Softly, Softly

Softly, Softly (TV series)

Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It centred around the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern - supposedly in the Bristol and Chepstow area of the UK...

(a spin off from Z-Cars

Z-Cars

Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...

) the popular BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 television police drama series, was revamped in 1969, partly to coincide with the coming of colour broadcasting to BBC 1

BBC One

BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

. The main characters, Detective Chief Inspector Barlow (Stratford Johns

Stratford Johns

Stratford Johns, born Alan Edgar Stratford-Johns, was a popular British stage, film and television actor who is best remembered for his starring role as Detective Inspector Charlie Barlow in the innovative and long-running BBC police series Z-Cars, created by Troy Kennedy-Martin.-Early life:Johns...

) and Detective Inspector Watt (Frank Windsor

Frank Windsor

Frank Windsor is an English actor, mainly on television.He attended Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall. He began his career on radio and made an appearance in a 1953 film of Henry V...

) were promoted to control of 'taskforces', a new (at the time) development in regional police divisions wherein expertise and manpower could be drawn together when needed for special operations. Joining them from Softly, Softly

Softly, Softly (TV series)

Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It centred around the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern - supposedly in the Bristol and Chepstow area of the UK...

would be DS Harry Hawkins (Norman Bowler

Norman Bowler

Norman Clifford Bowler is a British actor.Born in London, son of a watch repairer in Mill Lane, NW6, he became a member of the 1950s Soho set alongside the likes of John Minton, Francis Bacon and Daniel Farson. There he met Henrietta Moraes, who divorced her first husband, Michael Law, and...

), also on promotion. The stories were set in the fictional south-eastern English borough of Thamesford (played by the City of Rochester and the Medway area), where the team were under the baleful eye of Chief Constable Cullen (Walter Gotell

Walter Gotell

Walter Gotell was a German actor, known for his role as General Gogol, head of the KGB, in the James Bond film series.Gotell was born in Bonn, Germany; his family emigrated to the United Kingdom after the Nazis came to power...

).

The programme was due to be called Taskforce, but the BBC were reluctant to sacrifice a much-loved brand and so a compromise was reached; it became Softly, Softly: Taskforce.

The continuing storyline of the series saw Barlow widowed in 1972, after which he was head-hunted by the home office to work on special cases (this became the series Barlow at Large

Barlow at Large

Barlow at Large is a British television programme broadcast in the 1970s, starring Stratford Johns in the title role.Johns had previously played Barlow in the Z-Cars, Softly, Softly and Softly, Softly: Taskforce series on BBC television during the 1960s and early 1970s...

). This left the way clear for Watt to come out of Barlow's shadow and take command in his own right, with the reliable assistance of Hawkins.

Regulars included Terence Rigby

Terence Rigby

Terence Christopher Rigby was an English actor with a number of film and television credits to his name. In the 1970s he was well-known as police dog-handler PC Snow in the long-running series Softly, Softly: Taskforce...

 as PC Snow (the dog handler, with his dogs Inky and Radar), David Lloyd Meredith

David Lloyd Meredith

David Lloyd Meredith was a British actor. He came from a Welsh family background, but was born in London....

 (Sgt Evans) and Walter Gotell

Walter Gotell

Walter Gotell was a German actor, known for his role as General Gogol, head of the KGB, in the James Bond film series.Gotell was born in Bonn, Germany; his family emigrated to the United Kingdom after the Nazis came to power...

 (Chief Con. Cullen).
Notable guest actors appearing throughout the years included Windsor Davies

Windsor Davies

Windsor Davies is a British actor, well known for playing the part of Battery Sergeant Major Williams in the 1970s/1980s British sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum.-Early life and career:...

, Kenneth Cranham

Kenneth Cranham

Kenneth Cranham is a film, television and stage actor. He starred in the title role in the popular 1980s comedy drama Shine on Harvey Moon. He also appeared in Layer Cake, Gangster No. 1, Rome, Oliver! and many other films. He is probably best known to horror genre fans as the deranged Dr...

, Tom Baker

Tom Baker

Thomas Stewart "Tom" Baker is a British actor. He is best known for playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, a role he played from 1974 to 1981.-Early life:...

, Stephen Rea

Stephen Rea

Stephen Rea is an Irish film and stage actor. Rea has appeared in high profile films such as V for Vendetta, Michael Collins, Interview with the Vampire and Breakfast on Pluto...

, Jack Shepherd, Michael Goodliffe

Michael Goodliffe

Lawrence Michael Andrew Goodliffe was an English actor best known for playing suave roles such as doctors, lawyers and army officers. He was also sometimes cast in working class parts....

, Jess Conrad

Jess Conrad

Jess Conrad OBE is an actor and singer from England.-Career:Having started his career as a repertory actor and film extra, Jess Conrad was cast in a television play "Bye, Bye Barney" as a pop singer...

, Geoffrey Palmer

Geoffrey Palmer (actor)

Geoffrey Dyson Palmer, OBE is an English actor, best known for his roles in sitcoms such as Butterflies and As Time Goes By.-Career:...

, John Woodvine

John Woodvine

John Woodvine is an English stage and screen actor who has appeared in more than 70 theatre productions, as well as a similar number of television and film roles.-Early life:...

, Denis Quilley

Denis Quilley

Denis Clifford Quilley OBE was an English theatre, television and film actor who was long associated with the Royal National Theatre....

, Peter Sallis

Peter Sallis

Peter Sallis, OBE is an English actor and entertainer, well-known for his work on British television. Although he was born and brought up in London, his two most notable roles require him to adopt the accents and mannerisms of a Northerner.Sallis is best known for his role as the main character...

, Patrick Troughton

Patrick Troughton

Patrick George Troughton was an English actor most widely known for his roles in fantasy, science fiction and horror films, particularly in his role as the second incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running British science-fiction television series Doctor Who, which he played from 1966 to 1969,...

, Billy Murray

Billy Murray (actor)

Billy Murray is an English actor, best known for playing Don Beech in The Bill from 1995 to 2004, Johnny Allen in the BBC soap opera EastEnders from 2005 to 2006, Captain John Price in the video games Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare...

, Lynne Frederick

Lynne Frederick

Lynne Maria Frederick was an English film actress. In a career spanning ten years she made about thirty films or television drama appearances, but she is best remembered as the last wife of Peter Sellers. She was married twice after his death.-Early life:Frederick was born in Hillingdon,...

, James Grout

James Grout

James Grout is an English actor of radio and television.Grout was born in London, the son of Beatrice Anne and William Grout...

, Calvin Lockhart

Calvin Lockhart

Calvin Lockhart was a Bahamian-American actor on stage and in film. He was best known for the role of a big time gangster "Biggie Smalls" in the 1975 film Let's Do It Again, not to be confused with the deceased rapper Biggie Smalls...

, Edward Petherbridge

Edward Petherbridge

Edward Petherbridge is a British actor. Among his many roles, he portrayed Lord Peter Wimsey in several screen adaptations of Dorothy L...

, Michael Gambon

Michael Gambon

Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Irish actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. A highly respected theatre actor, Gambon is recognised for his roles as Philip Marlowe in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, as Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and as...

, Richard Vernon

Richard Vernon

Richard Vernon was a British actor. He appeared in many feature films and television programmes, often in aristocratic or supercilious roles...

, Bob Hoskins

Bob Hoskins

Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. is an English actor known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday , and Mona Lisa , and lighter roles in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Hook .- Early life :Hoskins was born in Bury St...

, Alun Armstrong

Alun Armstrong (actor)

Alun Armstrong is a prolific British character actor. Armstrong grew up in County Durham in North East England. He first became interested in acting through Shakespeare productions at his grammar school. Since his career began in the early 1970s, he has played, in his words, "the full spectrum of...

, James Faulkner

James Faulkner

James Sebastian Faulkner is a British actor, known for his many various appearance on television and in movies, usually in supporting roles.Faulkner made his big screen debut as Josef Strauss in The Great Waltz in 1972...

, John Duttine

John Duttine

John Arthur Duttine is an English actor noted for his roles on stage, films and television. He is well known for his role as Sgt George Miller in Heartbeat....

, Anne Stallybrass

Anne Stallybrass

Anne Stallybrass is a British actress who trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London.She was born in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex...

, Vivien Merchant

Vivien Merchant

Vivien Merchant was a British actress.-Career:Merchant performed in many stage productions and several films, including Alfie and Frenzy...

, Mike Pratt

Mike Pratt

Michael John "Mike" Pratt was an English actor and songwriter, known for his work on British television in the 1960s and early 1970s.-Career:...

, Diane Keen

Diane Keen

Diane Keen is an English actress.Keen is possibly best known for her starring roles in the British TV drama Doctors which she has been in since 2003 , and in the 1970s comedy series The Cuckoo Waltz and Rings on Their Fingers.-Personal life:Keen has one daughter, actress Melissa Greenwood, from...

, Lesley Manville

Lesley Manville

Lesley Manville is an award-winning English actress.-Early life:Born in Brighton, Manville was raised in Hove, East Sussex, one of three daughters of a taxicab driver. Training as a soprano singer from age 8, she twice became under-18 champion of Sussex...

, George Sewell

George Sewell

George Sewell was an English actor.-Early life and early career:The son of a Hoxton printer and a florist; Sewell left school at age 14 and worked briefly in the printing trade before switching to building work, specifically the repair of bomb-damaged houses...

, Alan Lake

Alan Lake

Alan Lake was an English actor, best known as the third husband of Diana Dors.-Biography:Lake was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire on 24 November 1940...

, Charles Gray

Charles Gray (actor)

Charles Gray was an English actor who was well-known for roles including the arch-villain Blofeld in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, Sherlock Holmes' brother Mycroft Holmes in the Granada television series, and as The Criminologist in the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show in...

, Jill Gascoine

Jill Gascoine

Jill Gascoine is a British actress and novelist. She is most widely known for her role as Detective Inspector Maggie Forbes in the 1980s television series The Gentle Touch and its spin-off series C.A.T.S. Eyes...

, Martin Jarvis, Patricia Hayes

Patricia Hayes

Patricia Lawlor Hayes, OBE was an English comedy actress.Hayes was born in Streatham, London. As a child Hayes attended Sacred Heart School in Wandsworth....

, Thora Hird

Thora Hird

Dame Thora Hird DBE was an English actress.-Early life and career:Hird was born in the Lancashire seaside town of Morecambe. She first appeared on stage at the age of two months in a play her father was managing...

, Bill Nighy

Bill Nighy

William Francis "Bill" Nighy is an English actor and comedian. He worked in theatre and television before his first cinema role in 1981, and made his name in television with The Men's Room in 1991, in which he played the womanizer Prof...

, Ralph Bates

Ralph Bates

Ralph Bates was an English film and television actor, known for his role in the British sitcom Dear John and for being one of Hammer Horror's best-known actors from the latter period of the company....

, George Baker

George Baker (actor)

George Baker, MBE was an English actor and writer. He was best-known for portraying Tiberius in I, Claudius, and Inspector Wexford in The Ruth Rendell Mysteries.-Personal life:...

, Robert Stephens

Robert Stephens

Sir Robert Stephens was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre.-Early life and career:...

, Nyree Dawn Porter and Nigel Stock.

By the mid-70s the show was beginning to look rather dated and drab alongside the new dynamic series appearing on the rival commercial channel (notably The Sweeney

The Sweeney

The Sweeney is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London...

). With its increasing reliance on police procedural issues and squeaky-clean officers (with the odd 'rotten apple' for them to condemn), it began to look as stiff as Dixon of Dock Green

Dixon of Dock Green

Dixon of Dock Green was a popular BBC television series that ran from 1955 to 1976, and later a radio series. Despite being a drama series, it was initially produced by the BBC's light entertainment department.-Overview:...

had when its fore-runner Z-Cars

Z-Cars

Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...

had appeared to blow away the cobwebs. The final episode in 1976 ends with a sing-along around a piano - a far cry from the dynamic and edgy team of professionals we met in the first Softly, Softly

Softly, Softly (TV series)

Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It centred around the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern - supposedly in the Bristol and Chepstow area of the UK...

ten years' earlier.

Barlow & Watt would still have one more spin-off outing, in Second Verdict

Second Verdict

Second Verdict was a six-part BBC television series from 1976, of dramatised documentaries in which classic criminal cases and unsolved crimes from history were re-appraised by fictional police officers...

, where they re-investigated historic cases. This was itself a spin-off from a 6-part series in 1973 which saw Barlow & Watt re-appraising the Jack the Ripper murders. Watt's final solo appearance was in the last ever Z-Cars

Z-Cars

Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...

in September 1978.

Series Run Down

• 1/ 20 Nov 1969 - 12 Mar 1970, 16 50min Colour episodes
• 2/ 16 Sept 1970 - 10 Mar 1971, 26 50min Colour episodes
• 3/ 6 Oct 1971 - 29 Mar 1972, 26 50min Colour episodes
• 4/ 13 Sept 1972 - 31 Jan 1973, 20 50min Colour episodes
• 5/ 12 Sept 1973 - 16 Jan 1974, 18 50min Colour episodes
• 6/ 4 Sept - 27 Nov 1974, 13 50min Colour episodes
• 7/ 27 Aug - 3 Dec 1975, 15 50min Colour episodes
• 8/ 8 Sept - 15 Dec 1976, 15 50min Colour episodes

Cast

• Stratford Johns
  Stratford Johns
  Stratford Johns, born Alan Edgar Stratford-Johns, was a popular British stage, film and television actor who is best remembered for his starring role as Detective Inspector Charlie Barlow in the innovative and long-running BBC police series Z-Cars, created by Troy Kennedy-Martin.-Early life:Johns...
  
    — DCS Charlie Barlow (1969-1972 / Series 1-4 / 56 episodes)
• Frank Windsor
  Frank Windsor
  Frank Windsor is an English actor, mainly on television.He attended Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall. He began his career on radio and made an appearance in a 1953 film of Henry V...
  
    — D Sup./DCS John Watt (1969-1976 / Series 1-8 / 123 episodes)
• Norman Bowler
  Norman Bowler
  Norman Clifford Bowler is a British actor.Born in London, son of a watch repairer in Mill Lane, NW6, he became a member of the 1950s Soho set alongside the likes of John Minton, Francis Bacon and Daniel Farson. There he met Henrietta Moraes, who divorced her first husband, Michael Law, and...
  
    — Insp./DI/CI/DCI Harry Hawkins (1969-1976 / Series 1-8 / 113 episodes)
• Walter Gotell
  Walter Gotell
  Walter Gotell was a German actor, known for his role as General Gogol, head of the KGB, in the James Bond film series.Gotell was born in Bonn, Germany; his family emigrated to the United Kingdom after the Nazis came to power...
  
    — Chief Con. Arthur Cullen (1969-1975 / Series 1-7 / 55 episodes)
• David Lloyd Meredith
  David Lloyd Meredith
  David Lloyd Meredith was a British actor. He came from a Welsh family background, but was born in London....
  
    — Sgt./DS/DI Bob Evans (1969-1976 / Series 1-8 / 106 episodes)
• David Allister  — Sgt./Insp Richard Jackson (1969-1971 / Series 1-2 / 22 episodes)
• Susan Tebbs  — P/W DC Betty Donald (1969-1971 / Series 1-2 / 26 episodes)
• Terence Rigby
  Terence Rigby
  Terence Christopher Rigby was an English actor with a number of film and television credits to his name. In the 1970s he was well-known as police dog-handler PC Snow in the long-running series Softly, Softly: Taskforce...
  
    — PC Henry Snow (1969-1976 / Series 1-8 / 83 episodes)
• Inky
  Inky
  Inky may refer to:* Inky , a character in the arcade game Pac-Man* Inky , to be stained with a liquid containing various pigments and/or dyes* Inky , who appeared on Softly Softly...
  
    — Inky
  Inky (tv police dog)
  Inky was a police dog who appeared in the British police drama Softly, Softly: Taskforce during 1969-70. His handler was PC Snow, played by Terence Rigby...
  
   (1969-70 / Series 1)
• Gay Hamilton
  Gay Hamilton
  Gay Hamilton is a Scottish actress. Her filmography notably includes Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and Ridley Scott's The Duellists. In the late 1960s/early 1970s, she was love interest and later wife of Detective Chief Superintendent John Watt in the TV series Softly, Softly and its Taskforce...
  
    - Dr. Jean Morrow/Watt (1970-1974 / Series 1-4, 6 / 12 episodes)
• Radar
  Radar
  Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
  
    — Radar (1970-72 / Series 2-3)
• Brian Hall
  Brian Hall (actor)
  Brian Charles Hall was an English actor perhaps best known for his role in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers where he played the hotel chef Terry.-Career:...
  
    — PC Ted Drake (1971-1972 / Series 3 / 16 episodes)
• Martin C. Thurley  — PC Knowles * (1972-1974 / Series 4-5 / 23 episodes)
• Grahame Mallard  — PC Terry Nesbitt (1972-1974 / Series 4-6 / 29 episodes)
• Nigel Humphreys
  Nigel Humphreys
  Nigel Humphreys is a British actor, best known for his television work.His most prominent roles include Dickie Fleming in Coronation Street and PC Pete Dodds in Softly, Softly: Taskforce....
  
    — PC Pete Dodds (1974-1975 / Series 6-7 / 20 episodes)
• Malcolm Rennie  — PC Ted Perry (1975 / Series 7 / 12 episodes)
• Philippa Howell  — WPC Betty Arthur (1975-1976 / Series 7-8 / 12 episodes)
• Peter Clough  — PC Joe Lincoln (1975-1976 / Series 7-8 / 17 episodes)
• Peter Childs
  Peter Childs (actor)
  Peter Childs was a British character actor who shot to fame playing Cockney Detective Sergeant Ronnie Rycott, nemesis of Arthur Daley in the top rated ITV series, Minder....
  
    — DS Donald Grant (1976 / Series 8 / 15 episodes)
• John Flanagan  — PC Will Pearson (1976 / Series 8 / 15 episodes)

Others -

• Terrence Hardiman - Insp. Thomas Armstrong (1971 / Series 2 / 7 episodes)
• Julie Hallam - P/W DC Maggie Forest (1971-1972 / Series 3 / 9 episodes)
• Heather Stoney - P/W DS Mary Green (1971-1973 / Series 3-4 / 9 episodes)
• Jenny Hanley
  Jenny Hanley
  Jenny Hanley is an English actress, the daughter of Dinah Sheridan and Jimmy Hanley.She remains best known for being one of the presenters of the ITV children's magazine programme Magpie....
  
   - Sara Jameison/Hawkins (1972-1975 / Series 4-7 / 8 episodes)
• John Franklyn-Robbins
  John Franklyn-Robbins
  John Franklyn-Robbins was a British actor. He appeared in the film The Golden Compass. Appearing in television series and feature films, his credits included:*I, Claudius *The Merchant of Venice...
  
   - CI/D Sup. Bill Adler (1972-1973 / Series 4 / 9 episodes)
• Warren Clarke
  Warren Clarke
  -Biography:Clarke was born in Oldham, Lancashire. His first television appearance was in the long running Granada soap opera Coronation Street, initially as Kenny Pickup in 1966 and then as Gary Bailey in 1968. His first major film appearance was in Stanley Kubrick's controversial A Clockwork...
  
  - DS Jack Stirling (1973 / Series 5 / 4 episodes)

* PC Knowles is never given a Christian name on-screen.