Alfred Burke in "Public Eye"

The run of the last four series of the saga of the cut-price inquiry agent Frank Marker, which briefly acquired cult status in its heyday, came to an end on TalkingPicturesTV last Wednesday night. The Talking Pictures proprietors in previewing the showings reported that the archive of the original three seasons is in no condition to be transmitted. Happily, the joint creator and major scriptwriter of Public Eye, Roger Marshall, is still alive. One wonders whether he is prepared to authorise a remake, using the original scripts, but taking advantage of advances in digital photography to produce a technically higher quality product. One of the defects of the TV drama viewing experience in the 1960s and earlier was the mismatch between interior and exterior shots, something which is no longer a problem. Birmingham (where Marker set up shop) has changed out of all recognition since 1965, but, if an "unimproved" town with similar buildings cannot be found for location shooting, CGI could step into the breach.

The time looks right for this revival. Multi-channel TV is eating up content, mostly from the US, and that mostly repeats. I am sure that commissioning editors would welcome something a bit different, but from writers with a track record. The Rockford Files, which may well have been inspired by Public Eye (though Rockford charged rather more per day than Marker), is always welcomed when the series is rerun.

If I were in charge of the project, I would insist on colour-blind casting. The image presented by the reruns was distinctly pale and thus atypical even when they were originally first made. The producers then could justifiably claim that there were not enough non-white actors of the right calibre but that is certainly not the case now. (An outstanding exception was "Who wants to be told bad news?" which not only featured Indian actors in key roles but also accepted that they could be crooks, too).

 It will be difficult to find an adequate replacement for Alfred Burke, but not impossible. There must surely be an actor out there of indeterminate age with a hang-dog expression. In private life though, judging by his appearances as himself on chat shows, Burke was far from dour.