Post by Dirty Epic on Sept 18, 2019 10:45:30 GMT
A few months ago I managed to watch Spender in full and on the whole quite enjoyed seeing it again after a good 15 or so years of seeing bits and pieces of it on YouTube. Just wondered if any one else was a fan of this Newcastle/North East set cop series which pretty much re-launched and changed perceptions of Jimmy Nail from the Oz typecast he had up to that point.
I’d normally put a spoiler on this but I think most of us are familiar with Spender generally. I’ve also tried not to look at other reviews or articles on Spender for this too to give my take on it all.
Focusing on Detective Sargent Freddie Spender (Nail) a Metropolitan Police officer who after technical issue has to leave his partner DS Colin Driver (David Telfer) alone when on a obbo-job which goes wrong and leaves Driver to be attacked and injured by the criminals they’re after, copping the fall-out and a bit of flack from his boss Chief Inspector Greaves (Peter Jonfield) suggests cum orders Spender does a temporary reassignment back in his native North East which he left nearly 15 or so years earlier.
Spender unwillingly accepts the assignment and works closely with Detective Sergeant Dan Boyd (Berwick Kaler) whom over time he warms to and Superintendent Yelland (Paul Greenwood) who Spender has more of a frosty relationship with. Spender also has to reconnect to friends and estranged family he’s left behind including his ner-do-well career criminal mate ‘Stick’ (Sammy Johnson) who Spender uses as his ear to the ground in a region he’s neither native or a stranger in, musician Keith Moreland (Tony McAnney) who has developed MS while he's been away and his estranged ex-wife Frances (Denise Welch) and daughters Laura (Dawn Wilnlow) and Kate (Lynn Harrison) whom he’s pretty much lost contact with for a decade or so.
Initially Spender think’s he’ll do this assignment and be back in his old job/work in London again but Greaves and Yelland have other ideas and on the whole they use Spender as an unknown face to investigate and infiltrate the region’s criminal gangs and faces everything from multi-million pound drug smuggling/dealing, armed robberies, political protection/intrigue, sex-trade/slavery and an illegal boxing racket. In the final episode Spender also has to prove Stick’s innocence when he wrongly ends up on a murder charge after one of his scam’s goes badly wrong too.
Series 1 sets the tone with Yelland seemingly bound for a promotion and Spender looking like he’s going to be recalled to London, however Spender initially hostile to his ‘homecoming’ has warmed to life back in Newcastle/the North East and stay’s on. Yelland moves on and is replaced by Detective Chief Superintendent Gillespie (Peter Guinness) although the abrasive relationship Spender has continues with Gillespie in Series 2 whom is keen to make changes including moving out DS Boyd and trying to exert more control over Spender.
Despite the change from Yelland to Gillespie in Series 2, the second series picks up where the first left off albeit with Spender becoming more integrated and comfortable with his role and life back in the North East. Stick after spending some time in jail has teamed up with a fellow con ‘Spud’ Tate (Mickey Hutton) whom whilst being away has seen his ‘business’ taken over by former partner Denny (Rod Culbertson) provoking a fire bombing gang war between the two Stick is caught up in and Spender has to investigate. Adding a bit of extra strength to his knowledge of the criminal world Tate is useful to Spender and is allowed to run for a while and during the course of Series 2 Spender investigates everything from the illegal fly posting business, a on the run soldier, the blackmailing of a musician friend of Keith’s by a local gangster, an estranged cousin being used/set up by criminal’s, the disappearance of a promising footballer (with very strong shades of Paul Gascoigne!), and the aftermath of a ram raid which severely injures and eventually kills a elderly newspaper seller who intervenes and stirs Spender’s conscience and guilt of when he does nothing!
I sort of get the feeling Series 2 was where things were meant to finish but probably buoyed up by Jimmy Nail’s chart success with Ain’t No Doubt etc. enter the third and final Series 3 in 1993 which overall is equally as good as the other two and wrap things up nicely.
Again the main cast are all together for Series 3 but for me the dynamics slightly change. Spender’s ex-Frances gets re-married then cold feet to Eric (Brendan P. Healy) who was introduced in Series 2 and has seemingly settled in within the family dynamic. Spender himself has moved on to new relationships firstly and with Sandy (Philippa Wilson) and the Janet Thornton (Laure Killing) both of which will have ill-fated results. Stick has also got into a relationship with Eileen (Elizabeth Edmonds) and is trying to lead a sort of semi-straight existence. Keith get’s the attention of an infatuated motorcycle courier Emily Goodman (Leena Heady – way before Game of Thrones), who unknown to Keith is still at school and underage. All these changes set off a chain of events which will have consequences for the main cast in Series 3.
In Series 3 Spender investigates everything from catching a sexual predator, teenage runaways, a sports betting blackmail plot, a rogue IRA informer who wants to discredit/assassinate Gillespie, a car theft ring and a political corruption conspiracy which see’s Spender go undercover in jail with horrific/tragic consequences not only for those Spender is investigating but for members of his family too. Series 3 also featured a strong cast of guest actors too including Tom Bell as Tommy Thornton, Rodney Bewes and Tim Spall who turns up as a tragic-case prisoner Spender shares a cell with/is investigating in the final episode 'Retreat'.
One final instalment was the feature-length The French Collection which has much more of a cinematic feel than Series 1-3. Here Spender is tasked with extraditing Tommy Thornton (Tom Bell) from Marseille to the UK and along the way he is faced with a series of double-crosses which frustrate, implicate and endanger Spender during the course of this 90 minute special shown after Christmas in 1993 and was the final outing for Spender before Jimmy Nail embarked on his Crocodile Shoes project a year later.
On the whole Spender was in my opinion a very good series which for me had enough of the cop-show/action elements in it to be a good counter balance to the more genteel things around back then like Morse with some subtle nods to similar shows from the 70’s/80’s. It effectively relaunched Jimmy Nail and changed perceptions of him as a actor/in general as up to that point he was typecast as Oz – see things like Minder, Morons From Outer Space etc. which he was keen to shake off. Still it is Sammy Johnson for me who steals the show, he’s excellent as Stick and is very believable/natural as the (at the time) loveable rouge type criminal who Spender uses as his ear to the street so to speak. The backstories of Spender’s family past and Keith his musician past/MS future give or take also work reasonably well and do tie in with the show well. The supporting cast are also very good in my opinion especially Berwick Kaler (DS Boyd) who is Spender’s straight guy/comic partner etc. and both Yelland and Gillespie and the abrasive relationship they have with Spender work’s well too – particularly Gillespie (Peter Guinness) who despite being a cynical sceptic of Spender warms to him during the course of things – in a similar way to what Haskins did with Regan in The Sweeney.
Also a lot of faces from things like The Professionals, Auf Pet, The Sweeny/Euston productions and beyond turn up during the course of Spender too. Look out for Steven Alder, Ewan Stewart, Melanie Hill, (as mentioned) Rodey Bewes, John McArdle, Amanda Redman, Chris Fairbank, (as mentioned) Tim Spall, Geoffrey Hughes, Frances Tomelty, John Benfield, Val McLane, (as mentioned) Rod Culbertson, Julia Tobin, Jean Heywood, Maurice Roëves, Ian McElhinney, John Bowler, and (as mentioned) Tom Bell even Slade’s Dave Hill turns up in Fly By Night too.
Production wise Spender showed off Newcastle/the North East very well giving a strong cinematic feel to the episodes which hadn’t really been done since The Sweeney/Euston’s heyday and certainly didn't in that region. It also showed the region at it's best too rather than everything being painted as an post-industrial wasteland which many other Northern set series of that period tended to do. Writing wise much of the episodes are generally good quality on the whole in my opinion with Jimmy Nail and Ian Le Frenais creating and writing many of the show’s earlier episodes along with many others like Auf Pet’s Stan Hey and Nail’s own sister Val McLane too.
Why this isn’t on DVD or some for of legal/high quality download when things like Crocodile Shoes are is a mystery… I know there’s been campaign’s petitions to get it on DVD but I think it's highly unlikely that Spender see the light of day. It's nearly 30 old and/or something or someone has put a block on it for some reason (see later). This is kind of similar perhaps with different reasons to The Paradise Club which was also around, around that time, equally popular and not on DVD either!
However for me despite Spender being generally/mostly very good, in fact I think it was one of the best police based series to emerge in that era for some reason it doesn’t quite hit the heights it should in comparison with say things like The Sweeney, Pro’s etc. I suppose the knowledge of cast/crew unrest and infighting – especially during Series 3, doesn’t really help matters and a few storyline’s/propositions are a bit far fetched too. Also and only going on what’s been stated before it’s common knowledge Jimmy Nail is perhaps not the easiest to work with and perhaps with him maybe getting a bit to pretentious/big for his boots on Spender as it got more and more popular he has maybe rubbed a few people up the wrong way to the extent things like repeats, DVD/download release’s etc. are no go for this I’m afraid which is a shame as generally it’s a good piece of television from that era and is something I think our forum and perhaps a wider viewing public would enjoy. I’m sure whatever is blocking it’s repeat/if these problems could with a bit of give or take be resolved and it could be repeated? I’m sure a fairly decent audience would be available for it either repeated on the likes of TV channel’s like ITV3, Drama, Talking Pitctures etc. or cough a DVD release. I think this along with Series 1-2 being BBC made and Series 3/The Special being made by Nail’s ‘Big Boy’ production company complicates matters here too sadly!
It also seemed a little odd that Paul Greenwood who played Yelland left the show and was replaced by Gillespie after Series 1 too!
So in conclusion I’d fully recommend Spender to everyone here. My rating is just short of a 8/10 overall sometimes more sometimes less but if any of you get a chance to see it in full take it as I’m fairly sure most of you would enjoy it.
If I get time I’ll have to identify/check out the locations too – some of which we’ve done before with out April meet’s in 2017 & 18 which again Spender showed to the full and paid tribute to things which went before. I've had a nice pint in The Bridge in Gateshead that Spender and Stick frequented once and perhaps I’ll do some of these locations in a Sierra Sapphire Cosworth one day too!