{"id":23778,"date":"2011-11-16T19:23:21","date_gmt":"2011-11-16T19:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.influx.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=23778"},"modified":"2022-12-08T16:47:47","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T16:47:47","slug":"the-professionals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/the-professionals\/","title":{"rendered":"The Professionals"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are plenty of people who think that Laurie Johnson<\/a>\u2019s instantly recognisable, utterly seventies, wah-wah and brass theme tune for The Professionals was the best thing about it, and that every episode went rapidly downhill from there. But the title sequence left you in no doubt about two things. First, there was going to be action. And second, from the moment a MkI Granada – completely inexplicably – comes smashing through a plate glass window.<\/p>\n

I think I might have seen every episode of The Professionals. First shown between \u201978 and \u201983, I was just about old enough to watch the repeats in the late \u201880s before Martin Shaw, now seeing himself as a serious ac-tor, refused to let ITV show any more. Its comeback on the now-defunct Granada<\/a> Plus cable channel in the late nineties unfortunately coincided with the start of my career as a freelance writer in my early twenties: it was the perfect work-displacement activity and meant a lot of missed deadlines.<\/p>\n

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But I\u2019ve never thought it was any good. In tv-speak, The Professionals \u2018jumped the shark\u2019 in series 1, episode 1. It was always a parody of itself; you didn\u2019t watch it for the scripts or the acting, but for the hilarious, high-camp, brain-out action. And for the Fords: Cowley\u2019s grown-up Granada<\/a> (with a telephone in it! A phone! In a car!), Doyle\u2019s white Escort RS2000<\/a>, and most of all, for the Capris.<\/p>\n

The impressive but worryingly detailed fan site mark-1.co.uk<\/a> has tracked down all the significant cars to feature in The Professionals. It records the brief dalliance with British Leyland <\/a>vehicles, before the unreliability of both the cars and the company got them the boot, and that a couple of MkII Capris featured in the show\u2019s early days, including a very cool, very rare body-kitted example on Ronal alloys<\/a>.<\/p>\n