystery series takes great pleasure in throwing it's characters through all sorts of settings and any number of scenarios, and the various sets and destinations impress greatly.
What impresses me most with this is the fact that it maintains being a proper whodunnit to puzzle and bamboozle the viewers. There is a good logical reason behind the hunt for the people on the list and the reasons for their demise, and the solution holds up pretty well for what is also a comedy as well as a mystery thriller. And that is another of the glowing attributes of Emery's talents, in that all of the various characters he plays do not overwhelm the mystery with their comic potential. Rather he makes them fit with the story, with the likes of Monica Danvers-Crichton, Joe Galliano and a cheery milkman they encounter on the road to Somerset all feeling like a individual character rather than Emery playing the role. Even the toothsome vicar he plays, the Reverend Arthur Wildblood, does not send the mystery into spoof territory, and it is remarkable that Emery is able to play all these characters without ever really seeming to be him. That is some talent.
He is not the only talent on display here. Barry Evans is wonderfully endearing as Emery's detective sidekick Robin Bright, still fresh faced and full of the cheeky charm that made him so popular in the 1970's. How his career tailed off after this I don't know, but he is as much a star of this as Emery, who selflessly gives him as much screen time and a character that is if anything more clever than Emery's Bernie Weinstock. Also superb is Richard Vernon (The Man from Room 17 himself) as the droll, deadpan solicitor Roland Tolhurst and Patsy Rowlands as Robin's amorous landlady Thelma. Indeed, there are a host of familiar faces from that period in British acting among the cast, from Irene Handl, Barbara Murray, Patrick Allen, Roy Kinnear, Michael Robbins, Barbara Hicks and Norman Bird to name a few. It even has a few black characters in it to please modern audiences, including Lord Algrave's butler O'Toole, played by Thomas Baptiste, whose character is sharper than many of the characters realize, and Frank Siguineau as Jean Montpellier, one of the people on the list that leads Bernie and Robin travelling to Haiti. Finally a note for Lee Whitlock - best remembered as Harvey Moon's son - here playing Wayne, a schoolboy who lives next door to the detective duo who takes great delight in taunting or insulting them. At one point he even taunts one of Joe Galliano's heavies (played by Minder's Glynn Edwards), leading to Edwards' character saying admiringly "You're a kid after my own heart, you are. Look me up in a few years time and I might have a job for you." It's no wonder he went on to success in Shine On Harvey Moon (among other things) and so sad to hear of his death a few months back at just 54, so vibrant is he in this.
The only thing that does grate slightly is the laughter track that works far better in sitcom and which has surprisingly been included here. It is only a minor quibble in a TV comedy mystery thriller that starts decently enough and just gets better and better as it goes along. The familiar cast do their upmost to make it work, giving good and amusing performances, while it goes along at a rattling good pace that never slackens in it's thrilling "race against time" element it tags itself in. It is a thoroughly absorbing murder mystery, with a killer that proves harder to spot than I imagined, backed by an atmospheric and enjoyable theme tune. It also makes you wonder just what Emery could of achieved with this new line in comic mysteries, but sadly only one more series was ever made before Emery's untimely death from a heart attack in January 1983. Even sadder is the fact that this mystery series has not been repeated on terrestrial TV since then. This is easily one of the best things he has ever done.
