Unconventional detective returns

Press, 30 August 1986, Page 19

Unconventional detective returns

The unconventional detective, Jim Bergerac, returns in a repeat screening of "Bergerac,” today (Saturday) at 11.20 p.m. on Two. He is a reformed alcoholic, divorced from the frosty daughter of a wealthy Jersey businessman, and has an injured leg. The series is set in Jersey and he is probably the most unconventional detective in the Bureau des Estrangers, a police department which deals exclusively with non-Jer-sey-born residents including wealthy tax-exiles, foreign visitors and crime

involving other countries. Each episode is a complete story, involving the crime in which Bergerac’s department becomes involved. At first his head of department is reluctant to accept him back when he returns from three months convalescence, after an accident in which his leg was badly crushed in a fight with a drugrunner. The fractures have not healed, and he receives an adverse medical report. The shadow of his drink-dependence looms large in his past, but his membership of Alcoholics Anonymous has

enabled him to control the problem. However, in the first episode he more than proves his worth. A former Shakespearian actor, John Nettles, is Bergerac and Cecile Paoli plays Francine, his girlfriend.