Hazell Hits the Small Screen – No Word of a Lie

When a young Police Detective gets invalided out of the force with an ankle injury, what does he do next?

Well, after the obligatory divorce and battle with the demon drink, he picks himself up and sets up shop as a private investigator, or private inquiry agent if you want to sound slightly more respectable.

Nice Jam Jar and no Duke of Kent

Life is looking up for the smooth-talking cockney, with a smart Triumph Stag and a plush rent-free apartment (looking after it for a friend of a friend, currently serving 7 years at Her Majesty’s pleasure).

We first meet the amiable James Hazell as he embarks on his first case, for hard-nosed solicitor Gordon Gregory. Our James has good patter and is a bit handy with the one-liners, especially the self-depracting kind. Standing outside some East End high rise flats:

Robert Moore House was yer usual barrack block in the sky – 20 shabby storeys of spray-can philosophy, and incurable optimism about West Ham football team

Every silver lining has a cloud of course, and the rookie investigator often meets trouble, usually of the violent kind, although his eye for the ladies doesn’t help matters.

Got to Earn that Bees and Honey

He rents an small office in Mayfair of all places, where his landlady there, Dot Wilmington – who runs her own investigation agency, is usually on hand to dispense advice, whether he wants to hear it or not and often gives him her cast-off investigations to work on. She affectionately nicknames him ‘Dumbo’ due to some of the rookie errors he makes in an early investigation.

Hazell’s new line of work sends him into some rough ground, mainly in London’s East End, but this is his manor and the streetwise Hazell knows it well. There are authentically shabby locations inhabited by equally shabby characters – a motley crew of small-time gangsters, cheats and drunks for the most part.

An Unwanted Bottle Stopper

The people supposedly on his side aren’t much better. There’s cousin Tel, the wheeler dealer of the family, and ‘Choc’ Minty, a dour dry-humoured Scotsman and former colleague (Roddy McMillan), still a Detective Inspector, who has a habit of appearing just at the wrong moment to ask a favour.

This is usually in exchange for not revealing Hazell’s whereabouts to recent ex-cons that Hazell has previously helped put behind bars. Hazell himself though is not averse to issuing the odd threat or bending the truth to get his way.

Stone Me, This is a Bit Tasty

Based on the novels by Gordon Williams and Terry Venables (yes, THAT Terry Venables), Nicholas Ball is perfectly cast as the the charismatic Hazell who presents a somewhat stylish appearance amongst the drab late 70’s London (even Mayfair looks grotty), and to my mind there are some parallels with the Rockford Files, but Hazell is no worse for that.

What really makes Hazell stand out, is the voice-over, in the style of the classic Philip Marlowe films. Running throughout each episode, this often humorous narration gives an insight into Hazell’s thoughts, as well as being a good device for moving the story on at a faster rate than if additional scenes had been filmed.

Each episode title begins ‘Hazell …’ such as ‘Hazell and the Walking Blur’ in which he tries to assist a hungover Scotsman retrace his steps from the night before in the hope of figuring out how £1400 in cash ended up in his coat pocket. He gets lead a merry dance before solving the case in one piece, but only just.

There were many notable guest stars including Jane Asher in the first episode and Pamela Stephenson (playing an Aussie in what could be her natural accent!) in ‘Hazell Settles the Accounts’.

The memorable ‘whistling’ theme tune had lyrics sung by husky voiced Maggie Bell, who also sang on Taggart’s closing credits. There was a second (and final) series of 12 episodes in 1980, and I remember a Hazell-esque character played by Nicholas Ball turning up in an ‘Alas Smith and Jones’ sketch, spouting gibberish cockney to a bemused country copper played by Griff Rhys Jones.

It would have been good if the first episode was more of a scene-setter for the series, particularly Hazell’s relationships with the other regular characters. Although we learn more as the episodes pass, I am still not clear how Dot or Gordon became involved with Hazell.

To some extent, the viewer is thrown in at the deep end, but this does not detract from what is a very watchable series. As Hazell himself might say “Triffic!”