Oliver's Travels is a five-part television miniseries written by Alan Plater

Alan Plater

Alan Frederick Plater, CBE, FRSL was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s.-Career:...

 and starring Alan Bates

Alan Bates

Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...

, Sinéad Cusack

Sinéad Cusack

Sinéad Moira Cusack is an Irish stage, television and film actress. She has received two Tony Award nominations: once for Best Leading Actress in Much Ado About Nothing , and again for Best Featured Actress in Rock 'n' Roll .-Background:...

, Bill Paterson, and Miles Anderson

Miles Anderson

Miles Anderson is a Zimbabwean actor. He has lived in England and America for the last 40 years.He was born in 1947 in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Educated at Prince Edward school, his father commanded the Rhodesian Army until dismissed by Premier Ian Smith for his stance against racism and a...

. It first aired in the UK in 1995.

Bates plays the titular Oliver (it's never made clear whether this is his first or last name), a keen word-game enthusiast and lecturer in comparative religion

Comparative religion

Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...

. After his teaching post is made redundant, he resolves to make use of his new wealth of free time by going to visit his favourite crossword

Crossword

A crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or rectangular grid of white and shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers. In languages that are written left-to-right, the answer...

 compiler, 'Aristotle', with whom he has corresponded but whom he has never met. When he arrives, however, he finds Aristotle's house has been ransacked and its occupant has departed for parts unknown, and he sets out to discover why.

Links and external references

• Oliver's Travels at the PBS Mystery!
  Mystery!
  Mystery! is an episodic television series that debuted in 1980 in the USA. It airs on PBS and is produced by WGBH...
  
  web site