I Shall Just Ask For South By South East No More

It was over four years ago now that I used the blog to ask a question that had been puzzling me for over a decade before that: Why was the television adaptation of the third Diamond Brothers novel by Anthony Horowitz so obscure that no visual record of it existed?

I'd hoped I could find some listings, maybe some continuity relating to it. I didn't know how likely it was that I'd be able to see all six episodes in their entirety, but as the saga went on and on, turning up more and more mysteries in its wake -- most notably the question of whether the series was an adaptation of the book or the book was a novelisation of the series -- I grew more and more confident that there was a copy out there I'd be able to see some day.

And then, in December 2021, Neil James got in touch to let me know that in his attic he had a VHS recording he'd made of the original (and only) CITV broadcasts from April 1991. Retrieving it, he found out we were in business -- it was in pretty good condition for an off-air recording that was approaching its 31st birthday. All he needed to do was digitise it, and I suggested Simon Drake, who had previously provided me with a digital copy of the extended VHS cut of the 1988 movie that preceded the television series, might be able to help out.

We then discovered a truly bizarre coincidence. Although he didn't know he was interested in the Diamond Brothers, Neil already knew Simon. In fact, the day before, they'd been to the cinema together... which certainly made things much simpler.

The VHS was digitised. Simon smoothed out some picture and audio glitches. Yesterday, he sent over copies of all six episodes, and at last I was able to see this TV series I'd been banging on about for so long, and I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am to Neil and Simon for making that possible.

And in the process, some mysteries were solved, but a few more cropped up. I am working on a longer piece, which I plan to take the form of a comprehensive episode guide, but let's tackle some of the questions we can now answer, and the new ones that we can't just yet.

The first thing to say: The series is genuinely really good! Horowitz directs it really well, with some striking shots (some are probably direct lifts from Hitchcock films that I didn't catch on the first viewing, but they're still really well done) -- the chase through the wheat field that forms the cliffhanger to episode 4 in particular is excellent. Dursley McLinden's comic timing sticks out, and highlights what a terrible loss to the world his tragically early death was. I had a really great time watching this -- in the context that it was followed by the third series of Press Gang the week after, CITV had some amazing talent working for it that year.

One of the biggest mysteries surrounding the series is: Is it an adaptation of the book, or is the book a novelisation? Based on a couple of things I picked up on, I am now absolutely certain the answer is the latter.

To wit: The first episode opens with a sequence of McGuffin (who was played by Michael Howe) trying to evade his two killers, known only by the nicknames "Scarface" and "Bulldog" (the latter was "Ugly" in the book), in a market in Camden -- a sequence which isn't in the book, for reasons we'll get onto. During this, the two killers are briefly held up by a charity collector -- who is collecting for the same charity as Charon was when they posed as one to assassinate Ernest Lemon, a character who is only in the 1991 version of the book, and not the TV series. So that is either meant to have been foreshadowing for a plot strand that ended up getting cut, or a reference to a plot strand that had been cut. There is also a remnant of this sequence in the book: the very first page notes that McGuffin is being chased by "two Dutch assassins", even though they never appear at that point in the book and McGuffin is actually killed by Charon!

Later, in episode 2, when Tim and Nick are taken to MI6, in the TV series Mr. Waverly wrongly believes that Tim is the secret agent known only as Eighty-Six, who is working for the Dutch Secret Service; in both versions of the text, Waverley knows exactly who Tim is. This was a change that, having only been described to me previously, stumped me until I saw the series for myself. But once you've seen it, it's quite simple: the scene where Waverly comes to the conclusion that Tim is really Eighty-Six is a scene that Nick isn't in. And the book, like all the other entries in the series, is written in the first person from Nick's point of view -- so that scene, as with the earlier sequence with McGuffin, is impossible to adapt. So the book has to do something different.

* * *

After Tim and Nick's brush with MI6, the following events take place:

What happens in the TV series: Tim and Nick go back to the police and persuade them to investigate; returning to where the MI6 building was with Snape and Boyle, they find it's been replaced with a bird shop called Bodega Birds, and Tim and Nick end up getting thrown into prison again, this time for two days. During their prison stay, Charon breaks into their flat disguised as a milkman and puts a bomb into Tim's suitcase. Returning home after being released, Tim discovers a letter for a job interview as Head of Security at the Canadian Bank. Just before entering the bank building for the interview, Tim notes to Nick that he can hear ticking even though there's no clock, but Nick doesn't work things out fast enough to stop him from going in.

What happens in both versions of the book: Returning home after being released, Tim discovers a letter for a job interview as Head of Security at the Canadian Bank. On the bus to the interview with Nick, Tim briefly misplaces his briefcase and it's handed back to him by a stranger. After Tim goes into the bank building for the interview, Nick plays back the events in his head and realises that the stranger must have been Charon, and also that he could hear ticking even though there wasn't a clock after the suitcase was handed back.

Again, since in the TV series the bomb was planted outside of Nick's POV, it had to be changed for the book. (There are several other scenes that aren't adapted for the book because Nick isn't around to see them happen; notably, we actually see McGuffin get shot in the series, and there are several scenes with Snape and Boyle in the second half of the series that are completely cut out in print, as well as a very strange scene in episode 3 where Kusenov is delivered to MI6 in a crate.)

* * *

There are also a couple of other changes that seem to be down to concerns over violence, or the original being unfilmable. During the sequence on the train to Dover, in the 1991 book Tim throws the handcuffs out of the window, and he, Nick and Charlotte actually see Snape and Boyle spot them as they're thrown out and realise they've been tricked. In the TV series, Snape and Boyle come across them on the ground after the train has left, and Charlotte predicts that Snape and Boyle will find the handcuffs and realise they've been tricked. Tim and Nick jumping off the train is also not shown; there's a dramatic sting after Tim says "You don't want me to jump?", the close-up of his face is held as footage of the train moving at top speed is faded in, and we dissolve to Tim and Nick after they've jumped off the train.

In all three versions, when Tim and Nick travel to Amsterdam to meet Eighty-Six, real name Hugo Rushmore, he tells them to meet him again by the ice-rink later that evening. In both versions of the book, Tim and Nick attend the rendezvous only to find that Rushmore has been stabbed with a pair of ice-skates; this appears to have been deemed unacceptably violent, since in the TV series things happen very differently: Before they can meet with Rushmore, Tim phones Charlotte (something which happens after they discover Rushmore has been killed in the book), who asks to meet them in Flevoland in an hour, and they decide to make that appointment instead of the one with Rushmore. Back at the ice-rink, a cleaner is cleaning the changing rooms when she notices a pool of red liquid coming from one of the cubicles... which turns out to be from a crushed juice-box. She leaves, failing to notice that the pair of ice-skates in the rubbish bin still have a pair of legs sticking out of them.

Finally, in both versions of the book, after Charon's two lieutenants are arrested, MI6 wrongly believe that one of them is Charon because he only has nine fingers, but Nick realises that's because one of the MI6 agents shot the tenth one off when they arrested him; this is not the case in the TV series, where Waverly is only certain that Kusenov is now safe from Charon because he's under round-the-clock protection, not because Charon has now been arrested.

For all those reasons, I believe my original theory to have been correct: The original 1991 text is based on the earliest version of the screenplay Horowitz wrote, and does not take into account changes made later on before filming happened. Unless anything else comes out, I consider the matter closed: the book of South by South East is indeed a novelisation of the TV series, not the other way around.

* * *

The other mystery to tackle is the now infamous transmission error that afflicted episode 3, which resulted in 20 minutes of presenters Tommy Boyd and Neil Buchanan ad-libbing whilst ITV unsuccessfully tried to mend the fault. Now, this can't be seen on Neil J's copy, because when he was making the original recording in 1991 he successfully managed to splice together the interrupted 9 April transmission of episode 3 and the 16 April airing of the missing bit; apart from the fact that episode 3 has no end credits, it looks totally seamless, and I can't even work out where the fault occurred.

But before episode 3 starts, Neil's copy does have a few seconds of CITV continuity introducing the episode. And look at it.

So, Mr. Buchanan, you appear to be wearing an Art Attack sweater. And a quick glance at Wikipedia says that the second series of Art Attack had started the previous week; that started on the 1st April, and the fateful day when CITV attempted to broadcast episode 3 of SBSE was the 9th April. And you also aren't on any other CITV continuity links, either for this show, or anywhere else I can find.

So, the conclusion is: Neil Buchanan wasn't actually presenting CITV when the breakdown happened. He was just there to promote Art Attack, and got roped into filling the dead air when the transmission fault occurred.

There is another interesting side-effect of the way ITV dealt with the breakdown. On 16 April, they first showed the missing chunk of episode 3 with opening titles but no end credits, then episode 4 with no opening titles. However, the end credits for episode 4 were not redone -- so anyone who was only in episode 3 was totally out of luck, as they received no onscreen credit at all!

Marcia Warren is an exception to this, as she received billing in the opening credits, but this leaves the actors who played the other residents of the guest house, Mr. Innocent of Young & Innocent, the deliveryman who delivers Kusenov to MI6, and the ticket inspector as yet unidentified. Do you recognise these men? If so, please leave a comment:

Mr. Blondini

Mr. Webber

Mr. Ferguson

Mr. Innocent

The Deliveryman (right)

The Ticket Inspector

There are also three police officers in the episode -- Harrison and Carter, who accompany Snape and Boyle to the guest house (note Snape and Boyle aren't present in the equivalent scene in either version of the book), and the one Tim asks for directions at the train station. Harrison and Carter are the ones in uniform here:

Harrison, the one on the left, has dialogue, but Carter is just an extra. The one at the train station looks like this, but his only dialogue is offscreen and sounds not only suspiciously unlike how a man of his apparent age should sound, but also suspiciously similar to Harrison's earlier, so I'm inclined to think it's ADR:

So... I think that's enough for now, but there is much, much more coming in the future. I cannot overstate how grateful I am to Neil and Simon to have finally achieved the blog's goal of seeing this show, and look forward to that much, much more immensely. A few other notes to be going on with:

• It's not occurred to me before, but Michael Feast and Gordon Winter (Snape and Boyle) appear to have been cast at least partly for their resemblance to Bill Paterson and Jimmy Nail, who played the roles in the film.
• The Hitchcock impersonator is credited as "Discreet Appearance by Ron Burrage".
• In the book (1991 version only), Tim attempts to demonstrate that the knives used in the magic trick are fake by picking one of them up and stabbing one of the MI6 agents with it... but in the series, he accidentally picks up Scarface's knife. Given the magic knives in the TV series are massive, I wonder if the production didn't realise how big they'd be and this was worked out on the day when they realised it was impractical to shoot the intended version.
• With regards to the TV series' alternate ending, which eschews the elaborate sequence at the funfair in favour of Charon being ambushed in the Brothers' flat when she comes to kill them: I'd always previously assumed this was solely down to content, but I wonder if timing might have been an issue too, as there's less than five minutes to go by the time it starts, and a significant difference in the TV version is that Tim and Nick have already worked out Charlotte is Charon before she even turns up again. (The two versions do share some dialogue, most notably the line "You ruined everything... you and your interfering little brother...")