Production began on 7 June 1967 and was completed in two weeks (from DVD notes of episodes 7-10).

The cast includes Patrick Magee who, just like Berkoff, would appear in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. Other cast members Salmaan Peerzada and Pauline Chamberlain would both shortly appear in Vendetta for the Saint as did Berkoff.

In the credits Steven's name is misspelled.

"They were looking for mime artists for the player scene in Hamlet.  That's me I screamed down the phone and they said - Come on in" (Steven Berkoff, Free Association, 1997).

The play was performed on location at Elsinore.  "it was one of the most exciting things I ever saw rehearsed. Plummer's energy and voice were astounding to watch and hear; he seemed to leap over everyone in huge bounds of vitality" (Steven Berkoff, Free Association, 1997).  The director was Philip Saville who more than 30 years later would direct Berkoff in Hans Christian Andersen.

In the play within a play Lucianus (Berkoff) re-enacts the murder of the king.  The role shows Berkoff's mime skills, bringing a minor character to life.  The whole production is excellent, especially Christopher Plummer as Hamlet.  Donald Sutherland is however really bad with an accent that would fit Dracula.

Murder in the Cathedral from 1964 with Steven Berkoff in a bit part as the messenger in the T.S. Eliot play filmed for television, directed by George R. Foa.  Cyril Cusack (below) played Beckett.

The series Moonstrike from 1963 with Steven Berkoff in the episode A Matter of Trust.  The episode no longer exists.

"This anthology series of one-off thrillers from the BBC featured stories about the covert activities of Allied agents and resistance operatives against German forces in occupied Europe during the Second World War.  Each episode portrayed the efforts of a different Resistance group assisting Allied forces in their efforts to defeat the Germans, although many stories featured the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and their operations in occupied territories" (from Nostalgia Central site, click here).

"The special squadrons needed moonlight to fly into occupied countries on their secret operations.  The loyalty of a gypsy girl is put severely to the test" (from Radio Times, 6 Jul 1963 on The Genome Project site click here).

The director Horace Ové later worked with Berkoff in The Professionals.

Corrigan Blake - Love Bird 1963

"The episode Love Bird from the BBC series Corrigan Blake.

Over the course of six episodes… Corrigan encountered six women of different social backgrounds and was enchanted with each one of them - yet ultimately it was the women who outsmarted, outfoxed, outwitted and used Corrigan for their own ends. The programme became more comedic in its approach to scenarios… and was virtually BBC Television's first attempt at comedy-drama (a relatively new genre which emerged in the late 1960s and became commonplace throughout the 1970s across all the British networks). The series… was directed by BBC stalwart James MacTaggart. Regrettably, the programme was not retained in the network's archives and was never commercially exploited.” (information from startrader here, thanks to David for permission to reproduce).

The episode Love Bird first broadcast on 5 Jun 1963.  The writer was Alun Owen (from the Radio Times on the genome archive site click here).

Corrigan Blake was played by John Turner.  Steven Berkoff has a part as a barman.  Director James MacTaggart also produced the BBC play The Pistol in 1965 featuring Berkoff.

The Saint, with a larger  part for Steven Berkoff as chief henchman Cark in Roger Moore's Saint series, in The Man Who Gambled with Life from 1962. The director is Freddie Francis, with script by Harry W. Junkin.  Berkoff also had a minor role in Roger Moore's Saint film for cinema, with the same script writer. 

Alone in the countryside, the Saint is approached by a girl wearing identical clothes to his- why isn't explained in the film.

She gives him a white mouse and talks about death.  Later when she reappears, it turns out not to be her but her sister.  Both sisters are daughters of a millionaire, with heart problems, looking for volunteers to test a process to freeze people and bring them back to life in the future.  He wants to freeze himself until it is possible to obtain a heart transplant- five years after the film the first heart transplant was carried out.  The Saint is the prime candidate to test the process.

Berkoff, with his worst fake moustache and Star Trek jersey, is leader of the henchmen.  He has to put up with lines like "your psycho-analytical profile showed an immense bias towards the bizarre".

The fashion of the women is, er, interesting.

 The previous experiment with a gorilla was a failure.  Time is running out for the millionaire.

All images from the DVD for the episode.

   

Steven Berkoff has a small part in The Gravediggers, an episode of The Avengers, directed in 1965 by Quentin Lawrence.  In The Avengers John Steed (Patrick Macnee) and Mrs Peel (Diana Rigg) solve mysterious crimes with good chemistry between Steed in bowler hat and suit and Emma Peel as intelligent and far from defenceless. In The Gravediggers Steed and Emma investigate blackouts in British radar installations. It turns out to be a plan to bury jamming devices in graveyards around the country.

Steed follows a lead at a nursing home and shows a nurse a photo of a missing scientist.  She says she has never seen him, but the scientist suddenly appears behind them.  Steed investigates further and comes across a patient, Sager, with a leg in plaster in a wheelchair.

But Sager, played by Steven Berkoff, is a henchman- Berkoff's usual role at this period. The wheelchair and broken leg is a disguise and he pulls a gun on Steed. Not a good idea and Steed has no problems disarming him.

The best scene is almost an aside.  Steed follows another clue to The Sir Horace Winslip Hospital for Ailing Railwaymen, and Sir Horace has a train carriage in his living room.  Steed and Sir Horace (a good eccentric role played spot on by Ronald Fraser) lunch in the dining car.

The dining car has effects such as the sound of a train (on a record player) and shakes gently (the servant rocking the carriage).  The train is stationery but the countryside outside (a screen) moves by including through a tunnel in the dark, with soot coming through the window.

Mrs Peel gets caught and is tied to the outdoor model railway line as a train approaches.  Steed is to the rescue despite  Berkoff trying to stop him.

The episode was filmed during March/April 1965 and first broadcast on British ITV (Midland and North) on 9 Oct 1965.  The miniature railway scenes were filmed at Stapleford Park, Melton Mowbray.

All images from the DVD of the episode, location and dates from DVD notes.

The series The Four Just Men based on a story by Edgar  Wallace.  Four men decide to form a pact for justice, and each episode features one of the four tackling a crime.

Steven Berkoff appears in two episodes in non-speaking, uncredited roles.

 The Four Just Men: Panic Button

Panic Button from 1959 directed by Anthony Bushell who also directed Berkoff in the episode Toys of the Dead in the tv series The Third Man.

Jeff Ryder, one of the four just men played by Richard Conte, is visited by a girl (Sheila Gallagher) who tells him she  isn't allowed to go to her college.  Ryder asks why and is told it is because she is radioactive (!!).

Her father is a scientist and when working with radioactive material an accident caused leakage.

The news has caused panic when the girl goes to her schools the students ignore her and walk out.

Two students- left a young looking Steven Berkoff, right Oliver Reed, both uncredited.  Both would also appear in The Third Man- Toys of the Dead in the same year but without sharing any scenes.

Ryder talks to the mob and convinces them then there is no danger.

All images from the film. 

The Four Just Men: The Treviso Dam

The Traviso Dam from 1960, directed by Basil Dearden.  It was the last episode of the series.

A new dam is under construction but Carlo, one of the workers, suspects there is fraud with poorer quality building material being used.

The management don't listen, and his girlfriend Anna tells him to contact Ricco Poccari, one of the four just men (played by Vittorio de Sica).  Poccari arrives to learn that Carlo has been murdered.

Anna has another suitor, Giorgio, who Anna rejects.  Giorgio initially seems a suspect who could have murdered Carlo to get to Anna.  But Poccari sets a trap and discovers the real murderer.

The film has a host of famous actors starting their careers, and star Vittorio de Sica was the director of films including Bicycle Thieves and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.

Alan Bates as Giorgio and Judi Dench as Anna.

Berkoff on the left in his uncredited role.

All images from the film.

Toys of the Dead from 1959, an episode  in The Third Man television series.

The series nominally based on the film with Michael Rennie playing Harry Lime who has become a "Saint" like character.  It actually has little to do with the film.

Another film where the young Oliver Reed appears in the same film as Steven Berkoff.

Berkoff plays Toni da Costa a henchman with an Italian accent in a story about diamonds.

Steven Berkoff looking moody.

Anthony Bushell directs this television episode from 1959.  John Kruse wrote the script, just as he wrote Vendetta for the Saint in which Berkoff also appears.

Berkoff's name is misspelled in the credits.

All images from the film.

Crime and Punishment 1959

Steven Berkoff plays Pestryakov in this filming of Dostoyevsky's novel.

Berkoff says (Free Association) "I found myself playing small costume parts in Crime and Punishment and Murder in the Cathedral, eking out a living, reporting to the labour exchange".  Cyril Coke directs this television production from 1959.