TV on DVD: The Beiderbecke Tapes (1987)

Now Available on DVD

Read Jen's Review of The Beiderbecke Affair

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Being that Headmaster Wheeler (Keith Smith) assumes that Greenpeace is a new drug hitting Yorkshire' San Quentin High School in the late 1980s, you can't really blame the man's illogical decision to punish popular schoolteachers Jill Swinburne (Barbara Flynn) and Trevor Chaplin (James Bolam) for living in sin by sending them to Holland.

Of course, the lure of the far more sinful Amsterdam isn't simply a vacation but a penance concocted by Wheeler to pack off San Quentin's English teacher Jill and woodshop department's Trevor as school chaperones when it becomes common knowledge that the feminist and environmentalist Jill has let Trevor move into her place when his flat was torn down in the name of progress (or, rather, a motorway).

While at first our wisecracking, screwball romantic comedy descendants are irritated by the assignment, when once again Jill and Trevor become unwittingly involved in another high level case of governmental corruption and conspiracy, a change of scenery becomes much more inviting.

Similar to award-winning playwright, creator, and screenwriter Oliver Plater's first work in the Trevor and Jill-centric trilogy-- The Beiderbecke Affair-- The Beiderbecke Tapes finds the two schoolteachers turned unlikely amateur sleuths in an increasingly convoluted plot when once again Trevor's passion for jazz and especially the music of Bix Beiderbecke provides the impetus for the dangerous mayhem and comedic fodder that follows.

Although Trevor has packed along his two thousand tapes and thousands of records to Jill's place, shortly after visiting a strange local pub with zero customers, Trevor bonds with a barman over Beiderbecke who delivers him nine hours worth of jazz on a stack of cassette tapes the very next day. While Trevor can't wait to dive in, Jill becomes suspicious and annoyed by her lover and sure enough, her antennae is set off even more when one of the tapes segues from jazz to what sounds like a high level, governmental conversation surrounding nuclear waste. Curious, they revisit the pub, only to find the barman dead, and later shockingly very much alive when Trevor attends the stranger's funeral.

Strangers who aren't what they seem, Beiderbecke obsession, international conspiracies, menacing agents, those who go from dead to alive and vice versa would normally make for one downright bizarre miniseries but given the craziness that Jill and Trevor faced in the original, amusing, yet far too long Affair, they're much more equipped to handle danger this time around. In doing so, the duo battle threats with rapid fire jokes, problems with puns, and physical confrontations with the reliance upon some new friends such as a rowdy group of senior Scottish bagpipers.

While Affair lost me before the halfway point of the miniseries, I was delighted that I was able to keep up with the intricate nonsensical plot twists and humor far more effectively in Tapes... at least until Plater's second volume ultimately morphed into something that made about as much sense as Howard Hawks' filmed version of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.

However, similar to Sleep, you honestly realize that it doesn't much matter since we couldn't care less about the red herrings and mysterious men who follow Trevor and Jill across the pond. And while this would be unacceptable in most mysteries or works of amateur wacky sleuthing, that isn't what Plater's series are about since the main mission of Beiderbecke is to entertain which it does tremendously in a sequel I enjoyed even more than the original, most likely because we've already been through the wild ride once before and realize that it's best to avoid obsessing about plot-holes or logic too much.

Yet another reason it feels more successful along with an enhanced video quality that makes the '87 production feel fresher than the otherwise outstanding '85 one may be due to its brevity of the much shorter 154 minute work as opposed to the original 320 minute opus that perhaps demanded too much intellectually with its wide-ranging subplots, characters and confusion. However, whatever the case may be, the wondrous chemistry of Flynn and Bolam, a truly witty screenplay, and terrific Beiderbecke modeled jazz music to give it a nostalgic feel make this a truly engaging find for those looking for an irresistible "they just don't make 'em like they used to" mix of jazz, screwball comedy, and film noir.

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TV on DVD: The Beiderbecke Affair (1985)

If William Powell & Myrna Loy Had a Son

And Cary Grant & Katharine Hepburn Had a Daughter,
Chances Are They'd Be "Trevor & Jill"
From this Delightful '80s British Screwball Mystery

Now on DVD

Although he has been involved with fellow teacher Jill Swinburne (Barbara Flynn), whom he complains at times treats him "like a sex object" by flipping a coin with his ex-fiance to see who can call dibs, woodshop teacher Trevor Chaplin (James Bolam) mostly prefers to keep a low profile blaring jazz into both ear drums via classic studio headphones.

When an alluringly beguiling blonde shows up at his door under the pretense that she's a mail order catalog saleswoman raising money for a Cub Scout's football (er, soccer to us Yanks) team, he tries to give her the traditional Jehovah's Witness-like brush off but suddenly decides to order an extremely rare coveted collectible set of '20s jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke LPs, being that it's for the kids.

After the wrong records are delivered, he and Jill become novice sleuths, wisecracking in the same spirit of Hepburn and Grant and Powell and Loy as they discover the phone number given on his receipt leads them to a crematorium and the business headquarters doesn't exist but when the curious two take it a step further by trying to track down the scouts, the coppers get involved.

Dominic Jephcott is marvelous as the department's "token graduate policeman," a.k.a. a required police officer with a B.A. degree who annoys his colleagues and incessantly tapes his hypotheses in a tape recorder, referring to all parties and events involved as "subjects A, B, and C," as well as listing the goal of each as though it were all a scientific experiment.

When Trevor and Jill stumble into a much greater mystery involving black market swag kept in a church basement and possible government and/or police corruption, they align themselves with others involved as the situations get much quirkier and the jokes become faster. And soon enough-- as though we were in one of Raymond Chandler's novels that became far too complicated possibly from too much booze (in Chandler's case)-- we discover we're less intrigued by the mystery and much more fascinated in watching the characters interact with each other in this delightfully comedic spin on mysteries which originally was produced for British television in the '80s.

Followed by two sequels-- aptly named The Beiderbecke Tapes and The Beiderbecke Connection, luckily The Beiderbecke Affair makes its way to our shores in a nice box set from our friends at Acorn Media-- a.k.a. my consistent go-to company for the best alternatives to horrific American programming like The Biggest Loser.

Despite this and-- as in the recent superlative release of The Last Detective-- subtitles unfortunately weren't provided in the box set and admittedly Beiderbecke itself is very dated. Likewise, it looks as though the 4x3 aspect ratio of the video footage hasn't ever been retouched-- making its transfer to DVD quality a bit unimpressive as you have to turn the volume exceedingly loud to hear the dialogue which becomes annoying when the otherwise spirited and upbeat Beiderbecke inspired jazz soundtrack by Frank Ricotti blasts from the television speakers to punctuate the action like a Woody Allen film.

Despite the flaws in poor sound and less than crystal color, the quality of the finished product is unmatched in its intelligence, humor, and escapist approximately 300 minute running time that gives viewers the perfect way to unwind after a hard day's work. This is especially true considering that brainy creator Alan Plater (Oliver's Travels, The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, A Very British Coup, Dalziel and Pascoe) dealt humorously with issues that resonate now more than ever today including teachers getting in trouble for sharing political convictions, school budgetary constraints, tax problems and wasteful government spending, and Jill's then quite unpopular quest to save the planet and support conservation.

Additionally, although it falls under the category of mystery-- it's much more laugh-based than that with a delightful old fashioned tinge to its dialogue and refreshingly unglamorous and relatable, natural actors who manage to convince us that they are playing themselves.

A fun series with great Dixie styled jazz music and just one of many films by Plater that involve his love of jazz-- while The Beiderbecke Affair is released here in the states from Acorn on January 27, I can only hope that eventually its sequels will also find their way to DVD.

Or, to quote Jill's favorite film Casablanca as she does throughout, once you get in The Beirderbecke gang, you realize this is going to be "the beginning of a beautiful friendship" indeed.