Despite Mrs Scott's dire warnings that he's playing unnatural games with nature, Hugh's acquired a pair of chest expanders to improve his physique, and behind the opening credits we see him working out while Terry, not especially bothered about his physique, enjoys a fag. Terry does his best to distract the would-be muscleman, even giving his biceps a good feel. Hugh lifts a chair in the air to show off his increased strength. "Are you gonna do that often?" asks an unimpressed Terry.
Thanks to the arrival of sexy next door neighbour Norma we never find out where this might be going. She needs help mending a fuse and, each of the chaps desperate to impress her, they both head next door to assist. Terry's undignified scramble on to the kitchen worksurface and subsequent dizzy spell are less than impressive, as is the fall which causes him to put his foot right through the kitchen sink.
Norma's mother Mrs Crispin is understandably distraught at this orgy of destruction ("You charming great 'nana!" is her husband's oath of choice), and Terry agrees to pay for a replacement sink. In a strange foreshadowing of the actress's most famous role, Mollie Sugden's Mrs Crispin insists that local plumbers Slocombe's are employed to plumb it in. Terry scoffs at the extravagant prices and substandard service of Slocombe's and insists he and Hugh can plumb it in themselves. Strangely, the Crispins seem less than convinced.
The hapless pair acquire a sink unit, but it proves to be a lot heavier than expected, and plays merry havoc with poor Terry's back, meaning Hugh has to give him an impromptu back rub. It's startlingly erotic stuff.
Unfortunately, once this bit of fun's over, Hugh and Terry find the sink's vanished. In actual fact it's on its way to Leeds in a removal van, the shifters having taken it away by accident. Our heroes head for the police station, where they encounter a befuddled, episode-stealing Deryck Guyler behind the desk (in a premonition of the role he'd make his own in Sykes.)
The desk sergeant starts off unsurprisingly sceptical of Hugh and Terry's tale of the vanishing sink, but eventually becomes scrupulously diligent in recording the details of the missing unit, almost to the point of mania: "There could be half a dozen sinks going up the Great North Road - we don't want to waste time stopping the wrong one, do we?"
The episode's surreal highlight comes when the three are all unable to think of the right name for a mixer tap. "Centre Union" is Hugh's suggestion, but the sergeant doesn't like it: "No, sounds too political." "Swan's neck?" offers Terry, to slightly more approval: "Oh, that's nice, Sir. Yes, very nice. It's a bit poetic though, don't you think?"
It's all getting too much for an increasingly exasperated Terry: "Tell me," he despairs, "Have you got another branch near?"
By some miraculous means we're not privy to, they eventually get the sink back, dragging it to the Crispin household late in the evening. Plumbing it in's not going to be an easy matter: not least because the Crispins' enormous "washing-up machine" is blocking its way into the kitchen. "What do you need a sink for if you've got a washing-up machine?" cries Terry. "You don't think I'm putting dirty dishes in my washing-up machine!" is Mrs Crispin's eminently sensible response. I'll only ever refer to dishwashers as washing-up machines from now on.
"If your kitchen wasn't full of status symbols we could get somewhere!" harrumphs Terry. The seemingly dim Norma proves herself the most sensible of the lot by being the only person to realise the sink unit can be taken to bits. Things continue to go less than smoothly though, with Hugh sending the electrics haywire.
With no electricity in their home the Crispins are forced to dine with the Scotts, which gives Mrs Crispin the perfect opportunity to bitch about Terry's mum's pastry. After dinner Hugh manages to burst the Scotts' water pipe, drenching Terry and a wrathful Mr Crispin in water...
A Sink of Iniquity is enormous fun, the cast and the frenetic slapstick all incredibly endearing. Sadly it's the last Hugh and I that I'll be writing about this year - though there are a couple of episodes for you to look forward to next year...
Hello. Today it's time to wave a tearful (that might just be me) farewell to a show that I've been writing about ever since TV Minus 50 first started.
The title A First Class Way to Die conjures up images of an imperial phase Avengers episode featuring killer postmen, possibly papercutting people to death with specially sharpened envelopes. That's not what we get here, but what we do is more than adequate. There's been no rhyme or reason to the scheduling of Ghost Squad episodes, but this one - from midway through the recording of the show's videotaped second series - is the perfect choice to end the show's run with. For one thing it's a cracking yarn from two of the show's top creative talents - writer John Lucarotti and director Peter Sasdy - and for another it's one of only two episodes to bring together both of Ghost Squad's leading men, Michael Quinn as Nick Craig and Neil Hallett as Tony Miller.
The episode opens aboard a cruise liner, as a courting couple (Mitzi Rogers and Keith Anderson) spot a man falling overboard. Or do they? Possibly because she's playing a character outside her usual chirpy Cockney register the usually fun Rogers gives an extremely irritating performance as the girl, with her interminable, blank cries of "Hurry hurry, oh hurry hurry" to the ship's crew.
It so happens that Nick Craig is aboard the ship, keeping an eye on foremost space mathematician (what is this, Fireball XL5?) Boris Nesterenko (Laurence Hardy), as he embarks on a Mediterranean cruise. It's far from the least pleasant job Craig's had - he gets to swank about dressed as James Bond and keep his other eye on the absurdly-named French film star Ella Gante (Pamela Conway).
Nesterenko currently works for Britain, but the security services are worried the ship is full of sinister men ready to spirit him away to the other side. And they're not wrong. Among these villains is gigolo Ettore Scaccia, played by Peter Halliday - last heard murdering a Welsh accent in Sergeant Cork. Here he metes out the same treatment to an Italian one. Along with menacing ship's steward Clavik (Jerry Stovin), Scaccia's in the pay of a mysterious mastermind called the Condor, and his mission is to romance the pistol-packing Anya, Nesterenko's niece and unofficial bodyguard (played by future Hammer Horror heroine Jennifer Daniel), while Clavik abducts the scientist when the ship docks at Dubrovnik.
While Anya's getting close to Scaccia, her uncle strikes up a friendship with Larry Arnell, an old roué (and "old my-soginist" as he describes himself at one point) with a colourful past. Peter Dyneley, who plays Arnell, often played tough baddies (and he played the title character in infamous US-Japanese horror film The Manster), but here he's twinkly charm personified. Arnell's such an appealing character he could have easily carried his own TV series. His friendship with Nesterenko is genuinely touching, the sheltered scientist living vicariously through Arnell's tales of his adventures in remote parts of the world. However, when Craig finds out about the Condor, Arnell becomes his prime suspect.
Meanwhile, back in London, Tony's in trouble with Superintendent Stock for dilly-dallying on his way to his latest assignment. He and Jean Carter share a moment. Please take some time to look at the marvellous Ghost Squad HQ wallpaper for the final time.
A First Class Way to Die features more of Sasdy's trademark imaginative flourishes. When Scaccia eventually meets his death at the hands of his mysterious employer, a shot of the gun is superimposed over the victim's forehead in an extreme close-up.
Later, there's a disorienting shot as Craig, marched through a corridor by Clavik, walks off screen - only for us to be shown the pair's progress in an adjacent mirror.
As is often the way of things, Craig ends up bound and gagged. Poor Michael Quinn always gets the worst of things: while Neil Hallett usually gets an exciting fight scene, the American actor just gets abused, tied up and left on the floor. Could this be an intentionally patriotic decision on the part of the show's makers?
Eventually managing to free himself, Craig's convinced that Arnell's kidnapped Nesterenko, the two having disembarked in Dubrovnik. Marvellously, however, it turns out they just went for a good old piss-up. In a genuinely surprising reveal, the real Condor turns out to be the ship's friendly barman Nils (Anthony Sagar), who swiftly gets his when Craig finds out.
Oh yes, the man overboard. Well, he was an associate of Scaccia's but in truth I'm not sure what was going on there, it was all a bit difficult to follow. It doesn't make that much difference to the story.
Finally, Ghost Squad bows out in the most splendid way imaginable. The Condor exposed and the danger to the professor over with, Jean and Stock have come aboard. Refusing to let them cramp his style, Craig gets on with the important part of his work: romancing glamorous French starlet Ella. As he moves in for the kill, she's suddenly whisked off by Tony, who's appeared out of nowhere. As the credits roll, Tony dances with Ella, Nick with Anya and Jean with Ella's annoying American boyfriend. Stock joins Nesterenko and Arnell on the sofa for a men-of-the-world chat. It's glorious.
This is the last TV would see of Nick Craig, but Miller, Stock, Carter and Patricia Mort's Sally Lomax would return the following year in a new incarnation of Ghost Squad retitled GS5, alongside new agent Peter Clarke (Ray Barrett). Sadly, GS5 was a victim of the archive purges Ghost Squad managed to escape, and no episodes are known to exist.
Next tonight it's another ATV production, as we venture deep into Victorian London's underworld.
The setting for most of this week's episode: The Adam and Eve, a dockside pub that's an infamous haunt of crooks. Two of these, Steve Gurling (Tony Beckley) and Jack Simons (Graham Payn), whack another punter over the head and drown him before the episode's title appears.
When it's discovered, the corpse's face has been mutilated beyond recognition, but it's been dressed in Simons' clothes and given his personal effects, including a distinctive locket. Sergeant Cork and the newly sworn-in Constable Marriott examine it, Marriott cheekily reminding his superior "It's a girl" as Cork examines the picture inside: "Thank you very much for the information, I can still vaguely remember what a girl looks like."
John Barrie and William Gaunt are shaping up as a fantastic double act, and there's a particularly wonderful bit where Marriott, bored by the conversation between Cork and a uniformed colleague, nonchalantly twirls the locket about on its chain, only to be stopped in his tracks by a glare from his superior. Gaunt's sudden switch from insouciance to sheepishness is a joy to behold.
Something less of a joy is Marriott's disguise as he goes undercover at the Adam and Eve, Cork suspicious of the corpse as well as a second one which appears to be Gurling. Marriott wears seaman garb and a ridiculous false beard (though no less ridiculous than the ones in this show that are meant to be real) and accompanies it with an equally ridiculous Irish accent, rapidly finding a local doxy to slobber over, and administer perhaps one of the least appealing kisses in screen history.
Acting plaudits this episode go to the wonderful Sheila Steafel as the Adam and Eve's tough landlady Annie Blake, first seen rowing with her senile neighbour Ma Strickley (Judy Child), who later proves bothersome for Sergeant Cork as well.
Annie's helping Gurling and Simon in their attempt to fake their deaths, and is having a torrid affair with Gurling which she's desperate to keep a secret from her volatile husband Alf (James Mellor).
Alf finds out
With the connivance of wily old Joe Hornby (Paul Curran), Annie conceals the two men in the cellar of the pub. Grizzled and hopping about on crutches, Joe's the archetypal denizen of a dockside dive like the Adam and Eve. A denizen I was slightly more interested in however, was the extra playing the pub's dashing, stripey-topped accordionist. He looks like a nice boy.
Cork's career's slightly fleshed out for us with the information that the habituees of the Adam and Eve are, by and large, terrified of him. And they've reason to be: he gets to the bottom of their tawdry scheme in no time. The Case of the Two Drowned Men's a convincing portrait of Victorian London's murkiest depths, with Cork and Marriott agonising over the ultimate solution to the criminality flowing out of a place like the Adam and Eve. Cork speculates "You know what this place could do with, lad? A terrible thing to say but it could do with another fire, another Great Fire of London. Burn out all these slums. They breed vice and they breed vermin." But Marriott realises it's not that simple: "It's no good getting rid of the slums if you don't get rid of the poverty that causes them." It's classic Victorian handwringing ,but no less relevant in the 1960s than it was in the 1860s, and no less relevant now.
With its picturesque lowlife, The Case of the Two Drowned Men is hugely entertaining, with a compelling script by The Human Jungle's Bill McIlwraith, and the second episode in a row to end with some splendid fisticuffs from Bob Marriott - here obligingly taking out the odious Steve Gurling.
But for me perhaps the most intriguing thing about the episode is the prodigious eyebrows of actor G Ruthven Mitchell, who plays barman Sid. Can they possibly be real?
A search on IMDB (not, I'm aware, an infallible source of information) suggests Mitchell had only one other screen credit, in an episode of department store-set TV drama Harpers West One. In Brighton, where I live, there's a plaque commemorating a G Ruthven Mitchell. Could it be the same one?
Anyway, enough musing: time for music (never mind). Gerry and the Pacemakers cling on to the number 1 spot in this week's singles chart, while the biggest hit this week I haven't yet featured here is the latest one from beyond the grave by Buddy Holly, at number 4. It's a cover version of "Bo Diddley", a song inexplicably popular at the time with singers who were not, in fact, Bo Diddley. You can see the full chart here.
This week's spacecapades are focused around the planet Uranus - which means, of course, that its dialogue is packed with hilarious lines for those of us with childish imaginations. The episode opens in the World Space Organisation's scientific HQ (a giant Brutalist tower block), where outrageously camp Irishman Professor Haggerty (a dead ringer for Graham Norton, funnily enough) and his daughter Cassiopeia are examining a lifeform from the planet in question. "That's not a leek!" Haggerty chides the youngster when she misidentifies it: "It's a plant from Uranus!"
"Everything on Uranus is upside down," says Cassiopeia, commenting on its hot poles and cold equators. A rock from the planet proves to have been radioactive for at least 4000 years: "Maybe there was a nuclear war on Uranus!" The plant, meanwhile, keeps alternating between flaccid and erect due to the broken air conditioning in Haggerty's lab. While father on daughter move on to talk about Haggerty's latest invention, a synthetic cow that will yield artificial beef, the plant gets up and walks off. It's quite cute, really.
When he catches the plant, Haggerty deduces that it talks a strange plant language, but that this one must be a baby, talking gibberish, as his language decoder can't work out what it's saying. It sounds a bit dubious to me, but then he's allegedly a genius, and I'm not. "We're the first human beings to meet a walking, talking vegetable!" he enthuses. Hmm.
While all this is going on, Captain Larry Dart has an unusual request for his boss, Colonel Raeburn: "I wish you'd send me to Uranus, Colonel!" (It's hard to believe lines like this were never funny. In fact, it's hard to believe William Herschel didn't name the planet as he did precisely to spread hilarity). All the previous astronauts who've gone to Uranus have failed to return, and on learning Haggerty's news Raeburn's hopeful that the fully grown walking, talking vegetables can explain what's happened. So he sends Dart and his trusty men to find out. You can probably guess where this is going.
Dart's galasphere heads off to Uranus. The gamma rays are on, the yobba rays (!) are on, an op art spirally thing's spinning round and a barber's pole's rotating (perhaps the eerie robots who patrol the ship's corridors also do hairdressing).
The crew spend the duration of the voyage in cryogenic suspension. It takes them 86 days to get to Uranus, which leads me to wonder what the earthbound characters get up during these long voyages. Perhaps one day we'll find out.
Martian crewman Husky proves himself to be impressively thick (a tad worrying as he's meant to be the ship's engineer). On arrival, he has a heated argument with superintelligent Venusian Slim over whether there's such a word as "fantasticacious". "What's a genetic change?" he later asks, enabling the other two to patiently explain for the benefit of the young viewers at home.
For some reason everyone's convinced the Uranian plants are leeks, even though they don't look anything like them. "If these are leeks I wouldn't want to see a turnip!" cries Husky when the crew encounter an excitable trio of them. Well, quite. Slim goes over to make friends. It doesn't go too well.
Yes, the leeks are hostile carnivores, and quite obviously the reason why none of the previous missions returned. Our heroes manage to escape, doing their very best to make us believe that the four plants waddling after them are a ravenous army. As the ship takes off the plants gather round it waggling angrily.
On Dart's return to earth, he presents Colonel Raeburn with a recording of the plants' speech. The Colonel's overjoyed: now that they can decode the Uranian language he's convinced he can send people out there to make friends with them. The man's quite clearly a dangerous lunatic.
The Dark Planet couldn't possibly be more entertaining than it is. That may not be for the reasons it was originally meant to be, but what's the difference? You can watch it here if you like
Oh, and has anyone seen three plastic tumblers? I'm sure I had them around here somewhere...
