Callan – Red Knight, White Knight

Contemporary viewers had quite a gap between the first and second series of Callan. You Should Have Got Here Sooner had been broadcast in August 1967 but Red Knight, White Knight didn’t appear on screens until January 1969 – despite recording having concluded 6 months earlier in July 1968.

This was largely all down to what happened at ITV in 1968.

‘Independent television’ was not really a single monolithic channel at this point. When a commercial television channel was proposed for the UK, rather than one company having a monopoly, it was decided that it would be better to encourage competition. This would, theoretically, encourage higher quality productions.

As a result, independent television was divided along regional lines and companies would have to bid for the ‘franchise’ for a region. Some of these franchises were operated for 7 days a week, while other regions were split across weekdays and weekends (usually ones with bigger populations because they equalled bigger advertising revenue).

Basically, depending on where you lived, your ITV programmes would be scheduled and broadcast by different companies, which meant the programmes you saw in North East England could be slightly different to those in London or the Midlands etc. If you did see the same programmes, they might be on at different times or on different days. These different companies all made programmes too and they could exchange them with one another – competition.

The ITV regional franchises came up for renewal in mid-1968, and there were a few changes. The first two series of Callan were made by ABC Television (the weekend broadcaster in the Midlands). ABC was – alongside Rediffusion London (the weekday broadcaster in London) – about to morph into Thames Television (who would become the new weekday broadcaster in London). Thames would employ many of the same staff and chose to continue producing some of ABC’s programmes. Callan had already gone into production at the start of 1968 – before the changes took place – and was announced as part of Thames’ new programming in May.

15 new episodes of Callan were all finished just as Thames was preparing to go on the air at the end of July 1968. However, the first series hadn’t been seen as a huge success – it had averaged 4.8 million viewers – and there wasn’t a great deal of enthusiasm or optimism for the show internally. A year on from the first series, the second still didn’t have a broadcast date. It would eventually be announced as part of Thames’ new year line up for 1969.

And its ratings would double.

This episode is very much a reintroduction for viewers and we get a wonderful first scene to meet Callan himself. After he walks in and watches new recruit Truman firing in the shooting gallery, the camera moves in on Callan and almost does a full 180°, swinging around behind him as he takes out his own gun, says, “You’ll have to do better than that, mate,” and we see the view down the gallery as he fires several excellent shots. It’s smooth, confident and really rather cool.

It’s quickly clear that there is plenty of change in how things will be done – for both the show and the Section. This is less surprising when you’re aware that there had been some changes behind-the-scenes, including Reginald Collin and John Kershaw coming in as, respectively, Associate Producer and Executive Producer, replacing Lloyd Shirley and Terence Feely. It becomes apparent that they wanted to find ways to develop the series further.

Hunter’s secretary now has a face, instead of just a voice at the end of a phone or intercom. On the one hand I quite liked the mysteriousness this gave her, keeping more of the Section truly secretive, but on the other she gets to become a much more fleshed out character. Here, she’s a tad put out that she has been asked to sort coffee (“It doesn’t come around until 11, sir,”) but does offer to see about some. I’m delighted we can infer that the Section offices probably have a tea lady.

There are smaller nods to change too, with the new Hunter berating his secretary (still without a name) for placing files out (“My predecessor had his rules, I have mine.”), and the programme’s new sets are acknowledged by a simple line from Callan to Meres: “Hallo – Charlie boy moved office, has he?”

 

A New Hunter

After the brief scene in the shooting gallery, our reintroduction to Callan continues – but via the new Hunter (Michael Goodliffe). He’s learning about the Section and its operatives with Meres, which enables the audience too as well. This is certainly needed because, regardless of the delayed scheduling, Callan hadn’t had a huge amount of publicity. There was nothing ahead of the new series, so, aside from word-of-mouth, new viewers probably had little idea about the show’s set-up and characters.

From the present day, I’m aware that few series really do reintroductions anymore because viewers are expected to catch up from series 1, episode 1 through ITVX, iPlayer etc. There are few dramas from the last few years where I’ve chosen to just jump in at the start of series 2’s broadcast even though I missed series 1. There is a certain amount of cause-and-effect to that too: modern programmes have more cross-series continuity and know that the majority of the audience can follow it because they are likely to have seen every single episode of the show. Reintroductions just aren’t as essential.

We do have some long-running dramas in the 21st century that are more conscious of the need though. Doctor Who (1963-) is an obvious one that regularly changes its leads and gives new views an ‘in’. I also managed to easily pick up the ongoing relationships in Silent Witness (1996-) a few years ago as I started watching just as a new character joined the team. All 20+ series might be on iPlayer, but the production team were right to assume I wasn’t going to catch up on them all. I wish a few more shows encouraged me to just join the new series in this way.

Reviewing Callan’s file with Meres, the new Hunter focusses on his criminal past and “dubious circle of acquaintances”. He doesn’t reference Callan’s army career initially, perhaps because this is still an era when most men were expected to have done some sort of military service. We do see the change in this in Callan with younger characters like the trainee, Truman. He is only in his twenties and therefore too young to have done National Service, and Callan has to show him how to hold a gun properly.

Yet interestingly Edward Woodward didn’t do National Service as he was already committed to his acting career. Production designer Neville Green later told The Callan File’s authors that Woodward “didn’t seem to know how to hold a revolver”, so Reginald Collin sent him off to the cinema to watch The Ipcress File (1965) and see how the characters held a gun (We’re a couple of years on from the film’s release, but I don’t think we can discount this recollection – the film could have been reshown or perhaps mixed up with one of its sequels like Billion Dollar Brain (1967)).

 

The safest place for you, for all of us probably, is in the Section

Meres has been crawling with the new Hunter – his repetitious, “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” sets up the contrast that follows when Callan enters and uses his standard colloquialism of “mate”. There are only a couple of ‘mates’ in the camera script for this scene so, ahead of Hunter chiding Callan for it, it seems a couple more were added during rehearsals. This includes one that shows Callan’s ‘mate’ habit established in his first scene in the shooting gallery, with the original line being, “You’ll have to do better than that, son.”

I’d be tempted to argue that Callan’s ‘mates’ feel almost overdone in this scene, except they’re used far less than Meres’ ‘sirs’ – making dear Toby look even more obsequious. Importantly too, that first use now isn’t addressed to Hunter, so the script changes make it clear that ‘mate’ really is just part of Callan’s vocabulary and isn’t solely him being insolent (although it still is a tad).

It’s been a while since I’ve watched this and I remembered Callan’s relationship with Hunter Mark II being more convivial than Mark I. Yet this Hunter also initially appears cold, removed, and nasty. He very casually threatens to have Callan sent back inside – something the previous Hunter never actually did (although we know he did let it happen to another agent). Perhaps this is only because it generally suited him to keep Callan on the outside (of prison and the Section), but nonetheless it quickly demonstrates that this Hunter can also be a nasty bastard to get what he wants.

There is some ice broken between them. When Hunter offers a cigarette, Callan seems to acknowledge that there has been an attempt to break the tension. He doesn’t snap, but quietly turns it down and says he doesn’t smoke. By the episode’s final act Callan will be saving this man’s life. It’s hard to imagine him ever doing that for Hunter Mark I.

We get no mention of Callan’s former employment with the greengrocer and never learn exactly when he left that job. We can assume it’s how he was paying the bills still during series 1, but even that isn’t clear. It certainly doesn’t seem to be what he’s doing now, else surely the Section would know. When Hunter asks, Callan tells him he’s not on the dole and he’s ok for money, but Hunter refutes this, barking back, “My information is otherwise.”

It seems likely that Callan might be between jobs or doing ad hoc work of some sort. However he’s been earning his bread, Hunter’s assertion that “you know more of the workings of this department than is healthy for a man in need of money” is quite fair. A regular wage from the Section and, perhaps, the departure of the Colonel seem like the greater motivations for Callan being willing to come back into the Section’s fold.

 

Meres and Callan

The change in command creates the opportunity for a relaxation in the relationship between Meres and Callan. They are both the schoolboys dealing with a new headmaster, banding together to suss him out.

Meres and Hunter often came as a pair in the first series, and Callan and Meres actually had few scenes together – they seemed to loathe one other from a distance. Bringing them together more often helps to expand Meres’ character and to an extent show the differences between them, such as in this episode when Meres unnecessarily hits their Russian prisoner – Bunin’s tail – with Callan sighing, “What’s the point?”

But, more valuable to me, is that some of their scenes can now be a little lighter a little more often. Rather than just plot progression or aggressive one-upmanship, there will be more opportunities for banter between them.

Callan: “You’re a right bastard, you are. You might have warned me.

Meres: “That wouldn’t have been nearly so much fun. Knowing your gift for diplomacy, I thought I’d let you handle him in your own charming, characteristic way.”

We’ll still be reminded now and then that dear Toby and David detest one another, but there will be more to it than that.

 

I bet he’s never been out in the field. He doesn’t know how bloody cold it gets out there.

We ended the first series with a British man who wanted to defect to the Russians, so it feels a suitable balance that we now get a Russian who (apparently) wants to defect to Britain. Series 1 actually gave us relatively little Cold War wrangling, but we’ll get a tad more from now on.

There had been well-known defections from West to East over the previous decade, with MI6 agents Kim Philby and George Blake being among the most notorious – and Callan had already taken inspiration from Blake’s prison escape for You Should Have Got Here Sooner. Inevitably, there would also be some agents coming in the other direction.

Eastern Bloc defectors probably felt even more topical for 1969’s viewers than the production team could have intended. While the second series was in production the Prague Spring was kicking off, with demands for greater freedoms in the country. The USSR ultimately invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968. There were several high profile defections, including Jan Šejna, an army general who fled to the US. There were attempts to extradite him back, which were refused. There had been numerous others prior to this though, including Joseph Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva, who published her memoirs in 1967.

The Bunin plot for Red Knight, White Knight is a good choice for this opening episode. It helps to get rid of the first series’ device of Callan having to be forced onto a morally suspect mission. The fact Callan knows Bunin provides some additional intrigue as Callan immediately knows he can’t trust him – and he knows just how good he is.

Here, we’re just told that they were “too good for each other” and “it was a stand-off”, but Bunin is referenced in James Mitchell’s novelisation of A Magnum for Schneider, published in October 1969 (and later republished with the title Red File For Callan). There, we learn that “Bunin had put a bullet through his shoulder: it still ached on cold, damp days” which would certainly make Callan particularly cautious.

As well as the early tense scene with Callan in Hunter’s office, we get a few claustrophobic ones – first with Callan looking after Bunin, then later looking after Hunter alongside Meres. It builds to a nice, tense climax where Callan is noticeably jumpy – with good reasons. It’s the first time he’s been on a job for the Section in a long time. It’s also the first time in a while that he’s known he’ll probably have to try to kill someone else – and he already knows just how good Bunin is, having tried and failed to kill him once before. Despite his nerves, Callan is the only one who doesn’t take a whisky, which is in keeping with his rule about not drinking on a job.

He must have nine lives, mate

The climax, when Callan notices one small movement from Hunter’s ‘driver’, all happens very fast. The characters are quiet and cautious. We have the stillness of a cold winter’s day as Meres and then Hunter step outside the safehouse. There is the quiet of an early morning and all we hear are the birds tweeting. Meres doesn’t say anything to Hunter: he simply gestures. And Hunter doesn’t say anything back: he just nods. Callan is still inside and, looking at the car’s wing mirror, spots Bunin’s hand go to his inside pocket.

It’s all so sudden, so quick, and really well done. We cut to the car wing mirror, crash zoom on the hand in pocket, cut to Callan’s realisation. He drops a newspaper, runs to a window, smashes it and fires multiple times. The smash is loud, the gunshots are loud and the birds explode in a cacophony of noise too as Bunin slumps over. Cut to a shocked Hunter, cut back to a calm Callan, with the gun smoke slowly dissipating as he stands behind the cracked window in a shot that has a near-resemblance to the show’s title sequence.

Hunter brushes off this attempt on his life very nonchalantly, asking Callan to clear up and remembering to shout, “Thank you!” as his car drives off. All we know about Hunter Mark II is that he’s come from the Foreign Office and was a Balkan specialist during the war, and this calmness does make you wonder what else he was doing before becoming Hunter.

One of the best things about this story is that having the Section deal with a defector who is out to kill the new Hunter keeps everything nice and intimate with the regulars. We get to spend far more time with this new Hunter than we would expect in an ordinary episode, we get to establish Callan and Meres’ relationship, and there’s time to bring Lonely in too. The new Hunter queries who the hell Lonely is, which is another chance to fill the audience in. We’ve got our new set-up and we’re even starting to be treated to a tad more location work. Where else could we go?