Get Lost!
Encyclopedia
Get Lost! is a British television drama
serial made by Yorkshire Television
in 1981 for the ITV
network. Written by Alan Plater
, the plot concerns the disappearance of the husband of Leeds
schoolteacher Judy Threadgold (Bridget Turner
). Investigating the disappearance, with the aid of her colleague, woodwork teacher Neville Keaton (Alun Armstrong
), Judy learns of the existence of a secret organisation that helps disaffected people leave their unhappy lives behind.
Alan Plater's The Beiderbecke Affair
(1985) started out as a sequel to Get Lost! but was rewritten with new characters when Alun Armstrong proved unavailable to reprise the role of Neville Keaton.
and had been a regular writer on the police series Z-Cars
(1962–78) and its spin-off series Softly, Softly
(1966–69) and Softly, Softly: Taskforce
(1969–76). He had also written several plays for the BBC
and ITV and created and wrote the sitcom Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt!
(1974). Plater's scripts were noted for their strong depiction of the lives of the inhabitants of Northern England
. In 1978, Plater was commissioned by David Cunliffe
, an executive producer at Yorkshire Television
(YTV), to adapt J. B. Priestley
's The Good Companions
as a thirteen part serial. Plater was only able to stretch the plot to fill nine episodes and so offered to write four episodes of what he called a "non-violent thriller" to make up the balance.
Using characters inspired by Nick and Nora Charles, the detectives in the film The Thin Man
(1934) and its sequels, Plater sought to juxtapose the conventions of the hardboiled
thriller, as expounded by the likes of Raymond Chandler
and Dashiel Hammett, with the mundanity of life in Yorkshire. The plot was inspired by a newspaper article that reported that 20,000 people went missing in the UK each year.
In creating his two protagonists – Neville Keaton and Judy Threadgold (named after Sunderland
goalkeeper Harry Threadgold) – Plater hit upon the idea of making the schoolteachers, saying, "I tried to think of the least likely place to find two detectives and I came up with a staffroom of a comprehensive school in Leeds". Plater apportioned elements of his own interests to his two heroes, making Judy an environmental campaigner and Neville a football and jazz fan. Neville's love of jazz is reflected in the serial's soundtrack which features re-recordings, by Frank Ricotti
and featuring Kenny Baker
, of tracks by the likes of Duke Ellington
.
Cast as Neville Keaton was Alun Armstrong
who, at the time, had worked with the National Theatre
and the Royal Shakespeare Company
and would later go on to enjoy a varied television career with roles in such programmes as Our Friends in the North
(1996), This is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper (2000) and New Tricks (2003–present). Judy Threadgold was played by Bridget Turner
, an actress best known for her stage work, especially works by Alan Ayckbourn
, and had previously appeared in episodes of Sutherland's Law
(1973–76) and Target (1977–78).
Get Lost! aired to respectable ratings – averaging 10.9 million viewers across its run – and Plater soon began work on a sequel. When it transpired than Alun Armstrong would not be available to reprise the role of Neville Keaton, Plater decided that, rather than recasting the role, he would create two new characters and rewrite the scripts. The sequel to Get Lost! was reworked by Plater into what was to become The Beiderbecke Affair
(1985), the first serial in what was to become known as The Beiderbecke Trilogy
.
Get Lost! was released on region 2 DVD
by Network DVD
in 2006 as an extra in a boxset release of The Beiderbecke Trilogy.
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
serial made by Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...
in 1981 for the ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
network. Written by Alan Plater
Alan Plater
Alan Frederick Plater, CBE, FRSL was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s.-Career:...
, the plot concerns the disappearance of the husband of Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
schoolteacher Judy Threadgold (Bridget Turner
Bridget Turner
Bridget Turner is a British actress.She has worked with a number of very famous actors including Peter O'Toole, Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Bernard Blier, Trevor Howard, Bernadette Lafont and Richard Burton and Christina Ricci.On May 8, 2009 John Cleese stated in an interview that Bridget was...
). Investigating the disappearance, with the aid of her colleague, woodwork teacher Neville Keaton (Alun Armstrong
Alun Armstrong (actor)
Alun Armstrong is a prolific British character actor. Armstrong grew up in County Durham in North East England. He first became interested in acting through Shakespeare productions at his grammar school. Since his career began in the early 1970s, he has played, in his words, "the full spectrum of...
), Judy learns of the existence of a secret organisation that helps disaffected people leave their unhappy lives behind.
Alan Plater's The Beiderbecke Affair
The Beiderbecke Affair
The Beiderbecke Affair is a television series produced in the UK by ITV during 1985, written by the prolific Alan Plater, whose lengthy credits to British Television since the 1960s included the preceding 4 part mini series Get Lost! for ITV in 1981...
(1985) started out as a sequel to Get Lost! but was rewritten with new characters when Alun Armstrong proved unavailable to reprise the role of Neville Keaton.
Plot summary
The plot of Get Lost! concerns the disappearance of Jim Threadgold (Brian Southwood), husband of English teacher Judy Threadgold (Turner). Aided by her colleague, woodwork teacher Neville Keaton (Armstrong), Judy sets out to find out what has happened to her husband. Judy and Neville soon discover the existence of a secret organisation dedicated to assisting people who want to escape the mundanity of their lives and families and just disappear. Although Judy eventually finds her missing husband, she is none too enthusiastic about taking him back and allows him to seek a new life running a fish and chip shop. Her adversarial relationship with Neville blossoms into a love affair.Production
Alan Plater had begun writing for television in the early nineteen-sixties1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
and had been a regular writer on the police series Z-Cars
Z-Cars
Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...
(1962–78) and its spin-off series Softly, Softly
Softly, Softly (TV series)
Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It centred around the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern - supposedly in the Bristol and Chepstow area of the UK...
(1966–69) and Softly, Softly: Taskforce
Softly, Softly: Taskforce
Softly, Softly the popular BBC television police drama series, was revamped in 1969, partly to coincide with the coming of colour broadcasting to BBC 1...
(1969–76). He had also written several plays for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and ITV and created and wrote the sitcom Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt!
Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt!
Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt! was a popular ITV situation comedy which ran from 1974 to 1977.It starred Bill Maynard as the council labourer, Scarsdale Working Men’s Club secretary, hapless handyman and all-round public nuisance Selwyn Froggitt. It was created by Roy Clarke, who wrote the pilot...
(1974). Plater's scripts were noted for their strong depiction of the lives of the inhabitants of Northern England
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...
. In 1978, Plater was commissioned by David Cunliffe
David Cunliffe
David Richard Cunliffe is a New Zealand politician. He is a member of the Labour Party, and the sitting member of parliament for New Lynn, West Auckland. He served as the Minister of Health and Minister for Communications and Information Technology for the Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand...
, an executive producer at Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...
(YTV), to adapt J. B. Priestley
J. B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley, OM , known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions , as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls...
's The Good Companions
The Good Companions
The Good Companions is a novel by the English author J. B. Priestley.Written in 1929 , it focuses on the trials and tribulations of a concert party in England between World War I and World War II. It is arguably Priestley's most famous novel, and the work which established him as a national figure...
as a thirteen part serial. Plater was only able to stretch the plot to fill nine episodes and so offered to write four episodes of what he called a "non-violent thriller" to make up the balance.
Using characters inspired by Nick and Nora Charles, the detectives in the film The Thin Man
The Thin Man
The Thin Man is a detective novel by Dashiell Hammett, originally published in Redbook. Although he never wrote a sequel, the book became the basis for a successful six-part film series which also began in 1934 with The Thin Man and starred William Powell and Myrna Loy...
(1934) and its sequels, Plater sought to juxtapose the conventions of the hardboiled
Hardboiled
Hardboiled crime fiction is a literary style, most commonly associated with detective stories, distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex. The style was pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined...
thriller, as expounded by the likes of Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
and Dashiel Hammett, with the mundanity of life in Yorkshire. The plot was inspired by a newspaper article that reported that 20,000 people went missing in the UK each year.
In creating his two protagonists – Neville Keaton and Judy Threadgold (named after Sunderland
Sunderland A.F.C.
Sunderland Association Football Club is an English association football club based in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear who currently play in the Premier League...
goalkeeper Harry Threadgold) – Plater hit upon the idea of making the schoolteachers, saying, "I tried to think of the least likely place to find two detectives and I came up with a staffroom of a comprehensive school in Leeds". Plater apportioned elements of his own interests to his two heroes, making Judy an environmental campaigner and Neville a football and jazz fan. Neville's love of jazz is reflected in the serial's soundtrack which features re-recordings, by Frank Ricotti
Frank Ricotti
Frank Ricotti is an English jazz vibraphonist and percussionist.Ricotti played in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra while a teenager, then attended Trinity College of Music...
and featuring Kenny Baker
Kenny Baker (trumpeter)
Kenny Baker was born on 1 March 1921 in Withernsea, East Riding of Yorkshire and died 7 December 1999. He was an accomplished player of jazz trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn, and a composer.-Biography:...
, of tracks by the likes of Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
.
Cast as Neville Keaton was Alun Armstrong
Alun Armstrong (actor)
Alun Armstrong is a prolific British character actor. Armstrong grew up in County Durham in North East England. He first became interested in acting through Shakespeare productions at his grammar school. Since his career began in the early 1970s, he has played, in his words, "the full spectrum of...
who, at the time, had worked with the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
and the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
and would later go on to enjoy a varied television career with roles in such programmes as Our Friends in the North
Our Friends in the North
Our Friends in the North is a British television drama serial, produced by the BBC and originally broadcast in nine episodes on BBC Two in early 1996...
(1996), This is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper (2000) and New Tricks (2003–present). Judy Threadgold was played by Bridget Turner
Bridget Turner
Bridget Turner is a British actress.She has worked with a number of very famous actors including Peter O'Toole, Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Bernard Blier, Trevor Howard, Bernadette Lafont and Richard Burton and Christina Ricci.On May 8, 2009 John Cleese stated in an interview that Bridget was...
, an actress best known for her stage work, especially works by Alan Ayckbourn
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...
, and had previously appeared in episodes of Sutherland's Law
Sutherland's Law
Sutherland's Law is a television series made by BBC Scotland between 1973 and 1976.The series had originated as a stand alone edition of the portmanteau programme Drama Playhouse in 1972 in which Derek Francis played Sutherland and was then commissioned as an ongoing series.Sutherland's Law dealt...
(1973–76) and Target (1977–78).
Get Lost! aired to respectable ratings – averaging 10.9 million viewers across its run – and Plater soon began work on a sequel. When it transpired than Alun Armstrong would not be available to reprise the role of Neville Keaton, Plater decided that, rather than recasting the role, he would create two new characters and rewrite the scripts. The sequel to Get Lost! was reworked by Plater into what was to become The Beiderbecke Affair
The Beiderbecke Affair
The Beiderbecke Affair is a television series produced in the UK by ITV during 1985, written by the prolific Alan Plater, whose lengthy credits to British Television since the 1960s included the preceding 4 part mini series Get Lost! for ITV in 1981...
(1985), the first serial in what was to become known as The Beiderbecke Trilogy
The Beiderbecke Trilogy
The Beiderbecke Trilogy refers to three television serials written by Alan Plater and made by Yorkshire Television for the ITV network in the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1988. Each serial centres around schoolteachers Trevor Chaplin and Jill Swinburne who work at a rundown comprehensive...
.
Get Lost! was released on region 2 DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
by Network DVD
Network DVD
Network DVD is a DVD publishing company that specialises in classic British television. In particular, it has the rights to a number of well-known ITV programmes...
in 2006 as an extra in a boxset release of The Beiderbecke Trilogy.
List of episodes
| No. | Title | Airdate | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Worried About Jim" | 12 June 1981 | 10.5m |
| 2 | "The Vicar Did It" | 19 June 1981 | 12.7m |
| 3 | "Kiss Me Quick" | 26 June 1981 | 11.5m |
| 4 | "Not A Proper Ending" | 3 July 1981 | 8.8m |
Filming locations
The series was mainly filmed around the Leeds area. Settings included:- The pub in "Worried about Jim" - The Garden Gate in HunsletHunsletHunslet is an inner-city area in south Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is south east of the city centre and has an industrial past.Hunslet had many engineering companies based in the district, such as John Fowler & Co...
. - The Litrary Society meeting place - Town Hall, Yeadon.