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The Troubleshooters (titled Mogul for the first season) is a British television series made by the BBC between 1965 and 1972. During its run, the series made the transition from black and white to colour transmissions. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, which is usually known as the BBC, is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion. ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... Year 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The series was initially based around an international oil company – the "Mogul" of the title – and initially dealt with the boardroom battles at executive upper management level. The first series was mostly concerned with the internal politics within the Mogul organisation with episodes revolving around industrial espionage, internal fraud and negligence almost leading to an accident on a North Sea oil rig.

Cast

• Brian Stead (Geoffrey Keen), Mogul's tough Deputy Managing Director.
• Peter Thornton (Ray Barrett), company field agent (i.e. "troubleshooter").
• Alec Stewart (Robert Hardy), ruthlessly ambitious "troubleshooter" keen to rise up the promotional ladder.
• Willy Izard (Philip Latham), head of finance at Mogul.
• Robert Driscoll (Barry Foster (actor)), Mogul's head of public relations.
• Derek Prentice (Ronald Hines), head of personnel at Mogul.
• Jane Webb (Philippa Gail), Stead's efficient secretary.
• Eileen O'Rourke (Isobel Black), ambitious public relations assistant at Mogul.
• "Steve" Thornton (Justine Lord), glamorous woman unhappily married to troubleshooter Peter Thornton.
• Roz Stewart (Deborah Stanford), Alec Stewart's wife, keen to strike out in business on her own, opening a London boutique.

Geoffrey Keen (21 August 1916 – 3 November 2005) was a British actor who appeared in supporting roles in many famous films. ... Ray Barrett (born 2 May 1927in Brisbane, Queensland) is an Australian actor. ... Robert Hardy as Cornelius Fudge in the film Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy, CBE (born October 29, 1925) is one of Britains best-known and most popular actors, and also an acknowledged expert on the longbow. ... Philip Latham (born 17 February 1929 in London) is a British actor. ... (John) Barry Foster born in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, England on 21 August 1927, died 11 February 2002, of a heart attack while being cared for at the Royal Surrey Hospital in Guildford. ... Isobel Black is a British actress, noted for her roles on film and television. ... Justine Lord is a British actress, active on television throughout the 1960s. ...

The Troubleshooters

Although Mogul was popular, it did not do as well as hoped for. However, it was renewed for a second series with the format radically changed. The title was renamed The Troubleshooters as the show altered its focus, broadening its horizons by showing the actual workings of the company. The series now focused on the younger, dynamic Mogul field agents - the eponymous "troubleshooters" - like Peter Thornton, who flew around the world to “hotspots” to protect the company’s interests.

Storylines

With extensive use of BBC “stock” location filming, storylines concentrated on disasters such as explosions and earthquakes, company take-overs, racial and political tensions, the discovery of new oil fields and the negotiation of drilling rights.

As time went on, The Troubleshooters began to experiment with ongoing narratives as storylines arched over several series. Because of his nature of the profession requiring him to be away from home, Peter Thornton found his marriage to the glamorous “Steve” collapsing, whilst Brian Stead was diagnosed with a heart condition, struggling to maintain control of Mogul at the top. Ranged against him was new “troubleshooter” Alec Stewart, a young, ruthless operative keen to progress in the organisation with his eye on Stead’s position. Stead kept sending Stewart out on dangerous assignments in the hope that he would fail, but Stewart was able to work very situation to his advantage. In the latter series, a rival oil company to Mogul was introduced – Zenith.

At times, The Troubleshooters never shied away from portraying Mogul as a faceless, uncaring and profit-driven corporation. Some episodes showcased industrial crisis through the perspective of striking Teesside dockyard workers and foregrounded ecological concerns through storylines based around local opposition to a Mogul refinery in Wales and a chemical offshoot of Mogul’s, which developed a crop spray with deadly side effects. There was also no loyalty or sentimentality amongst the Mogul men – Peter Thornton, sent to the Arctic by Brian Stead to investigate possible oil concessions, nearly freezes to death and considers getting out of the oil business entirely. In another episode, Thornton is sent to Saigon, against the backdrop of the Vietnam war. Alec Stewart is arrested in Algiers as a spy and imprisoned – although eventually released, he receives little trust or support from his colleagues. Brian Stead, returning to Berlin for the first time since 1945 to oversee a natural gas drilling deal, finds his past coming back to haunt him in a nasty plot to discredit him by a rival company. Arms of the County Borough of Teesside Teesside is the name given to the conurbation in northern England based on Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees and Redcar, along the banks of the River Tees with a resident population of over 388,000 in 2005. ... This article is about the country. ... The red line indicates the 10°C isotherm in July, commonly used to define the Arctic region border Satellite image of the Arctic surface The Arctic is the region around the Earths North Pole, opposite the Antarctic region around the South Pole. ... Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnamese: Thành Chí Minh) is the largest city in Vietnam, located near the delta of the Mekong River. ... Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam People’s Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength US 1,000,000 South Korea 300,000 Australia 48,000... “Alger” redirects here. ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ... Year 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ...

The Troubleshooters and the Real Oil Industry

The Mogul organisation was reputed to have been based on BP and there were many similarities and coincidences in terms of the international events The Troubleshooters predicted. This article is about the corporation known as BP. For other uses, see BP (disambiguation). ...

1. BP struck oil in Alaska and three days later, Mogul did the same on television. However, this particular episode had been produced four months earlier.
2. In another episode, Mogul took over a chemical company – and BP did the same a few days later.
3. The Troubleshooters predicted that there would be a channel tunnel and also that men would live in underwater houses to probe the seabed for oil. Both premonitions came true.
4. An episode was made that showed an explosion in the North Sea, just before a real-life explosion occurred, and the RAF were forced to set fire to the sea as warning to shipping.
5. The series also predicted to a 0.1 of a penny the price that oil companies would charge the Gas Council for North Sea gas.
6. Lead actor Geoffrey Keen, who played Brian Stead, even found himself invited to the Oil Industries Club dinner, where he was warmly greeted by his “fellow” executives.

Official language(s) English[1] Spoken language(s) English 85. ... Map of the Channel Tunnel. ... The North Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, located between the coasts of Norway and Denmark in the east, the coast of the British Isles in the west, and the German, Dutch, Belgian and French coasts in the south. ... The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the air force branch of the British Armed Forces. ...

Conclusion

The Troubleshooters lasted for seven series from 1965 to 1972, making the transition from black-and-white to colour along the way. The colour episodes of the series are generally considered to be not as engaging as earlier series, but The Troubleshooters was still a popular programme. The final episodes centre around Brian Stead maintaining control of Mogul and fending off hostile enemies, but at the cost of his own health. Stead eventually steps down as company director, but not before finally naming his successor….

Today the legacy of The Troubleshooters lies in its bridging the gap between “quality drama” and populist entertainment and charting a linear path trod by later British soap serials, such as The Brothers and Howards' Way. The series struck a chord with the 1960s audience thanks to its format - a potent combination of the oil business, globe trotting power politics, corporate wheeler-dealing and sex. The Brothers is a British television series, produced and shown by the BBC between 1972 and 1976. ... Howards Way was a television drama series produced by BBC Birmingham and transmitted between 1985 and 1990. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ...

The series was subject to the BBC's wiping policy of the era, and consequently the programme no longer exists in its entirety, however some episodes still remain in the BBC archive including the series opener Kelly's Eye. Wiping or junking is an economic move by radio and television companies in which old audiotapes, videotapes and telerecordings are wiped (deleted) and reused or destroyed. ...

External links

• The Troubleshooters at the Internet Movie Database
• British Film Institute Screen Online
• Mogul/The Troubleshooters Appreciation Site
• Mogul & The Troubleshooters Appreciation Site
• BBC Treasure Hunt