Dick Barton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dick Barton - Special Agent was a popular radio program on the BBC Light Programme from 1946 to 1951.
Dick Barton was the BBC’s first daily serial, airing at 6.45 each weekday evening. It featured ex-Commando Captain Richard Barton (Noel Johnson) who, with his mates Jock Anderson (Alex McCrindle) and Snowey White (John Mann) solved all sorts of crimes, escaped from dangerous situations and saved the nation from disaster time and again - all with no sex, alcohol, violence or swearing. At its peak it had an audience of 15 million.
Its memorable signature tune is called Devil's Gallop by Charles Williams.
The scripts were written by Edward J. Mason and Geoffrey Webb and, listened to today in the 21st century can seem very hackneyed and cliched, almost to the point of parody. It laid rise to a popular catchphrase of the late forties "With one bound Dick was free!" which made light of the fact that no matter how dangerous the cliffhanging situation Dick found himself in every evening, he would always escape by the easiest - and usually most contrived - method. The BBC, conscious that the biggest audience for the programme was schoolboys, wrote a strict code of what Dick and chums could and couldn't do, one clause famously stating "Sex plays no part in his adventures."
However, in 1951 "The Archers" was first broadcast at 11.45 am on the Light Programme (later reconstituted into the still extant BBC Radio 2). "The Archers" proved so popular that poor old Dick was killed off, in order to make way for this "Every day story of country folk",taking over his slot at Easter 1951. When Jock Gallagher became head of the Midland Region of BBC Radio in the early 1970's, he said that he had always hated "The Archers" because it killed off his boyhood hero, Dick Barton. As "The Archers" was then going through a (very) bad spot, with tedious storylines and poor scripts, he was only half joking.
In 1979, Southern Television, which, despite being one of the smallest and least influential of the ITV Network Companies, had secured itself a strong reputation for adapting old literary sources for modern television audiences. Their greatest success was "Worzel Gummidge" an updated version of Barbara Euphan Todd's much loved character with an excellent central performance from Jon Pertwee. Riding on the back of the success of this and an updated version of Enid Blyton's "Famous Five", Southern made a series of "Dick Barton - Special Agent" which ran in an early evening slot on the ITV Network.
Like the original, it ran in 15 minute segments and was again accompanied by the iconic theme tune, the titles playing against an animated dagger and target motif. Sadly, the spark was fitful and the production blighted by financial troubles (Southern Television lost its franchise shortly afterwards). Some critics said that it was a mistake to try to resurrect Dick, one going so far as to say that Dick, dressed in his long mac and trilby hat, looked more like a dirty old man than a crimefighter.
The problem with this revival was a lack of consistancy in its style. The stories were deliberately ridiculous in the style of the original series (such as the episode "The Case of the Missing House" in which a secret weapon is devised that can turn a house into rubble from a distance) but the cast never seemed to be able to gauge how to play it; had they played it in the deliberately, wonderfully tongue-in-cheek style of The Avengers (spoof British espionage series, 1961 - 1969) it could have worked, but the cast took it all deadly seriously, which simply made the series look silly and po-faced without a "camp" or "kitsch" element to reprieve it.
Rumours abounded about a revival, with actor Nigel Havers being tipped for the role, but to date this has come to nothing.
However, a stage musical, Dick Barton, Special Agent, was written by Phil Wilmott and productions toured Britain between 1998 and 2001. Following its success, a futher five "episodes" were written and performed between 1999 and 2004, and the next installment, Young Dick Barton is due to premiere at the Warehouse Theatre, Croydon in December 2006.
