618 The Mad Death

First  viewed  :  July  1983

Besides  the  water  shortage, the  long  hot  summer  of  1976  was  also  marked  by  a  rabies  scare. I  can't  recall  what  sparked  it  off   but  there  were  posters  in  the  local  health  centre  warning  of  the  dangers  of  flaunting  quarantine  laws. It  seemed  like  Death was  just  waiting  to  pop  over  from  Calais  and  get  us. Radio  playwright  James  Follett  ( not  to  be  confused  with  Labour  luvvie  Ken )  capitalised  on  this  with  a  scary  drama  The  Rabid  Summer  on  Radio  Four  which  made  such  an  impression  on  me  that  I  taped  the  repeat  and  played  it  to  my  friends.

I  don't  know  if  Nigel  Slater  who  wrote  The  Mad  Death  some  six  years  later  heard  the  play  but  there  are  strong  similarities. In  both,  the  hero  is  a  vet  who  has  to  impose  unpopular  control  measures  in  the  teeth  of  opposition  from  countryside  interests  and  mad  old  pet-loving  ladies. In  this  case,  the  vet was  a  younger  man  Hillard  , played  by  Richard  Heffer  with  an  arrogance  that  made  him  very  difficult  to  like. The  green  wellies  brigade  were  represented  by  Dalry  ( Richard  Morant )  who  was  also  the  suspicious  boyfriend  of  Hillard's  assistant  Anne  ( Barbara  Kellerman ).  Brenda  Bruce  played  the  psychotic  cat  owner.

I  think  I  missed  the  first  episode   of  this  three-parter   but  I   recall  a  scene , which  must  have  given  Richard  Whiteley  nightmares  ,where  Hillard  is  ambushed  in  a  pub  by  a  group  of  yokels  and  has  a  ferret  pushed  to  within  a  centimetre  of  his  face. I  also  remember  Dalry  giving  Hillard  a long-overdue  punch  at  some  point  in  the  final  part.