By EWAN McDONALD
By the early 70s they'd tried just about every angle on the private detective series - odd-bloke couple, man-woman couple, down-at-heel guy in a dirty raincoat, three girls - when someone came up with a new one.
Two partners, real good friends but hey, one of them is dead! Well, not dead until halfway through the first episode, when he's mysteriously bumped off, comes back and tells his partner, who has to find out who murdered him.
Somehow the idea flew, despite the cheesy title in the United States - My Partner, The Ghost - and the slight problem of filming a ghost. Simple, they figured. We'll just dress him in white. Somehow, in those far-off days of black-and-white television, it seemed to work. For about two seasons, anyway, until someone came up with another idea. Probably about two guys called something really stupid like "Starsky" and "Hutch."
In Britain and Down Under the show was called Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased). Trivial pursuiters: it starred Mike Pratt as Jeff Randall and Kenneth Cope as his belated partner Marty Hopkirk. Annette Andre played Jeannie, Marty's wife.
For some reason it took off and has been shown somewhere in the world for the past 30 years; still is. For some stranger reason, it returns tonight in a new series starring Brit-comics Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, better known for sketch shows such as Vic Reeves' Big Night Out, Shooting Stars and The Fast Show.
In 1993 they joined the dear old BBC from the more anarchic Channel 4 and were asked what they would like to do.
"Revive Randall and Hopkirk," said one. "Jolly good," said the BBC, and sent out the Working Title production company to buy the rights. When the pair tossed for the roles, Reeves got the white suit. (And in tonight's first episode on TV One at 8.30, a couple of extremely stylish full-length leather coats into the bargain.)
With little updating, the show retains its high-camp feel. The one character who's been brought into the latter part of the 20th century is Hopkirk's fiancée, Jeannie, played by Emilia Fox, better known here for BBC period dramas such as Rebecca, David Copperfield and Pride and Prejudice. That wasn't a hard casting decision - at the time she was engaged to Reeves - but it did mean some heavy work in the gym. "Jeannie's an action girl. She's not just kidnapped or saved. She's like a Bond girl or Purdey in The New Avengers," Fox recalls.
The writer was also close at hand: Charlie Higson, who'd written and appeared in The Fast Show.
"The series proved remarkably easy to update, I only really looked at Episode 1 of the original and used the basic elements. I think that with programmes like The X-Files being so popular, people accept weird things happening. We've set the new series in the present day and in the real world, but it is all very stylish and stylised, and is set one step away from docu-soap reality. It's a big, escapist, fantasy/adventure series and has been a lot of fun to make."
And in the small world of Britcool, Reeves and Mortimer even convinced Pulp to write the theme - My Body May Die - and then to record it with 60s lounge-warblers the Swingle Singers.
But is it any good? Well, the critics were sceptical but it rated well on a Saturday night in Britain and the BBC have commissioned a second series, now in production.
Of course, the same thing happened to another show back in 1970...
TV: Randall and Hopkirk revived
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