Softly Softly Task Force: Series 1 [DVD]

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For Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance Theatre Company, formed in 1987, he undertook a European tour that included performing Hamlet in Elsinore, plus As You Like It and Much Ado About Nothing. He also played the Governor of Harfleur in Branagh's 1989 film of Henry V. In 1970, Softly, Softly: Task Force followed with Barlow made head of Thamesford Constabulary CID and supervising officer of the Constabulary’s Task Force. He was assisted by Watt and Hawkins again, under Chief Constable Cullen (William Gotell). Also featured were Garfield Morgan as Detective Chief Inspector Lewis, Norman Bowler as Detective Sergeant Hawkins and Alexis Kanner as Detective Constable Stone. They were later joined by Frank Windsor as John Watt. Although generally assumed to be Welsh, he was born in London and educated at Ealing County grammar school. However, both his parents were Welsh. Drawn to the theatre from an early age, he nevertheless took the precaution of training as an osteopath, a profession he also practised in recent years.

Stratford Johns left the Taskforce series in 1972 (Barlow had his own spin-off series Barlow at Large) and it continued until 1976 with Watt in command.

The work of the Regional Crime Squad was the subject of this spin-off from Z Cars featuring Stratford Johns as Charlie Barlow. They were joined in time by Norman Bowler as West Country pin-up Inspector Harry Hawkins, and by Terence Rigby as dour dog-handler PC Snow – a man who seemed to think that smiling was liable to get him drummed out of the force. Softly, Softly is a British television police procedural series produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It was created as a spin-off from the series Z-Cars, which ended its fifth series run in December 1965. The series took its title from the proverb "Softly, softly, catchee monkey", the motto of Lancashire Constabulary Training School. [1] Series outline [ edit ] Softly, Softly: Task Force is a police procedural series which ran on BBC 1 from 1969 to 1976. It was a revamp of Softly, Softly, itself a spin-off from Z-Cars. The change was made partly to coincide with the coming of colour broadcasting to the BBC's main channel BBC1. The programme was due to be called simply Task Force, but reluctant to sacrifice a much-loved brand the BBC compromised this so it became Softly, Softly: Task Force. The revamped series began in November 1969, the week BBC1 went into colour. One 1970 episode showed Evans being carpeted by the chief constable (Walter Gotell, usually cast as a villain), and the following year, he and Watt (Windsor) clashed when both had "projects" on a "heavy night".

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. The series was set in the fictional south-eastern English borough of Kingley (played by Rochester and the Medway area of Kent). In 1970 the series title was changed to Softly, Softly: Task Force and Barlow was promoted once again, this time to Head of Thamesford Constabulary's CID Task Force. Watt accompanied him. But the following year Barlow went it alone when he was headhunted by the Home Office to take up a post in Whitehall with the Police Research Services Branch in the series Barlow at Large. Softly, Softly: Task Force plodded on without Barlow for another six years and although the scripts were of a superior quality there was always the feeling that 'that little extra something' was missing.

Barlow had moved from Liverpool (the location of Z Cars) to the South-West Midlands and earned a promotion to Detective Chief Superintendent, while Watt had become a Detective Chief Inspector. Understandably, he had a particular affection for Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, claiming to have played more of its roles than any other actor. In addition to stage revivals, he took part in an all-star recording produced by George Martin in 1988. Segments from Rigby's abbreviated autobiography, begun shortly before his death, are included in the book by his long-time friend, the television and radio dramatist Juliet Ace, Rigby Shlept Here: A Memoir of Terence Rigby 1937–2008. Along with correspondence and interviews with his friends and theatrical colleagues, Ace's memoir draws on her own diaries and shows much of the working actor and private man who remained a mystery to those close to him. It was published in November, 2014.

So successful was the partnership that in 1966 they were seconded to the Regional Crime Squad by the BBC for Softly, Softly a series that ran for ten years and became one of the best-realised spin-off series the BBC has ever had. After leaving Newtown, Barlow and Watt headed south to the fictional region of Wyvern (supposedly near Bristol) where they took up their new posts of Detective Chief Superintendent and Detective Chief Inspector respectively. Promotion did little to temper Barlow and he remained the tough, relentless and sharp-tongued copper that had such an impact on Z Cars that he became the national idea of a police chief. Softly, Softly-Task Force

Find sources: "Softly, Softly: Task Force"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( February 2007) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Bearded in later years, he was a loyal and enthusiastic regular at the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon and the Barbican, particularly for Trevor Nunn. For Nunn and John Caird, he was Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor at Stratford in 1979, which transferred to the Aldwych the following year, with Ben Kingsley and Timothy Spall.