Shoestring - Series 1 [DVD] [1979]

Having been a huge Shoestring fan since childhood, and being well aware of the past difficulties in releasing this programme to DVD, I thought I was dreaming when I found out that 2entertain was releasing Series One to DVD. As if this was not a surprise enough, it was widely reported that, apart from one minor music replacement, this entire first series is being transferred uncut. I have many different recordings of both Series One and Series Two, recorded via many different broadcasts, and, apart from my 2008 BBC Four broadcast of 'Mocking Bird' (Series Two, Episode Three), none of these broadcasts are uncut. I also have the past VHS release of `Private Ear/Find the Lady', which has also been slightly edited. As an interesting side-note, I also have a `Compact Cassette' (remember those!) audio recording of the original uncut 1980 broadcast of the final episode of Series Two `The Dangerous Game', which I made when I was 11, with a microphone placed to the TV speaker! (I had to stifle any coughs!).

I can confirm that this DVD release of Series One is uncut, apart from one minor music replacement. It occurs in Episode 1 `Private Ear', about 23 minutes into the episode, during Eddie's conversation with Don Satchley on the boat. The music playing in the background was originally Lene Lovich's "Lucky Number", and has been replaced with Blondie's "Heart of Glass". Unless you knew of this music replacement, you would not notice anything has been changed. All dialogue is intact and completely unaffected and it does not alter the episode's running time, as all visual footage also remains intact. Ditch your old UKTV Drama/Alibi recordings, and the 2002 BBC1 afternoon repeats of Series One - this 2entertain release is THE definitive collection of Series One episodes!

The transfer is relatively noise-free. The audio and visual quality of Shoestring does vary from episode-to-episode, and, as such, there is film dirt here-and-there, the occasional washed out picture and some slight aliasing in places, but I have never seen Shoestring look as good as this. The mono audio does have occasional partial dropout, but nothing serious. I understand that, because there did not seem to be any masters of the Series One episodes in existence which were uncut, 2entertain made fresh telecine transfers from the original film materials in order to ensure that all episodes were, indeed, the uncut episodes. They then made this one minor audio replacement in Episode 1 and then transferred them all to DVD. 2entertain should be applauded for taking this trouble and they have certainly done an excellent job in transferring this 16mm material to DVD.

For anyone who is interested, the running times of all episodes in this DVD release are as follows:

Ep.1 `Private Ear' 55'04"
Ep.2 `Knock for Knock' 50'00"
Ep.3 `Higher Ground' 48'04"
Ep.4 `An Uncertain Circle' 50'31"
Ep.5 `Listen to Me' 48'34"
Ep.6 `Nine Tenths of the Law' 48'42"
Ep.7 `The Link-Up' 53'22"
Ep.8 `Stamp Duty' 51'12"
Ep.9 `Find the Lady' 49'50"
Ep.10 `The Partnership' 53'27"
Ep.11 `I'm a Believer' 50'02"

As a final point, it is interesting, looking at the uncut episode running times just how irregular they are. This often happened with programmes of this age - look at the irregular running times of `Fawlty Towers', for instance.

This 2entertain DVD release is worth every penny, and I urge all Shoestring fans to buy this. I have been reliably informed that there are no plans - at present - to release Series Two, so, the more people who buy this DVD release of Series One, the more chance there is of 2entertain releasing Series Two, hopefully also uncut. Here's hoping !!!

I would appreciate any comments.

I wrote episode 11 on the DVD ("I'm a believer"). It's very pleasing that so many people have posted such positive comments about the series.

After that episode was shown I had a huge number of letters from people whose children had been more or less abducted by sects like the Moonies, and somehow seeing it in a drama context helped them to feel that they were right in trying to prise their loved ones out of the grip of some nasty mind-controlling people.

If what I was told at the time is true, there were no more series because Trevor Eve didn't want to become type-cast in the role. Similar things happened with "Hazell", which I also wrote for.

I'm sure I can say on behalf of all the writers and Bob Banks-Stewart, who created produced it, that we did our best to make something good. We also wish that TV was as adventurous now as it was then. So thanks for watching. You're probably not aware that I haven't seen it since it was first broadcast! The fact that the episodes exist at all is a miracle - the BBC threw some very significant plays into a skip.

Jim

I loved this series as a teenager and watching it now I still love it. Please Please give us series two. The seventies and eighties produced some of the finest television shows ever and what a great example Shoestring is of this.