The Brothers

I had heard of The Brothers for years before I actually saw it. Luckily, Talking Pictures TV began their repeats of it on Thursday nights paired with the original Van Der Valk, which is top class scheduling.

The Brothers is the story of three brothers (the clue is in the title) who inherit a haulage business when their Dad dies, but they have to run it alongside his mistress, which causes tensions with the Mum. The characterisations are brilliant, particularly Alpha Male eldest brother Edward who wants things his way or not at all. His two younger brothers bring their own talents to the boardroom table too, and the prim, manipulative Mother orchestrates things from afar, gently influencing their professional and personal lives.

I love the wives in this - model Jill and vamp Ann Hammond. Ann is a forgotten gay icon, always with a cigarette, an arched eyebrow, and a waspish comment (and always in the midst of an affair). The old school Mother is well worth it too with her curiously dated diction and delicate accent. She's a piece of work on the quiet.

The boardroom scenes remind me of the "BUSINESS, MARJORIE!" sketches from A Bit Of Fry and Laurie, but they are good studies of class at the time. The Hammonds are working class done good, and Bill Riley is the uneasy working class guy who somehow found himself on the board. Above all of them are the bankers (notably Colin Baker), and you can really sense the Thatcher years on the horizon.

It really sucks you in, and it would be interesting to see it done nowadays.

It's great to see this show has been picked up for a re-run from Series 1 by Talking Pictures TV.

The children of a highly successful businessman fight to carry on the business, each with their own idea of how it should be run and ultimately seeking overall control. Various outsiders including rival entrepreneurs and financial whizzkids want a slice of the action. Add in the spice of a long-hidden illicit relationship, ongoing conflicts between hurt and betrayed parties, and you have a storyline which could easily find its place on mainstream TV today. No, it's not "Succession", but could easily be seen as a 1970's "ancestor" to that phenomenon.

The series is currently being shown on Talking Pictures - Sky 328 - and is still watchable all these years later. Unfortunately the viewing quality isn't as good on today's televisions, which are much larger than they were in the 1970's, but if you can see through that what you have is a very enjoyable series with lots of twists, turns and, of course, backstabbing.

In some ways this was a forerunner to such series such as Dallas and Dynasty, but they did take things to a higher level and The Brothers was set in the U. K. which hasn't got quite the same ring to it. Notwithstanding that, good characters, good acting and a good series.

I remember vividly how "The brothers" were an integral part of my family's life in the late 70's - Our town's public library held 50 copies of the book which followed the series, yet it was always out of copies! Jean Anderson was very good as the mother, cultivating her children's guilt feelings for "not paying enough attention to her". Patrick Occonnel is Edward, the oldest son which always tries to please her, Robin Chadwick is her youngest who handles the problem by running away from it, and Richard Easton is the sandwich kid trying desperately to remain calm. Naturally, in the midst of all these family bickering, the company, which is the reason they supposedly stick together despite it all, falls into the hands of others, led by the unforgettable Paul Merrony (Colin Baker). I wish there was more stuff about this show available on the web - Unfortunately I was unable to find any. It seems as though this show was undeservingly set aside and forgotten.

THUMBS UP!!!

'The Brothers' was a cut-price British precursor to 'Dallas' and 'Dynasty' set in the glamorous, cut-throat world of...truck haulage. This family saga was a BBC Sunday night fixture in the 1970's and acquired cult status, in amongst other countries, the Netherlands and Israel (as confirmed by another contributor). In each run the Hammond brothers faced domestic crises and attempted takeovers from ruthless business rivals - in successive series an abrasive Aussie played by Mark 'Taggart' McManus; the slimey Paul Merrony played by Colin Baker and a bizarre aircraft hire outfit run by the sultry Kate O'Mara and the sozzled Mike Pratt. The Brothers survived losing its leading man, Glynn Owen , early on and the fact that his replacement in the role of Ted Hammond, Edward O'Connell was nothing like him in appearance or character. O'Connell subsequently tried to quit the show to become a painter but was lured back. The beautiful Gabrielle Drake, wife of one of the brothers, quit between series and was promptly bumped off in an off-screen car crash. The show was held together by the redoubtable matriarch Mary Hammond, played by Jean Anderson (later in 'Tenko'), who was an excellent actress and a close friend in real life of her arch-enemy on the show, Jennifer, formerly her late husband's mistress and now married to her eldest son. The show finished rather abruptly while it was still very popular and you got the impression that any other TV station would have flogged the concept for several more series. The BBC later made a sort of camped-up version for the 1980's called 'Howard's Way', set in a boatyard.