Detective Sergeant Cribb and the faithful Constable Thackeray are characters brought to us by Peter Lovesey, author of the Cribb novels. The television series followed the success of Granada's play Waxwork, broadcast in 1979, in which the offbeat Sergeant was introduced to television audiences for the first time.
The series was produced by June Wyndham Davies whose credits include The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Master Blackmailer and The Cater Street Hangman. June discovered Waxwork by reading a Time magazine review and was so impressed with it she convinced producer Peter Eckersley that it would be perfect for television. Eckersley agreed and it became Film of the Month. It was shot in Manchester and at Madame Tussaud's in London.
Peter Lovesey had written seven Cribb books but, as Granada commissioned fourteen episodes for the series, he wrote the remaining seven episodes as scripts with the assistance of his wife, Jacqueline Lovesey.
Detective Sergeant Cribb has a dry sense of humour and is the backbone of the newly formed Criminal Investigation Department at London's Scotland Yard.
The CID, as it is now known, is the normal term for the plainclothes detective division in the United Kingdom. Founded by Colonel Sir. Charles Edward Howard Vincent in 1878, in 1888 the Department came under the authority of the Commissioner.
The Department was paid slightly more than uniformed police, and could also claim a number of allowances.
The series was set in the bright sunlit or fog-shrouded England of Queen Victoria and the principal photography took ten days. The smoke gun was a much utilised piece of equipment, creating the atmosphere of the time.
For Mad Hatter's Holiday the location was the West Pier in Brighton, now sadly dilapidated following a fire. Swing, Swing Together was filmed on the canals around Oxford - at the time the whole crew sank because the lighting equipment was so heavy. In Abracadaver the theatre was specially built by talented designer, Alan Price.
Cribb pursued his villains by boat, hansom cab and on foot. He was the epitome of a policeman of the past - finger printing was yet to be invented, he caught criminals before forensics, helicopters, speed cameras and DNA were available and old-fashioned detection work was done using logic and common sense.
The series was sold to over 88 countries around the world.
PETER LOVESEY.
Peter Lovesey was born in Whitton, Middlesex in 1936. After completing his education, he became a full time author and in 1970 began his career with Wobble To Death, introducing Detective Sergeant Cribb, the Victorian detective. Sergeant Cribb went on to feature in seven more books and was adapted into two television series.
Sergeant Cribb Novels
1970 Wobble to Death
1971 The Detective Wore Silk Drawers
1972 Abracadaver
1973 Mad Hatter's Holiday
1974 The Tick of Death (Invitation to a Dynamite Party)
1975 A Case of Spirits
1976 Swing, Swing Together
1978 Waxwork
Lovesey's novels have also alternated between two other contrasting detectives: Superintendent Peter Diamond, the head of the Bath Murder Team and the Victorian sleuth, Bertie, the Prince of Wales.
Lovesey was Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association in 1991-92. His mysteries and short stories have won him worldwide acclaim.
He won the CWA Gold Dagger in 1982 and the CWA Silver Dagger three times, as well as the 2000 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award. In France he was awarded the Grand Prix de Litterature Policere and the Prix du Roman d'Adventures and in the USA he received the Anthony Award, McAvity Award, Ellery Queen Readers' Award and the Mystery Writers' of America Golden Mysteries Short Story Prize.
Lovesey's novels have been translated into twenty two languages, and many of them have been optioned for film and Television. Recently he was the story consultant on the Television Series Rosemary and Thyme. He currently lives in Chichester, West Sussex.
