Softly, Softly (TV series)
| Softly, Softly | |
|---|---|
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| Created by | Troy Kennedy Martin |
| Starring |
Stratford Johns Frank Windsor |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 120 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 50 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC1 |
| Original release | 5 January 1966 – 13 November 1969 |
Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It was created as a spin-off from the hugely successful series Z-Cars which ended its fifth series run in December 1965. The series took its name from the proverb "Softly, softly, catchee monkey", the motto of Lancashire Constabulary Training School..
Softly, Softly centred on the work of regional police crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern, supposedly in the Bristol area of England. It was designed as a vehicle for Detective Chief Inspector Charles Barlow and Detective Inspector John Watt (played by Stratford Johns and Frank Windsor respectively) from the police series Z-Cars, which had just finished its original run in December 1965 (no new episodes were produced in 1966 but it was revived in a different format the following year). Joining them in the early series was Robert Keegan as Blackitt, the police station sergeant from Z-Cars, now retired and acting as a freelance helper. The series introduced characters like Sgt Harry Hawkins (Norman Bowler) who would become very popular and well known.
Shorter-lived regular characters in the series early years included Alexis Kanner as DC Matt Stone. Although popular with audiences, Kanner appears to have alienated cast and crew with erratic behaviour during live recordings, and the character was dropped after only nine episodes. He later played the recalcitrant Number 48 in the final episode of The Prisoner.
The first two series continued the trend set by producer David Rose with Z-Cars, and transmitted the majority of episodes live. This was one of the last long-running British TV series to do this. From series three onwards all episodes were pre-recorded.
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