Man in a Suitcase: ITC-land Volume 1

Book excerpt: Lew Grade's pioneering ITC company created a production line of quirky new drama series for British Independent Television in the 1960s, fulfilling a vision of providing entertaining, colour film series for a global market. In the first of a proposed series of critical guides, Avengers expert Rodney Marshall and television historian Matthew Lee explore ITC's Man in a Suitcase. Their book offers new, inventive readings of all thirty episodes. Man in a Suitcase is a product of its mid-1960s context, exploring themes such as Cold War espionage and Swinging Sixties playgirls, yet most of the stories also have a timeless feel to them: political corruption, blackmail, murder, missing persons or money, art theft. Despite the private detective/bounty hunter formula, there are welcome elements of playfulness, quirkiness, surrealism and a healthy abundance of social and political critique. Man in a Suitcase cannot be simplistically labelled as 'light entertainment' given the dark subject matter and its treatment.