Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It was created as a spin-off from the series Z-Cars, which ended its fifth series run in December 1965. The series took its name from the proverb "Softly, softly, catchee monkey", the motto of Lancashire Constabulary Training School.
Series outline
Softly, Softly centred on the work of regional police crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern, supposedly in the Bristol area of England. It was designed as a vehicle for Detective Chief Inspector Charles Barlow and Detective Inspector John Watt from the police series Z-Cars, which had just finished its original run in December 1965. Joining them in the early series was Robert Keegan as Blackitt, the police station sergeant from Z-Cars, now retired and acting as a freelance helper. The first two series continued the trend set by producer David Rose with Z-Cars and transmitted the majority of episodes live. This was one of the last long-running British TV series to do this. From series three onwards all episodes were pre-recorded.
Theme music
The original theme music was, like Z-Cars, a folk-song arrangement by Fritz Spiegl. It was released as a single on Andrew Loog Oldham's "Immediate" record label in 1966.
In 1969, to coincide with the BBC's move to colour broadcasting on BBC 1, Softly Softly series ended. The characters of Barlow, Watt and Hawkins were promoted and moved to the South East of England in a new series set in the fictitious Thamesford. Here, as a result in changes in criminal activities, the police force itself needed to develop a new approach to tackle it. Taskforces were set up: these were groupings of police expertise and manpower drawn together for special operations in the region. This was a new series in its own right and it was simply going to be called Taskforce. However, starring three strong characters from a popular brand the BBC were reluctant to drop, this new series was renamed . Stratford Johns left the Taskforce series in 1972 and it continued until 1976 with Watt in command. During the 70s Windsor also appeared as Watt in Jack the Ripper, in which he and Barlow reopened the Jack the Ripper murder casebook, and a similar series Second Verdict, in which they looked into unsolved mysteries and miscarriages of justice.
