Sergeant Cork(1963)

series - first aired/released 1963-06-29 - audience 7.2

Drama

Directed by Alastair Reid, Antony Kearey, Bill Stewart, Christopher Morahan, Dennis Vance, Geoffrey Nethercott, Geoffrey Stephenson, Hugh Rennie, John Cooper, Josephine Douglas, Lionel Harris, Philip Dale, Quentin Lawrence, Rex Firkin

Sergeant Cork is a British detective television series which first aired between 1963 and 1968 on ITV. It was a police procedural show that followed the efforts of two police officers and their battle against crime in Victorian London. In all 66 hour-long episodes were aired during the five-year run, although the last episode was not broadcast until January 1968, 16 months after the others. Journalist Tom Sutcliffe has credited it as a first example of the use of the Victorian-era policeman in a television crime series. A 1969 review in The Age opined that rather than suspense, the strengths of the series were its "excellent period settings and wonderfully thick pea-soupers" which "add up to splendid evocative stuff", as well as the performance of star John Barrie. At no time during the whole series is Sergeant Cork's first name given.