Friday, 30 November 2018


Brittishness Represented in the episode


  • Costume: 
Emma Peele is very 60s with lycra and tight figure hugging clothing. Black stretch cotton catsuit with vinyl facings front and back, fastened by buttons down the front.black and white 'TV' outfit with mini skirt, stocking with a diamond pattern, and patent leather pumps.White dress with black stitching, long cuffs and padded shoulders. 


John Steede wears Prince of Wales check jacket (grey with tan and green in the check), dark waistcoat with metal buttons, white shirt, dark tie, tan trousers, chelsea boots, bowler and umbrellaThe bowler hats were exclusively made by Herbert Johnson & Sons, of 54 St. James Street - they now cost £300 each. The umbrellas (when they weren't prop substitutes to ensure a neat line) were James Smith & Sons whangee cane handle city umbrellas, now costing £165 each (you can see why they used props when necessary!). He also would wear a tan overcoat which follows a spy drama convention as sherlock holmes would wear this and james bond would also wear the posh suits.


  • Setting:
It starts in London in a stereotypical posh part with expensive houses. London is the main stereotype when thinking of Britain. and when they were going to the mystery town its very stereotypical that it was in a small town where nobody really goes in the countryside as there would of been a very big social gap between the rich and poor, with the rich living in the city earning lots of money and the poor living in the country being very undeveloped.
They then go to the beach where its very natural but brings back memories of fears of the cold war between Russia and Britain.

John Peele was then seen wondering around an abandoned army base trying to find clues, as the war is again seen as being glorified and is always brought up when there is some sort of great victory and Britain is seen for having really good military.
There was also a scene in the town church where this can represent British culture as christianity was seen as very important still.


  • Props
They were seen in traditional British vehicles such as the Great western railway, Vespa GS scooter and  a morris minor. Morris minor vehicles are a British manufacturer which shows Britishness stereotypes.
Tea is also used with cream on the top, which is the top of milk that isn't processed. they also do fencing which shows there social grade and reflects them living in London, this is because  British man became successful in the 1960 olympics as he got a silver, there was then a big craze over fencing.


  • Character interaction
They were very over-polite which is very britishness. And there relationships with people were not as good as they weren't really social and interactive with new people they meet.


  • Dialogue
Accents are both posh and well spoken. They are also very intelligent.





Wednesday, 28 November 2018

Case study: The town of no return
  • On a beach a shifty man is attending to his lobster pots when a man emerges from the tide concealed in a water tight black covering; he walks up the beach, removes the covering, and says good morning to the man and walks off.
  • After a bout of fencing at Mrs. Peel's flat, Steed and Mrs Peel leave on a train to visit Little Bazeley by the Sea, a village in Norfolk where agents have been reported to go missing.[1] 
  • On the train they share a carriage with a portly gentleman, Jimmy Smallwood (played by Patrick Newell who would later play Mother), who is going to visit his brother the local blacksmith. On arrival Steed, Peel and Smallwood are shadowed by the shifty local man from the beach. At the local inn, the Inebriated Gremlin, they are served by landlord Piggy Warren, who introduces them to Mark Brandon, the school inspector, and Jill Manson, a teacher. 
  • Mrs Peel announces herself as a new teacher, assigned by the ministry to the local school. When Smallwood leaves to visit his brother the blacksmith, several strange men in boots with rifles depart through the inn and follow him. 
  • Later the shifty local is seen hunting Smallwood across the landscape with bloodhounds. This is heard back at the village and dismissed by Piggy as "badger hunting".
  • The following morning Steed and Mrs Peel examine strange footprints leading out of the sea and up the beach, and find Smallwood dead and buried in the sand.
  • Mrs Peel visits the school and finds it and the teachers very unusual. She discovers that the school has been unused for years and a large number of adult sized Wellington boots are stored there. 
  • She visits the local church where the vicar shows her the parish records, of which several decades are missing.
  • Steed discovers a mention of a pilot, killed in 1942, named Piggy Warren: the name used by the pub landlord. 
  • Both Mrs Peel and Steed learn that the village folk are imposters and are hiding something. 
  • While Mrs Peel is investigating the school, an elderly man – the real School inspector – runs in, pursued by the phony school inspector and the shifty local, and says little but "below, below" before dying. 
  • Mrs Peel revisits the church and confronts the vicar, who suddenly pulls out a gun and reveals he is also an imposter. Mrs Peel is tied up in the blacksmith's until Steed arrives, overpowers the shifty local and frees her.
  • In the school, Steed and Mrs Peel discover enough food to feed an army. Mrs Peel reveals a diagram on the back of the old blackboard of Britain and a submarine in the North Sea. Wondering where have all the people gone, they surmise that this is a gradual invasion by a foreign power: small groups have been dispatched from a submarine located in the North Sea, explaining the bootprints at the beach and adult sized Wellington boots at the school, replacing the locals one by one until only the invaders remain.
  • Heeding the dying man's words, they head to the old airfield's underground bunkers. There they discover a small army of enemy agents and a big supply of explosives and some high tech equipment.
  •  Steed and Mrs Peel are eventually found by some of the impostors; a fight ensues before they overpower them and leave after sealing the invaders permanently underground. They depart the village on a motor scooter driven by Mrs Peel.



  • More ww2 than 60s look apart from the women eye make-up
  • based around the fear of ww2 other than traditional 60s crimes.

Friday, 2 November 2018

The Duopoly in the 1960s

  • The era of two competing broadcasters, itv and the BBC, is referred too by many as a 'golden age' of broadcasting in the uk. the two institutions had full control over the programme as they produced them in-house.

  • How might this competition and control have a positive outcome? what negative effects might this have?
  • one positive  outcome would be that there would be less comparison between shows as there are only two, they also had to be very mainstream so a wide variety of people would watch it.
  • negative outcome would be that it could be a bit boring and lacking of options, and if you didn't like the mainstream options they wouldn't cater for your choice.
  • another positive would be that they would compete with one another this means that a lot of effort would of gone into the shows, going it a positive outcome.
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