Intersecting fandoms, part II
In the Professionals/Raffles crossover, “The Amateur Cracksman” by DVS (http://constantmuse.livejournal.com/4934.html), DVS says there are “Raffles references” in episodes of The Professionals. I only knew of one, in “Slush Fund” (which I posted here ages ago: http://constantmuse.livejournal.com/3900.html), so that plural set me looking. The obvious place to look was the episode “Backtrack”, where Bodie and Doyle go in for a spot of amateur cat burgling. Et voila!
In “Backtrack”, Bodie and Doyle are ordered, against their better judgment, to burgle two very posh London houses, retracing the steps of an accomplished professional “cat man”, the recently murdered Sammy.
I.
Exterior of the first house they have to break into, Doyle is trying to open the window, with encouragement from Bodie:
BODIE: [whispers] Come on, hurry up, mate.
DOYLE: All right.
BODIE: Marge said Sammy could open one of these in four seconds flat; we've been up here a fortnight.
DOYLE: Yeah, well, I'm not Sammy. I'm not Raffles, either. It's not my line, you know.
They successfully get in and out of the first house, then it’s on to the second.
II.
A Middle Eastern diplomat’s residence. Doyle is proud of his handiwork as he locates the hidden door in the library shelves, and opens by it doing something clever with folded tin foil and tape.
He shows Bodie a large stash of bagged heroin inside.
DOYLE: Look at this. Buy a lot of guns with this lot.
BODIE: Yeah. Raffles (with irony, as he indicates the security alarm in the door frame).
The baddies appear, with guns…
Trivia time:
1. The “Raffles” TV series was filmed in 1976 and screened in 1977. “Backtrack” began production in 1978, presumably the script was completed then, although the burglary scenes weren’t filmed until April 1979. “Slush Fund” was filmed in October 1979. I wonder if the writers for The Professionals picked up these references from seeing “Raffles” on TV? Or whether anyone in the Pros production crew was involved with the Raffles production just a couple of years before?
2. The exterior scenes at the end of “Backtrack”, around the diplomat’s residence, use the same location as one burgled by Raffles in the episode “An Old Flame”; Carlton House Terrace and Carlton Gardens, St James.
3. In both “Backtrack” and “Slush Fund”, it’s Doyle who comes up with the Raffles allusion, but Bodie recognises it too. This isn’t out of character for the lads; Doyle is often seen reading some serious, middle-brow paperback, and Bodie, despite his loutish persona, is given to quoting Keats and Samuel Beckett.
4. In view of E.W. Hornung's in-laws, Raymond Doyle should know his Raffles!