The Beiderbecke Affair

Set in and around Leeds in the North of England, Trevor Chaplin and Jill Swinburne are teachers in a typical secondary school. Trevor is a jazz freak whilst Jill is an eco-activist. They stumble across some nefarious goings on in the local community and with the help of some unlikely characters solve a tangled web of corruption.

The humor in this show is absolutely top notch both in situations and dialog and although I have seen it a couple of times, it never seems to get stale. I love this show.

This was not the first outing for Alan Plater's schoolteacher detectives, who in 1981's Get Lost had been played admirably by Alun Armstrong and Frances Tomelty. However no-one could quibble with the re-casting. James Bolam effortlessly nails each line of the arch dialogue, while the talented Barbara Flynn has that rare quality of looking both believably ordinary and incredibly fanciable. Some wonderful British character actors also get plenty of screen time in what is effectively an ensemble piece. Colin Blakely, Keith Marsh, Danny Schiller, Robert Longden and Keith Clarke all do sterling work, but special mention must be made of Dudley Sutton's tweedy schoolmaster and Terence Rigby's saturnine Big Al, while Dominic Jephcott was a real find as the callow university educated detective. A beautifully constructed series, that remains as pertinent as ever in a society increasingly disrespectful of privacy and intolerant of eccentricity.

Having seen several of the later series, my wife and I were looking forward to this (the series opener) and enjoyed it very much. The review provided on this web page could only have been written by an American. There is a world of difference between American humour, which is mainly action based, and British humour, which relies heavily on the dialogue. By fast forwarding through the first two hours, the reviewer could only have made his incomprehension worse! you cannot watch British movies like that. On the other hand, perhaps his copy, like ours, had the content for disc 3 on the CD that was labeled 'Disc 1' in which case he could be forgiven for getting confused.

So far as the characterization is concerned, yes they are a little larger than life, and a little unusual, but as an expatriate Brit., I find most depictions of Americans by American actors equally unbelievable, and frequently find myself asking, "Would that bloke really behave like that?" PS. I spell in English English.

I recently bought the DVD set of the Beiderbeck Trio - amazingly good stuff. The first one, the Beiderbeck Affair, was made thirty years ago and still retains all its charm and gentle humour.

It pokes fun at pomposity and and in particular "the system" without any expletives or stupidity, a difficult thing to do.

Every word of dialogue is beautifully delivered and every shot is nicely framed, especially the high-level shots.

The two remaining shows maintain the same features - a joy from start to finish. Wish it had been longer.

The additional info booklet was very interesting as were the interviews and the splendid CD of the music tracks.

I've had a heck of a time with this Beiderbecke series. I received the second disk of the Biederbecke Affair before the first, watched it without realizing it, and then received the first disk. Reading what I thought was the synopsis later, it didn't sound like the same story. That's when I found out about "The Biederbecke Tapes" which I guess I'll have to see.

I love James Bolam - this is probably 20 years before New Tricks. Here he plays Trevor Chaplin, a Bix Biederbecke jazz fanatic who teaches woodwork. He lives with a fellow teacher, Jill (Barbara Flynn) - she teaches English and is an eco-activist.

Trevor finds himself mixing with the lower end of society when he attempts to purchase some of his beloved Biederbecke records from a "dazzlingly beautiful platinum blond" who is selling mail order items.

He eventually meets Big Al and Little Norm and some people running a junior football team. Meanwhile, Jill decides to stand for office as a local councillor.

Meanwhile, there is a police detective following them around and suspecting them of all sorts of crime, keeping taped records. Meanwhile his supervisor thinks he's nuts.

I wish I could explain the story better, but I can't. It's a gentle show with some delightful and funny moments and it's about as odd as it gets. All to the soundtrack of Bix Beiderbecke. It's two somewhat ordinary people falling into weird situations. Inexplicably, I liked it.