“Gangsters is arguably the most unusual series ever shown on British television. Produced by BBC Pebble Mill between 1975 and 1978, what began as a tough and uncompromising attempt to depict Birmingham’s underworld had by the end of its run become a fully fledged work of…what?”
What indeed… Along with The Prisoner, my favourite British TV series. Patrick MacGoohan and Rover have the edge but Gangsters was still something else, the product of a period when the BBC was actively encouraging experimentation and the pushing of dramatic boundaries. Pulpy, trashy, provocative, thrilling and, in the later episodes, downright surreal… Hard to believe now that this was primetime viewing; British television was a unique place in the 1970s.
