JohnTem82387976

25 October 2014

Quiller - Quiller/ General Direction



Label: BBC
Year of Release: 1975

"Quiller" was a BBC TV series based upon a series of spy paperbacks featuring a character of the same name, and while reports of the programme online generally tend to be favourable, the sad truth is that the solitary series was shown once then never repeated. No YouTube evidence exists of it, no DVD is available, and I've certainly never seen it - so I can't offer any helpful comments. I'm sure some conspiracy theorists out there feel that the BBC got cold feet about it because the plots were too similar to real-life spying activities. 

The show mainly lives on through its fantastically funky theme tune, which is a thing of beauty and almost too kicking and grooving for Auntie Beeb. To this day it's available on iTunes on a dance mix compilation, and that prevents me from uploading it here - but you can hear it for yourself on YouTube.

The B-side is another piece of deeply likeable, riff-ridden library music swagger. You can almost imagine yourself shooting dots off a BBC school countdown clock while it plays, and it's well worth a listen. Enjoy. 

4 comments:

Eddie C said...

Thanks for these - great tracks.

Graham Clayton said...

The opening of "Quiller" has some similarity to "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder.

Anonymous said...

I do have a couple of episodes transferred to DVD of this from a source I found on EBay many years back.

Klondike said...

Hi Anonymous, Could you please email me at chrislund49@gmail.com re your DVD transfer? Many thanks. I'm a big Quiller fan & just have a couple of questions.