VISION ON SOUND EPISODE FORTY-TWO - TX JULY 25 2021 - CALLAN

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on July 25th 2021

Episode forty-two of VISION ON SOUND finds WARREN CUMMINGS returning to have an extended natter about one of his television favourites, CALLAN.

Way back in episode twenty-one of VISION ON SOUND, Warren and I had a long natter about the good, the bad, and the ugly of POLICE SERIES on TV, and it seemed natural to follow that up with a programme devoted exclusively to one of his favourites, which we eventually did in our thirty-sixth edition based upon THE SWEENEY. Similarly, in episode twenty-nine, we had one of our chats about SPY AND ESPIONAGE series on television, and so it seemed only natural to pluck one of Warren's favourite espionage shows down from the shelf, and we chose one of the greatest, the series CALLAN starring Edward Woodward.

Our conversation covers the entire run four series run of the show from its roots in the black & white ABC television era of the ARMCHAIR THEATRE series in A MAGNUM FOR SCHNEIDER right through the 1970s THAMES TELEVISION colour series, to the one-off resurrection in WET JOB a decade after the series finished, and briefly touches upon the feature film version. Along the way we discuss several aspects of the series including the many faces of Hunter, the several faces of Toby Meres, the real life of James Mitchell, the various themes that surface in the series, the sweaty horrors of making of studio-based thrillers, its parallels with other spy dramas, and even the general rattiness of official cardigans.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.