''Quiller'' is a British

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

television series starring

Michael Jayston Michael A. James (29 October 1935 – 5 February 2024), known professionally as Michael Jayston, was an English actor. He played Nicholas II of Russia in the film '' Nicholas and Alexandra'' (1971). He also made many television appearances, whi ...

. The series premièred with the episode ''The Price of Violence'' on 29 August 1975 on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

. Quiller is the alias of a fictional spy created by English novelist Elleston Trevor who featured in a series of

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

thrillers written under the pseudonym "Adam Hall". The second episode's script - ''Tango Briefing'' - was written by "Adam Hall", adapted from his own novel of the same name. All the other episodes were written for the series. Although all episodes survived

destruction Destruction may refer to: Concepts * Destruktion, a term from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger * Destructive narcissism, a pathological form of narcissism * Self-destructive behaviour, a widely used phrase that ''conceptualises'' certain kin ...

, the series has never been repeated on the BBC or other channels since its original transmission nor is it currently available online, on Blu-ray or DVDAction TV Online - Quiller
/ref> but in 2022 surfaced on YouTube and

Telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pi ...

Background

Quiller (

) works for a British secret organisation known simply as "The Bureau". This organisation dispatches Quiller on various missions across the globe to retrieve missing documentation, prevent secrets from falling into the hands of the enemy, rescue " sleepers", safely repatriate defecting agents or eliminate those whom Her Majesty's Government wishes to disappear. His controller at "The Bureau" is Angus Kinloch ( Moray Watson) and the only other series regular is Rosalind (

Sinéad Cusack Sinéad Moira Cusack ( ; born 18 February 1948) is an Irish actress. Her first acting roles were at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, before moving to London in 1969 to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has won the Critics' Circle and ''Eve ...

Production

The series adhered to the typical format of BBC dramas from that era, using 16mm film for outdoor locations and studio videotape for interior scenes. Notably, many episodes included foreign location shoots, with

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

(doubling for various countries) and Germany among the settings. Additionally, the production made extensive use of library

stock footage Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stock ...

, which was uncommon for BBC dramas.

Cast

as Quiller (13 episodes) * Moray Watson as Angus Kinloch (13 episodes) *

as Rosalind (3 episodes) * Nigel Stock (2 episodes) *

Prunella Gee Prunella Mary Gee (born 17 February 1950) is an English counsellor, therapist and former actress, best known for her work as an actress in the 1970s and 1980s, and for the role of Doreen Heavey in ''Coronation Street'', a part she first played ...

(2 episodes) * Lon Satton (2 episodes) * Reg Lye as Chirac (1 episode)

Series 1

Episodes

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, id=0163484, title=Quiller BBC television dramas 1970s British drama television series 1975 British television series debuts 1975 British television series endings British English-language television shows British spy television series