TV: OMNIBUS (THE BRITISH HERO) - 1973

The British Hero was a dramatised documentary portrait of a selection of fictional British heroes written by Alan Coren for the Omnibus strand in 1973.

 

Recreating such plucky stalwarts as Bulldog Drummond, Richard Hannay, Beau Geste and James Bond, a handsome, young newcomer, Christopher Cazenove, is put through his paces in a series of spoof episodes, with TP taking the role of narrator come talking curator.

This was a very lavish production for a documentary with feature film values, multiple locations (including a sequence on the liner, Canberra) and a starry cast, however, critically, it fell very flat. Part of the problem may have been that it couldn’t quite decide where it fell between tribute and satire and ended up being neither one or the other.

A few years later Michael Palin and Terry Jones would trod the same ground with much greater success in their Ripping Yarns series.

'Spy Who Came In from the Cold' pastiche

TP too caught some of the flak with critics wondering what an Irish actor was doing in the middle of such a British mix and The Observer remarking that TP had delivered his lines as if presenting a county court case about the drains. Harsh words, but wittily put.

Nonetheless, it was a rewarding film to be part of and TP was completely charmed by the personality of Christopher Cazenove. As part of the publicity, he and TP appeared, in character, on the front cover of the Radio Times (see above).