Series 1 (1986): Grand Hotel / Pondorosa
| Ken Boon | Michael Elphick |
|
| Harry Crawford | David Daker | |
| Doreen Evans | Rachel Davies | |
| Hanif Kurtha | Gordon Warnecke | |
| Ethel Allard (cook) | Joan Scott | |
| Nick (porter) | Bill Gavin |
Ken Boon and Harry Crawford used to work as firemen at a fire station in Birmingham. Harry (in his late forties) took early retirement in order to run a bar in Spain. Shortly afterwards, Ken (aged about forty) was invalided out of the brigade after he sustained lung damage when he rushed into a burning building without his breathing apparatus to rescue a boy who was trapped.
Some time later, the two men met up. Harry and his wife had got divorced after she had left him for a Spanish hair-dresser; he had sold his bar and moved back to Birmingham where he bought the Grand Hotel, a rather seedy establishment. Ken was living in a caravan (The Pondorosa) in a village outside Birmingham and was trying to make a living as a market gardener. Harry persuaded Ken to advertise in the local paper as an odd-job man – “Ex-fireman seeks interesting work. Anything legal considered.” From these humble beginnings, his career as a courier, minder and private investigator began.
Episodes
| Box 13 | 14 Jan 1986 | 1.1 |
| Fools Rush In | 21 Jan 1986 | 1.2 |
| Answers To The Name Of Watson | 28 Jan 1986 | 1.3 |
| Grass Widows | 4 Feb 1986 | 1.4 |
| Unto Us Four A Son | 11 Feb 1986 | 1.5 |
| Glasshouse People | 18 Feb 1986 | 1.6 |
| Northwest Passage To Acock’s Green | 25 Feb 1986 | 1.7 |
| Something Old, Something New | 4 Mar 1986 | 1.8 |
| For Whom The Chimes Toll | 11 Mar 1986 | 1.9 |
| Jack Of All Tradesmen | 18 Mar 1986 | 1.10 |
| Billy The Kid | 25 Mar 1986 | 1.11 |
| Grand Expectations | 1 Apr 1986 | 1.12 |
| Full Circle | 8 Apr 1986 | 1.13 |
This first series was made on film (exterior scenes) and video (studio interior scenes), and was rather tacky and low-budget in appearance.
The very bizarre incidental music was written by Barrington Pheloung and the series was produced by Kenny McBain. Both men went on to achieve wider acclaim the following year, working on the Inspector Morse films.
According to the Ordnance Survey map shown in the closing credits, The Ponderosa was located at Longmore Farm, near the village of Chaddesley Corbett: grid reference SO885726.
Notes and episode list © Martin Underwood, 1999
Page last modified: 19 June 2020, 13:20