Sergeant Bergerac back on the beat

Press, 20 July 1987, Page 19

Sergeant Bergerac back on the beat

Sergeant Jim Bergerac is back on the beat tonight (8 p.m. on One) for a new series of “Bergerac.’’ Set in the picturesque Channel Island of Jersey — a sanctuary for wealthy tax-exiles and a magnet for rogues — this popular thriller has John Nettles in the title role. While Nettles says he has “striven to make my character like a real cop, not like a TV cop,” Bergerac is not a policeman in the traditional mould. A reformed alcoholic with a gammy leg and a fast car, he is divorced from the daughter of a rich Jersey businessman. He works in the Bureau des Etrangers, a police department which deals exclusively with foreignborn residents, including wealthy tax exiles, and crime involving other

countries. “We’ve created a whole background for him, which, basically, is Jersey and Jersey society,” says Nettles. “He lives and breathes and dreams this small island. “Most of the time he

tends to be very tense because being a policeman is a very tense way of living. He’s under enormous pressure all the time, willy-nilly. Marrying out of his class was the big mistake for him: his own father was a fisherman, apparently, but he married young into a very well-heeled family.” Nettles confesses he would be happier if “Bergerac’? had the urban glamour and character of the “Minder” series. “I suppose I shouldn’t say it about my own show,” he says, “But it is not nearly as glamorous and the characters aren’t nearly as rich as those in ‘Minder’. “We’re much more middle-class entertainment. More genteel. ‘Bergerac’ takes time to get used to. It’s a slow burner.”