Dalziel and Pascoe – Nostalgia Central

1 9 9 6 – 2 0 0 7 (UK)
61 x 120 minute episodes

Take an ageing detective who rose through the ranks doing police work the old-fashioned way; pair him with a young university graduate on the force’s fast-track program; the result – Dalziel and Pascoe.

Andy Dalziel (pronounced Dee-el and effortlessly played by Warren Clarke) was a solid copper of tradition: larger than life, a heavy smoker, a heavier drinker, and a consumer of cholesterol-packed traditional Yorkshire food that is likely to kill him.

His blunt, forthright manner hid a keen mind.

Peter Pascoe (Colin Buchanan) was the academically clever modern detective heading straight for the top of his profession.

His girlfriend, Ellie (Susannah Corbett), disapproved of him becoming a policeman. She married him at Dalziel’s suggestion, and they had a child, but she left him and emigrated to the United States.

Working in and around the (fictional) Yorkshire town of Wetherton, the two detectives were antagonistic – often openly hostile – but the tension between them was creative; they bounced ideas off each other in the search for solutions to the seemingly impossible forensic problems posed by a succession of one-off murders, serial killers, deaths that at first looked like suicides, and cold cases that reemerged to haunt the present.

61 episodes of Dalziel and Pascoe were produced across 12 series. The episodes in the first three and a half years were based on the novels of English crime writer Reginald Hill. All but one of the remaining episodes were original screenplays.

Det. Supt. Andy Dalziel
Warren Clarke
Det. Insp. Peter Pascoe
Colin Buchanan
Det. Sgt. Edgar Wield
David Royle
WPC Kim ‘Posh’ Spicer
Jennifer James
DC Parvez Lateef
Wayne Perrey
Ellie Pascoe/Soper
Susannah Corbett
Dr Frank Mason
Joe Savino
Det. Const. Shirley ‘Ivor’ Novello
Jo-Anne Stockham