QPR Screen References: No.13 – ‘The Last Detective’

Kerrins put me on the trail of ‘The Last Detective’ and I have to say that at the time I didn’t know anything about it whatsoever. The screenplay is by Richard Harris and is based on the book by one time R’s fan Leslie Thomas, on the character ‘Dangerous Davies’. D.C Davies is based at Willesden North Police Station and is anything but ‘dangerous’.

Peter Davison plays the lead role and is well known for his performances in ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘All Creatures Great and Small’. His sidekick is ‘Mod Lewis’ played by Sean Hughes, who had a small part in the film, ‘The Commitments’ and was more recently a team leader in the popular satirical TV show, ‘Never Mind The Buzzcocks’. Mod is usually on the dole and often located in his local library or sharing a few pints with Dangerous.

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After arresting a local teenager for possessing stolen goods, his boss, D.I. Aspinall gives him another case that’s probably a waste of time. Although James Edward Ramscar is a very naughty boy, that was four years ago before he emigrated. The word is that he could be returning to London and back in business. This eventually leads him onto resurrecting the unsolved murder of a 17 year-old-girl. Dangerous takes it upon himself to interview her family and the prime suspects.

His ex-wife asks him to look after the dog for a while and whilst on the Heath, he bumps into Mod who is walking a number of dogs for a small pittance and they adjourn to the pub. Another such outing takes them to the local cemetery. As the girl was last sighted at the entrance gates, Mod thinks that it’s the perfect place to hide a murder victim. Once inside, the conversation revolves around death and burials which prompts Dangerous to say: “What a morbid conversation this is. Why don’t we talk about something else – Queen’s Park Rangers.” Mod can only reply : “Now that is morbid.”

Despite being the butt of amusement from his colleagues, Dangerous finds the body and there is a dramatic twist when he eventually nails the murderer but no accolade from his superiors or any kind of thanks from the girl’s family. The series is currently being shown on Alibi TV.

Steve Russell

4 thoughts on “QPR Screen References: No.13 – ‘The Last Detective’

  1. Ahh Leslie Thomas…you’ve got to love the bloke! Probably best known for his besteller ‘Stand up Virgin Soldiers’ there was a time when he used to get featured on an ad hoc basis in the QPR programme during the 1970’s.
    In the author biogs on the back of his books Thomas used to list his hobbies as ‘collecting antiques and supporting Queens Park Rangers Football club’ unfortunately about a decade back he decided to drop the QPR bit…he was obviously a glory hunter then! Interesting that the name of one of the characters mentioned above is Ramscar who (much) older supporters will remember that a Fred Ramscar played as an Inside left for QPR between 1947-49 and was a member of the 3rd division championship winning team of 1948.
    ..another tenuous link to QPR

  2. Moreno… Hmm Leslie Thomas seems just like that other writer and author Tim Lott who claimed support for QPR FC during the 1970’s and nowadays has dropped us like a hot brick!

    Steve… Thanks for posting this screen ref. I must have missed this particular episode because I thought the only ref to the R’s was in “The Man from Montevideo”

  3. Just wondering if these ‘celeb’ fans have come back to us now? Maybe let’s hope that they haven’t…!

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