I recently moved to Birmingham, where this series was filmed so watching it over the course of several evenings was great fun - specially when I spotted a location at the end of my street. Years ahead of its time, the series span off a Play for Today. The Play for Today, which opens the DVD set, is a gritty drama concerning the Birmingham underworld and the attempts by ex con John Kline to cash in his business interests and leave the 'second city' for new ventures in London. The series spins out the attempts by criminal interests to dispose of Kline, once and for all. Various deals and betrayals take place, with alliances shifting all the time. One aspect may be controversial to the politically correct. There's several scenes set in a nightclub, with comedians telling racist jokes. This is not gratuitous, in the way that, say, a Tarantino film using the N word is. It challenges the viewer to consider their response - do you laugh? If so, at what? The joke itself, or the racist ideologies underlining it? The situation is complicated by one of the comedians, and several members of the audience, being black or Asian. The series highlights how the Black and Asian gangster bosses have taken on the subject positions, the positions of power, of their white counterparts. The programme plays with racial stereotyping in a reflexive way, a way which brings about an awareness in the audience. This is done through excessive acting, costume and also the title sequence of the second series, which references martial arts and Bond films. The series becomes increasingly abstract and self referential and put me in mind of The Prisoner at its conclusion. The writer, Philip Martin, props up in several cameos including the bizarre 'white devil.' I d be interested to read other peoples comments on this series which I can highly recommend. Forget Life On Mars, this is the real thing.
7 Reviews
There will NEVER be another TV series like THIS !!!
rexmubins28 December 2009
When this was first shown I was moved to write a letter of congratulation to the BBC Pebble Mill Studios at Birmingham, something I have never done before or since, and received a nice reply from the Producer, David Rose. Hard-hitting drama in a Black Country setting that is still traceable in some places and totally obliterated in others. Series Two did go off on a rather esoteric tangent, but if you like The Sweeney and Life On Mars etc. you will ADORE at least the original Play For Today and Series One. I had long ago given up on this production being released on Videotape and knew that, against the ever rising tide of Political Correctness, it could never be re-screened. When I discovered it was available as a DVD boxed set I nearly fainted and ordered it the same day. If this title is deleted due to lack of sales, a real 70's TV gem will have been lost. Probably forever. Buy it.
First of the Brit gangster series
spudmachine-112 January 2006
I was 15 when this series first ran and it was very much a leader in its genre. Today we're used to the Brit gangster movies like Lock Stock, and Snatch, but back in 1975 I'd never seen anything like Gangsters before.
For one thing the characters are all "real people". In shows like The Saint, and the Avengers, the leading roles were very much 2-dimensional. You could never have an ordinary person as "perfect" as Simon Templar or John Steed. But Maurice Colburn's character was flawed. He didn't always win, and his girlfriend is a reformed junkie who ends up with some nasty things happening to her. Also the violence in the show, although restrained by today's standards, was a heck of a lot grittier than the kind of clinical efforts of earlier shows.
This was also one of the first shows I remember in which drugs played a key part.
It's been 30 years since I saw the series - for some reason it hasn't been repeated on UK TV as far as I remember.
For one thing the characters are all "real people". In shows like The Saint, and the Avengers, the leading roles were very much 2-dimensional. You could never have an ordinary person as "perfect" as Simon Templar or John Steed. But Maurice Colburn's character was flawed. He didn't always win, and his girlfriend is a reformed junkie who ends up with some nasty things happening to her. Also the violence in the show, although restrained by today's standards, was a heck of a lot grittier than the kind of clinical efforts of earlier shows.
This was also one of the first shows I remember in which drugs played a key part.
It's been 30 years since I saw the series - for some reason it hasn't been repeated on UK TV as far as I remember.
A most unusual television series( the second one anyway)
russellhunter-0855918 April 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Gangsters, filmed as a BBC Play for Today and shown in January 1975, started off as a straightforward revenge piece featuring John Kline (Maurice Colbourne) being released from prison for manslaughter after killing the brother of Birmingham gangster Rawlinson, played by the series creator Philip Martin. Things start to change with the introduction of a mysterious Asian (Ahmed Khalil) shadowing Kline and keeping close tabs on him, culminating on what may be the only car chase in television history involving an Austin Allegro. As the story unfolds, we are in a multi-racial, multi stranded story involving the various ethnic groups that make up the second city. Throw in heroin, illegal immigration, some distinctly colourful characters,prostitution and a seedy strip club that Kline and Rawlinson are fighting over and you have something that I'm sure was quite unexpected in 1975. Philip Martin apparently spent several in Birmingham researching before starting on the script and it really shows. It also has the added benefit of being filmed completely on location as far as I could tell which adds to the authenticity. Birmingham never looked so unwelcoming and hostile. After much violence and double dealing, the story culminates in a car chase from a container park onto the M6 and ends with one of the most protracted, physical punch ups I've seen, Kline being the victor. The story was left somewhat open ended to allow for the possibility of a series which duly appeared in 1976.
Series 1 of Gangsters is basically a continuation of the Play for Today but a run of six episodes really allowed things to open up storywise. With Rawlinson out of the picture, Kline tries to get things back on track with his club. Black gangsters make more of the running time in this series, as well as Asians. Gritty and realistic, perhaps with the first depiction of hard drug use and it's effects, we see a different side to Kline as he attempts to get his girlfriend back on the straight and narrow. Series 1 has a different look and feel to the previous PfT, being a mix of location filming and studio interiors shot on video tape with some innovative though sometime shaky handheld cameras. Series 1 achieved good audience figures but there was significant criticism of the level of violence shown.
Now we come to Series 2, and boy was this a different animal. After getting the green light to shoot another series but aware he had to tone down the violence, Martin went completely the other way with the story line, making the whole thing deliberately cartoonish and unrealistic. Characters speaking directly to camera, scenes ending abruptly because they are going on too long, even actors who had been killed in the previous series returning to the action, even boom mikes appearing in shot, nothing was off limits for series 2. Martin appeared the penultimate episode as W D Fields, originally earmaked for Les Dawson, who promptly kills Kline by giving him blood poisoning( did I mention that this series was deliberately unrealistic?). Things are wrapped up by an extended shot of the whole studio and Philip Martin throwing his script up into the air while his Pakistani aide looks on.
The above is only a brief synopsis but really there is so much going on with so many characters and subplots that it's impossible to mention all of them here. But my God I LOVE this series. I love the grittiness of the PfT, the many strands of Series 1 and the bonkers Series 2. Yes there is copious and frequent racism in the show, but it was a product of it's time. But looking at it another way, you could argue that Gangsters was ahead of it's time in the way people of various ethnicities worked together and even quite liked each other, as shown in the relationship between Kline and Khan. Brave, bold, daring, as had been said elsewhere, there will not be another series like this ever again. If you can track this down, do give it a go.
Series 1 of Gangsters is basically a continuation of the Play for Today but a run of six episodes really allowed things to open up storywise. With Rawlinson out of the picture, Kline tries to get things back on track with his club. Black gangsters make more of the running time in this series, as well as Asians. Gritty and realistic, perhaps with the first depiction of hard drug use and it's effects, we see a different side to Kline as he attempts to get his girlfriend back on the straight and narrow. Series 1 has a different look and feel to the previous PfT, being a mix of location filming and studio interiors shot on video tape with some innovative though sometime shaky handheld cameras. Series 1 achieved good audience figures but there was significant criticism of the level of violence shown.
Now we come to Series 2, and boy was this a different animal. After getting the green light to shoot another series but aware he had to tone down the violence, Martin went completely the other way with the story line, making the whole thing deliberately cartoonish and unrealistic. Characters speaking directly to camera, scenes ending abruptly because they are going on too long, even actors who had been killed in the previous series returning to the action, even boom mikes appearing in shot, nothing was off limits for series 2. Martin appeared the penultimate episode as W D Fields, originally earmaked for Les Dawson, who promptly kills Kline by giving him blood poisoning( did I mention that this series was deliberately unrealistic?). Things are wrapped up by an extended shot of the whole studio and Philip Martin throwing his script up into the air while his Pakistani aide looks on.
The above is only a brief synopsis but really there is so much going on with so many characters and subplots that it's impossible to mention all of them here. But my God I LOVE this series. I love the grittiness of the PfT, the many strands of Series 1 and the bonkers Series 2. Yes there is copious and frequent racism in the show, but it was a product of it's time. But looking at it another way, you could argue that Gangsters was ahead of it's time in the way people of various ethnicities worked together and even quite liked each other, as shown in the relationship between Kline and Khan. Brave, bold, daring, as had been said elsewhere, there will not be another series like this ever again. If you can track this down, do give it a go.
Gritty drama from 1976
hv-536639 October 2019
The pilot and series one are one of my favourite televisual memories from my youth in the 1970s.
When I got the dvd I was pleased to find series 2 which I had not seen. Not so hot... A bit like the last two Harry Palmer films made in the 90s. Different atmosphere, and I could have done without WC Fields.
Well worth the effort and very evocative of the 70s and not at all politically correct. My only shock was seeing it in colour.. When I first saw it we only had lack and white TV..
When I got the dvd I was pleased to find series 2 which I had not seen. Not so hot... A bit like the last two Harry Palmer films made in the 90s. Different atmosphere, and I could have done without WC Fields.
Well worth the effort and very evocative of the 70s and not at all politically correct. My only shock was seeing it in colour.. When I first saw it we only had lack and white TV..
Play for Today and Series 1 - Fantastic. Series 2 completely bonkers and not in a good way.
stephen-879592 September 2019
Had high hopes after Series 1 and Play for Today, but Series 2 was a joke. A let down.
Perhaps it's just a bit too bonkers for me, but following on from the first series, which was VERY good, to find season 2 was ridiculous was a really shame.
Perhaps it's just a bit too bonkers for me, but following on from the first series, which was VERY good, to find season 2 was ridiculous was a really shame.
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