"This is my city..."

"This is my city..."

 For our John Hurt tribute on Episode Seven, we decided that rather than focus on one of his better known roles such as Caligula, we would look at one of his earlier parts in the 'Gideon's Way' story 'The Tin God'.

'Gideon's Way', if you've never seen it, is focussed on Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard and his day-to-day work on the cases that come to him for investigation. The series was based on a range of novels by John Creasey and as with so many dramas from the 1960s, it features a wealth of acting talent.

In fact in the first episode ('State Visit') you get none other than Alfie Bass as a potential assassin. Unexpected casting perhaps, but it works very well.

Network who have released the series, have for some reason put the episodes on the discs in production order, which meant we didn't see the first episode straight away, which is a shame as it is obviously designed to introduce the main characters.

We did in fact see 'The Tin God' first and to be fair it still works as a introduction to the characters, but does rather drop you into the situation a bit more.

The main guest actor in this episode is Derren Nesbitt playing John 'Benny' Benson, an escaped prisioner. Having discovered that his wife told the police where he was hiding after he had killed someone, Benson decides to take his revenge by taking their son away from her.

John Hurt plays another prisioner, Freddy Tisdale, who helps Benny to escape and tags along when he returns to London. The episode also features a very young Michael Cashman as the son Sid and Jennifer Wilson as Mrs Benson.

Gideon is the sort of policeman you want on your side as he is determined to recapture Benny and always tries his hardest to get his man.

There is lots of lovely location filming in this episode and the sight of a working Police Box, which was obviously very exciting for us!

'Gideon's Way' is another of those series I stumbled across and that we grew to really enjoy. And another highly recommended one, especially if you'd like to see 'Sergeant Cork's John Barrie on the other side of the law.

(By Lisa Parker)