The Beiderbecke Affair

The Beiderbecke Affair
Genre Comedy drama
Written by Alan Plater
Directed by David Reynolds &
Frank W. Smith
Starring James Bolam
Barbara Flynn
Terence Rigby
Danny Schiller
Dudley Sutton
Dominic Jephcott
Keith Smith
Keith Marsh
Theme music composer Frankie Trumbauer and Chauncey Morehouse
Opening theme “Cryin' All Day”
Country of origin UK
Original language(s) English
No. of episodes 6
Production
Executive producer(s) David Cunliffe
Producer(s) Anne W. Gibbons
Release
Original network ITV (Yorkshire Television)
Picture format Film PAL (576i)
Original release 6 January 1985 – 10 February 1985
Chronology
Followed by The Beiderbecke Tapes
Related shows Get Lost!

The Beiderbecke Affair is a television series produced in the United Kingdom by ITV during 1985, written by the prolific Alan Plater, whose lengthy credits to British Television since the 1960s included the preceding 4 part mini series Get Lost! for ITV in 1981. The Beiderbecke Affair has a similar style to Get Lost!, where Neville Keaton (Alun Armstrong) and Judy Threadgold (Bridget Turner) played in an ensemble cast. Although The Beiderbecke Affair was intended as a sequel to Get Lost!, Alun Armstrong proved to be unavailable and the premise was reworked. It is the first part of The Beiderbecke Trilogy with the two sequel series being The Beiderbecke Tapes (1987) and The Beiderbecke Connection (1988).

Plot

The plot is initially unclear, moving from one seemingly unrelated event to another, all of which are eventually shown to be interconnected. However, the clever interplay between the characters is the main interest here. It is a character-led drama following the lives of the leading characters, and how they interact, rather than following the classic story structure.

Geordie Trevor Chaplin (James Bolam) teaches woodwork, enjoys football and likes to listen to jazz. Jill Swinburne (Barbara Flynn) is interested in neither football nor jazz but teaches English and wants to help save the planet, standing in a local election as "your Conservation candidate". After Jill left her husband, her colleague Trevor began giving her lifts to school and from there a relationship blossomed. They have an easy-going relationship where half the words seem to be left unspoken but the viewer is never in any doubt as to the subtext.

Clayton Grange Flats, Moor Grange, Leeds used as 'The Multistorey Block of Flats' in the Beiderbecke affair, taken in June 2008, 24 years after filming

Trevor tries to buy some jazz records from a "dazzlingly beautiful platinum blonde" who calls at the door raising funds for the local Cubs’ football team. When the wrong records are delivered, a hunt begins that draws the pair into unforeseen intrigue. Thrown in to the mix are Sgt Hobson (Dominic Jephcott), a suspicious yet seemingly incompetent graduate police detective, and a pair of local black economy tradesmen, "Big Al" (Terence Rigby) and "Little Norm" (Danny Schiller), who agree to help "average-sized" Jill and Trevor with their school supplies problems. There are elements of political and social commentary, whilst bureaucracy (within the Police and Local Government) and the educational system are frequent targets of ridicule.

Setting the scene for the sequels, the series ends with Jill and Trevor 'running away to the Hills' (Almscliffe Crag, North Rigton). Unlike subsequent episodes the series ends with this scene and Big Al and Little Norm listening to the radio at their allotment, where the viewer hears from this that a local senior police officer has been suspended and a business man and councillor have been arrested. It is later revealed in the Beiderbecke Tapes that Mr McAllister and Councillor McAllister were imprisoned.

It all unravels to a soundtrack of jazz music in the style of Bix Beiderbecke performed by Frank Ricotti with Kenny Baker as featured cornet soloist. Extensive use is made of leitmotifs for the various characters.

Episodes

Trevor and Jill in the opening scene of the first episode
Episode Opening
Big Al, Trevor and Jill in the church crypt/warehouse
The Ash Road allotments in Headingley were used for Big Al's allotment and office.

Characters

Filming locations

Abbeydale Oval, in Kirkstall, Leeds. The house on the right featured as Jill's house.
East Leeds Family Learning Centre (former Foxwood School) in Seacroft, Leeds was used as 'San Quentin High' (picture taken June 2008). Demolition of the complex began in December 2009
St Marks Church in Woodhouse was the Parish Church of St Matthew in The Beiderbecke Affair. It was closed for over a decade but has been bought by Gateway Church and is being renovated

The actual Leeds City Council planning offices are just over the road in The Leonardo Building which wasn't there at the time of filming back in 1984.

DVD Availability

All three series are available on DVD as individual boxed sets, and as a Collection DVD Set (the Beiderbecke Trilogy), with an additional 6 Disc Set, the Beiderbecke Trilogy 21st Anniversary Edition (containing the Beiderbecke Trilogy plus Get Lost!, CD Soundtrack, cast interviews and commemorative booklet as special features) released for Region 2.

The Beiderbecke Tapes was released in the US on 29 September 2009.

Books

There are four books to do with the series. Alan Plater's first-ever book was a novelisation of The Beiderbecke Affair (Methuen, 1985) and then he originally wrote The Beiderbecke Tapes as a novel (Methuen, 1986) before dramatising it for ITV. Four years after the final serial aired, he novelised The Beiderbecke Connection scripts (Methuen, 1992). An omnibus edition The Beiderbecke Trilogy was released by Methuen in 1993.

In 2012, the British Film Institute published a book about the series in its range examining key television shows: BFI TV Classics: The Beiderbecke Affair by William Gallagher (writer). The book is non-fiction but it includes a Beiderbecke short story, "A Brief Encounter with Richard Wagner" by Alan Plater. It was written for BBC Radio 4 in the 1990s and this is its first publication in print.

Accompanying the non-fiction book, the British Film Institute released an Author Video plus a series of official Beiderbecke Affair podcasts that include a video interview with William Gallagher and with Plater's wife, Shirley Rubinstein, plus audio commentaries by Gallagher for selected episodes of the Beiderbecke series.

References

Notes

  1. Not, as previously said, Greenacre Hall Rawdon. The confusion comes from a poster on the wall to the right of the doors which is advertising services held at Greenacre Hall which is a totally different building and was not used in the filming for exterior or interior shots of which Yeadon Town Hall was. Yeadon Town Hall was also to feature in the Beiderbecke Tapes as the registrar's office which again with Mr Pitt.

External links

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