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Gerard Glaister

Directing

Biography

One of Britain's foremost television producers, Gerard Glaister was responsible for a string of top rating hit series including Dr Finlay's Casebook, Secret Army, Colditz, The Expert and Howard's Way. Glaister was born in 1915, the son of a Royal Navy surgeon. He studied acting at RADA and made his West End acting debut in 1939 before serving in the RAF. During the war he was the skipper of a Blenheim bomber and then became a photo reconnaisance pilot in the Western Desert, where he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. After being demobbed he worked in repertory before joining the BBC as a director in 1957. He worked for nine years on BBC's Dr Finlay's Casebook, the Scottish medical drama which starred Bill Simpson and Andrew Cruickshank. In 1968 he produced the BBC2 drama series, The Expert, which featured Marius Goring as a pathologist helping police with their investigations. Glaister produced more than 30 television series and in his later career he both produced and devised the air freight company series Buccaneer (1980) and Trainer (1991), a BBC weekly drama in which a young trainer tries to succeed in the competitive world of horse racing. Shortly after Trainer finished Glaister retired from television.

Known For

Secret Army
7.7

World War II drama about covert organisation Lifeline helping allied airmen escape after being shot down in occupied Europe, working with the Resistance and hiding from the Gestapo.

Secret Army

1977
Howards' Way
5.7

The BBC's answer to Dynasty, Howards' Way was launched in 1985 with an enormous 1 million pound budget. The main characters in the show were 'best boat designer in the world' Tom Howard, his boutique running wife Jan Howard, 'I'll have a drink' Jack Rolfe and a nasty man called Ken Masters. It starred Maurice Colbourne.

Howards' Way

1985
Dr. Finlay's Casebook
6.7

Dr Finlay's Casebook is a BBC television series that was broadcast from 1962 until 1971. Based on A. J. Cronin's novella Country Doctor, the storylines centred on a general medical practice in the fictional Scottish town of Tannochbrae during the late 1920s.

Dr. Finlay's Casebook

1962
Maigret
7.1

BBC series based on the novels by Georges Simenon which starred Rupert Davies as Inspector Maigret, a French police detective who preferred to watch and listen in order to solve crimes. The series ran from 1960-63 on British television.

Maigret

1960
The Expert
9.0

The Expert is a British television series produced by the BBC between 1968 and 1976. The series starred Marius Goring as Dr. John Hardy, a pathologist working for the Home Office and was essentially a police procedural drama, with Hardy bringing his forensic knowledge to solve various cases. The Expert was created and produced by Gerard Glaister. The series was also one of the first BBC dramas to be made in colour, and throughout its four series had numerous high quality guest appearances by actors such as John Carson, Peter Copley, Rachel Kempson, Peter Vaughan, Clive Swift, Geoffrey Palmer, Peter Barkworth, Jean Marsh, Ray Brooks, George Sewell, Anthony Valentine, Bernard Lee, Lee Montague, Geoffrey Bayldon, Mike Pratt, Edward Fox, André Morell, Brian Blessed, Nigel Stock, Philip Madoc and Warren Clarke.

The Expert

1968
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6.0

Open Air was BBC1's flagship programme for their new daytime service which began on 27 October 1986. It discussed all aspects of television and also tried to answer any questions which viewers had.

Open Air

1986
Colditz
7.5

Colditz is a British television series co-produced by the BBC and Universal Studios and screened between 1972 and 1974. The series deals with Allied prisoners of war imprisoned at the supposedly escape-proof Colditz Castle when designated Oflag IV-C during World War II, and their many attempts to escape captivity, as well as the relationships formed between the various nationalities and their German captors.

Colditz

1972
The Fourth Arm
6.5

Starring Paul Shelley in a role reminiscent of his Secret Army character in all but name, this 12-part serial follows a team of secret agents parachuted into occupied Europe during World War II, exploring their recruitment, training, and first mission behind enemy lines.

The Fourth Arm

1983
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8.0

Codename, which premiered in April 1970, was about the secretive MI17 Spy Organisation of the same name based in the residential hall of a Cambridge College. Eventually the series attained a more international flavour, although its base was always in Great Britain. Primarily Codename dealt with the themes of espionage and counter-espionage at the time of the Cold War of the sixties. Its cast contained many of Great Britain's most versatile and talented actors.

Codename

1970
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6.0

Buccaneer is a short-lived television series, made by the BBC in 1979–80, and broadcast over 13 weeks in April–July 1980. The series, about a developing air freight business, starred Bryan Marshall, Pamela Salem and Clifford Rose, and was produced by Gerard Glaister. The aircraft that "starred" in the series was a Bristol Britannia of Redcoat Air Cargo, registration G-BRAC, which wore the markings of "Redair", the name of the fictional airline in the series. Only one series was produced due to the Bristol Britannia G-BRAC crash near Boston, Mass., on 16 February 1980, shortly after the completion of filming. Of the eight passengers, seven were killed, and only one survived, albeit seriously injured.

Buccaneer

1980
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7.0

A completely lost BBC1 drama series centred on the King family, who love, live, fight and work around a harbour in the Thames estuary.

King of the River

1966
Kessler
7.0

Drama series about the attempts to unmask Ludwig Kessler, the fictional head of the Gestapo in Belgium from the series SECRET ARMY, who escaped punishment, changed his name to Manfred Dorf, and became a successful businessman.

Kessler

1981
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5.5

The Revenue Men is a British television series, produced and transmitted by the BBC between 1967 and 1968. The series dealt with cases handled by the Investigation Branch of Customs and Excise such as the illegal import of goods, illegal immigration and business transactions amongst travellers. The Revenue Men was produced by Gerard Glaister. The series lasted for three series and 39 episodes in total. In spite of this fact, all of the episodes were later wiped, with no episodes extant in the BBC archives as of 2009.

The Revenue Men

1967
The Long Chase
10.0

A father-son birdwatching outing becomes a widespread mystery when teenage John Corby—after coming to the aid of neighbour Susan Fraser—finds that his father Tom has vanished.

The Long Chase

1972
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7.0

Cold Warrior is a 1984 BBC One television series written by Arden Winch, based around the character of Captain Aubrey Percival (Michael Denison), first introduced in the 1981 thriller serial Blood Money. Moving away from the serial format of Blood Money and Skorpion, Cold Warrior consists of eight standalone episodes, which sees Percival dealing with various threats to national security.

Cold Warrior

1984
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N/A

No description available.

The Men From Room 13

1959
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7.0

An anthology of self-contained stories about acts of resistance in occupied Europe during the Second World War. Producer Gerard Glaister drew upon his own wartime experiences, having served as a pilot in the RAF.

Moonstrike

1963
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N/A

In wartime, an English spy must go into neutral territory to murder a fellow-Englishman who has been working for the enemy.

The Traitor

1959
Oil Strike North
7.5

Oil Strike North is a BBC television drama series produced in 1975. The series was created and produced by Gerard Glaister and dealt with life on Nelson One, a North Sea oil rig owned by the fictional company Triumph Oil. Eschewing the corporate power struggles of Mogul / The Troubleshooters and concentrating on more personal storylines, Oil Strike North was essentially a character study of how workers faced life on the rig and the impact it had on the lives of their families and loved ones. The scenario was later revived by the BBC for the mid-1990s drama Roughnecks. Oil Strike North lasted for one series of thirteen episodes. The leading cast members included Nigel Davenport, Glyn Owen, Barbara Shelley, Angela Douglas, Andrew Robertson, Richard Hurndall, Sean Caffrey and Maurice Roëves. Gerard Glaister later moved onto to produce the Second World War resistance drama Secret Army, the air freight series Buccaneer and then onto the boating soap serial Howards' Way. Two of the leading actors in Oil Strike North, Nigel Davenport and Glyn Owen, also later appeared in Howards' Way.

Oil Strike North

1975
The Set Up
N/A

Arthur Payne, recently out of prison, meets a stranger, Theo Gaunt, on a train and explains his situation. A few days later another stranger makes a curious proposition. Arthur should participate in a fake robbery and remove some imitation jewellery from the stranger's own safe.

The Set Up

1963