Local gangster Brian Gamage ( Nicknamed Brain Damage ) commits a violent crime which means Arthur Daley and his minder Terry McCann have to disappear for a while . So far so good but what lets down this feature length edition of MINDER ( Probably the most entertaining show from ITV in the early 1980s ) is the characterisation . I don't know how many scripts writer Andrew Payne contributed to the series but he seems to have a problem getting the characters of Arthur and Terry correct . The beauty of Arthur Daley is that he's a tight fisted spiv who always ends up getting Terry Mccann into trouble , Terry being a former criminal who is trying to go straight . But this character interaction doesn't translate to MINDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS . Arthur happily buys Terry drinks something he loath to do in the series : " Now Terrance you're working " and we see Terry offer a gangster top dog a fight " Oi do you fancy me or something ? " . Very unlikely that Terry would be so free with his fists from what we've previously seen from him
Where Payne does succeed is when he writes for other characters . Series regular Inspector Chisholm who has made it his life's work to bring Arthur and Terry bang to rights and send them down for a long time arrogantly believes that because he's a copper he's exempt from paying on the Orient Express and hasn't brought any money with him so he ends up in Arthur's debt . Highly unlikely but a very amusing scenario . Payne also manges to bring the other characters to life like this exchange between Ronald Lacey's gross and anorakish train enthusiast and Honor Blackman's prim and proper sardonic passenger
"Just show me a bogey and I'm in heaven "
" Yes I expect you probably are "
A very amusing one off edition of MINDER but one that doesn't capture the essence of the two regulars which leads me to believe that the script wasn't originally written for Arthur and Terry in mind
Where Payne does succeed is when he writes for other characters . Series regular Inspector Chisholm who has made it his life's work to bring Arthur and Terry bang to rights and send them down for a long time arrogantly believes that because he's a copper he's exempt from paying on the Orient Express and hasn't brought any money with him so he ends up in Arthur's debt . Highly unlikely but a very amusing scenario . Payne also manges to bring the other characters to life like this exchange between Ronald Lacey's gross and anorakish train enthusiast and Honor Blackman's prim and proper sardonic passenger
"Just show me a bogey and I'm in heaven "
" Yes I expect you probably are "
A very amusing one off edition of MINDER but one that doesn't capture the essence of the two regulars which leads me to believe that the script wasn't originally written for Arthur and Terry in mind