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Interestingly, and unknown to me before his arrival, Tony had recently starting using the Internet, and this caused us to hit upon the idea of a possible live demonstration of the Kaleidoscope World Wide Web pages as an extra, unscheduled item during the course of The Main Event. Tony had his laptop computer with him, and all we needed was to locate an appropriate telephone socket to be up and running, with the notion of staging the link-up during the mid-evening. Unfortunately, due to Tony's injury and subsequent visit to hospital, it didn't ultimately happen, although we do plan to include such a demonstration as a timetabled part of next year's event schedule.

Following his celebrated appearance at Kaleidoscope's thirtieth anniversary Public Eye tribute in 1995, we were delighted to welcome back internationally-renowned actor ALFRED BURKE to The Main Event, by popular request. Many people who missed him the first time had asked whether he would be returning, and it turned out that Alfred had enjoyed himself so much at the previous event that he really wanted to come to another one anyway! Only recently returned from an acclaimed Royal Shakespeare Company tour of the US with their production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Alfred was only able to confirm his attendance in July and consequently, his appearance came as a surprise to many of our visitors, but it is evidence of his great popularity that a large number of the questionnaires returned on the day cited him as either the main reason why people came to the event, or as the most memorable part of it. Alfred was also delighted to report that, since our panel last year and the subsequent re-run of Public Eye on UK Gold, he has received a deluge of new fan mail from people enraptured with the adventures of Frank Marker in the classic detective series.

In a career spanning over five decades, Alfred Burke is remembered for many roles on film, stage and the small screen but none more so than Frank Marker, the shabby anti-hero of Public Eye, a role he played for ten years throughout the top-rated series. This compelling portrayal of television's most true-to-life enquiry agent dominated every single episode, received unanimous critical acclaim, awards, and made him a household name. Other television appearances have included Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Avengers, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Danger Man, a memorable turn in Treasure Island as Long John Silver, Nigel Kneale's Ladies' Night, Number Ten (as Pitt the Elder) and a highly acclaimed portrayal of Rev. Patrick Brontė in The Brontės of Haworth. Alfred recreated this role in a one man show that he also co-wrote, and, for trivia buffs, he also wrote a television play in the early sixties, Where Are They Now?, under the pseudonym Frank Hanna.

Alfred introduced a recently-discovered seven-minute extract from the otherwise-wiped Public Eye episode, "It Must Be The Architecture, Couldn't Be The Climate", along with an extensive clip from Mystery & Imagination, both derived from a recently-recovered 1968 ABC promotional trailer. He then took his seat in the audience to watch the complete Public Eye episode "Paid in Full" from the pivotal Brighton series, which was written by another of our guests, series co-creator Roger Marshall (also watching in the audience!). Later on, Alfred was pleased to sign autographs and chat with event-goers and, as with last year, kept us all enthralled for hours.

Above: Master of Ceremonies Michael Haslett introduces Alfred Burke.

Below: Alfred takes to the stage to introduce our Public Eye rarities.

Following ROGER MARSHALL's appearance at 1995's Kaleidoscope event in his capacity as the co-creator of Public Eye, he suggested that we might like to approach his great friend JACQUELINE DAVIS as a possible future guest. We had previously mentioned the idea of doing some sort of feature devoted to Zodiac - the innovative astrological detective series starring Anton Rodgers and Anouska Hempel - due to the interest shown in it at previous events, and, although Roger was a little dubious (he describes the short-lived series as "an interesting failure"), he felt that Jacqueline's extensive career would be of great interest in any case to the wider audience. As the producer of all except the first series of John Mortimer's acclaimed Rumpole of the Bailey and with other credits including Armchair Theatre, Man at the Top and Public Eye as well as Zodiac, not to mention offering the unique viewpoint of being one of the first women to rise to a high level within the industry, Jacqueline was, very obviously, exactly the sort of guest we were looking for this year. She was delighted to accept our invitation to The Main Event and, after some initial discussions with both herself and Roger, we expanded our initial idea into a full Zodiac panel based around them both. We had also hoped for an appearance by series co-star Anton Rodgers to add a performer's perspective to the panel, but he had already taken up a professional commitment and was ultimately unable to join us, except in spirit. He was, however, tremendously enthusiastic both about our group and the invitation, sending some signed photographs as his contribution to the day, and offered his support in the future, so we hope to have him as a guest at a Kaleidoscope event at some later date. Even without his involvement, our entertaining guests made the Zodiac panel an enjoyable and memorable one.

Jacqueline Davis, the producer and co-creator of Zodiac, worked as both a director and production assistant on many series at ABC and later Thames Television, including episodes of Public Eye and Armchair Theatre, before becoming a producer in 1969. She returned in this capacity to Armchair Theatre and has also produced the majority of John Mortimer's television works, most notably the celebrated and long-running Rumpole of the Bailey. Her other credits include the memorable anthology series Armchair Thriller and Cover. Entirely by coincidence, we managed to acquire another example of Jacqueline's work, Man at the Top (which she produced), which was screened immediately after the Zodiac panel.

Roger Marshall will already be familiar to our regulars after his popular appearance at Raiders of the Lost Archives '95. Over the last thirty-five years, there has scarcely been any well-known television series that has not featured Roger's scriptwriting talents at one time or another. As well as Zodiac, he co-created Public Eye and other notable entries in his writing career include episodes of Armchair Theatre, The Sweeney, The Avengers and Lovejoy. He also wrote three top-rated and criticially-acclaimed series, Travelling Man, Floodtide and Missing From Home in their entirety.

Above: Roger Marshall greets his old friend and colleague, Alfred Burke.

Below: Jacqueline Davis and Alfred Burke, with Alfred's partner Hedy (middle).

Below: Alfred Burke returned in the evening to wish us well, pictured here with the staff of
the RNLI's Stourbridge Branch, Chris Fonteyn, Jim Coombes and Sue Coombes.

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