The Professionals

[Charles Bronson]

Gordon Jackson's wife Rona Anderson has been on the Talking Pictures Channel a lot lately in 1950's films.

Rona was a very pretty lady. Gordon done really well for himself there.

I remember reading that they used to throw good parties at their Hampstead home,and show biz people like Kenneth Williams would attend.

Charles.

[Arthur Pringle]

I've got a copy of Kenneth Williams diaries & there are many mentions of Gordon Jackson & his wife, they were like a surrogate family for him.

This is a diary entry from Jan 1978- "Watched Gordon in The Professionals. Now he's my friend & I've never seen him do anything that wasn't truthful but this role doesn't work for him. Usually his work seems effortless but this part makes him look laborious- he seems to be working at it. The writing is the sort of stuff which is banal enough to require great bravura delivery ( a la Kojak or Stratford Johns ) and the nearest Gordon gets to that is to shout. No wonder he told me he was unhappy in the series"

Williams mentions The Sweeney in Nov 1978- "We saw The Sweeney and the morality was appalling. Three policemen slept with the same tart, who asked one 'Would you wear your helmet?'. Heaven knows what sort of image they wish to present for our police".

[Bojan Scores]

Just to endorse Arthur's choice of reading. The Kenneth Williams Diaries is excellent reading. Often amusing, insulting, insightful, and maybe a little uncomfortable reading his most private thoughts. The Kenneth Williams Letters is also a good read as a companion piece.

[Charles Bronson]

That bit of Kenneth Williams Diaries on The Sweeney is priceless. I'm wondering now what some of the other forum members are going to make of that little snippet.

Charles.

[Arthur Pringle]

TV Times Dec 1980, a feature about the nicknames of various stars

[Del Boy]

Some good fun in that article. The PC brigade doesn't allow that kind of thing today, they have rebadged it harassment

[D.C. Burtonshaw]

Last week I took delivery of the latest Network Professionals boxed sets. Just been reviewing them and much better picture quality than before and some quite interesting extras and out takes and behind the scenes footage and photos I'd not seen before. Series 1 has a supplementary production notes book which gives some interesting insights on that series, but it's a shame there isn't such a book for series 2 and 4. Although series 3 has a book, which I haven't looked at yet.

Series 1 had many Sweeney faces in it, as did gradually the later series. I'll post up a youtube link later but another Pros fan has created a 42 minute long fan documentary on the first series for the shows 40th anniversary. He says a series 2 doc is due soon but it doesn't seem to be around yet. Looking forward to that.

The narrator, (sounds like a young chap, although I found I had to listen carefully to his otherwise quite informed commentary, a bit quiet in places) does a good job and there are many clips from the different eps as well as a mini review of each episode which are quite good and I had to agree with the pros (pardon the pun) and cons to each ep too!

One bit of a criticism from a youtuber in the comments section that a few of the facts were a little wrong, but that person didn't elaborate when the poster asked what they were......

I always thought that so much of the scripts and much of the dialogue from Cowley in particular (and occasionally Doyle), is still relevant to today.

[D.C. Burtonshaw]

And here we are:

Little nod to The Sweeney at the start too;

[Vienna]

Nov 9, 2017 13:53:09 GMT D.C. Burtonshaw said:

Series 1 has a supplementary production notes book which gives some interesting insights on that series, but it's a shame there isn't such a book for series 2 and 4. Although series 3 has a book, which I haven't looked at yet.

All the four series released by Network should have a separate viewing notes production book by Andrew Pixley. I presume this is what you are referring to Gerry  

[D.C. Burtonshaw]

Yes, that's correct but my 2 s2 and s4 sets were sealed with polythene and didn't have the book, only the DVD case with the DVD extras. I bought from Amazon so I'm led to believe they are the latest releases. Seems strange, are they meant to have books with them?