Oliver's Travels (1995– )

After his job is terminated, a humanities professor and puzzle addict joins forces with a woman PC to travel the country while solving a cold case murder.

Stars:

Alan Bates, Sinéad Cusack, Bill Paterson

Cast

Series cast summary:
Alan Bates	...	Oliver (5 episodes, 1995)
Sinéad Cusack	...	WPC Diane Priest (5 episodes, 1995)
Bill Paterson	...	Baxter (4 episodes, 1995)
Morgan Jones	...	Michael Priest (3 episodes, 1995)

Storyline

Oliver (we never learn whether this is his first name or his surname) is a middle-aged lecturer in Comparative Religion, with a passion for trivia, crosswords and anagrams, and a very strange taste in jokes. Having been made redundant from the University of the Rhondda Valley, and with no family ties, he decides to set off on a quest to find "Aristotle", a setter of crosswords. He soon teams up with WPC Diane Priest, who has just been suspended from the police force because she has been asking too many questions about a local murder that seems to implicate the Chief Constable. Pursued by Baxter ("the man with no name"), Oliver and Diane visit Shrewsbury, North Yorkshire, Durham, Hadrian's Wall and Kirkleven (in the Scottish highlands) on their journey to find "Aristotle" in the Orkney Isles. Along the way they uncover a major scandal centred around a property company. The laconic humour and the laid-back style are similar in many ways to _"Beiderbecke Affair, The" (1985) (mini)_ , _...

---

Plot Keywords:

murder | hadrian's wall | professor | cold case | anagram | 

---

Genres:

Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

---

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 October 1996 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Carr Brae, Lochalsh, Highland, Scotland, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

BBC Wales, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), World Wide International Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

250 min 250 min (5 episodes)

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

When Alan Plater wrote the novel "Oliver's Travels" on which this TV series is based, he dedicated it to his friend and fellow resident of Hull, Tom Courtenay. When the BBC decided to dramatise the novel for TV, Plater hoped that Courtenay would play Oliver, and was not pleased either with the casting of Alan Bates or with the way that Giles Foster directed the series.

---

Quotes

Diane Priest: Just go away... forever.
Oliver: If I do, you'll never find out.
Diane Priest: What?
Oliver: The very funny thing I know about sex.

User Reviews

A very funny, very romantic and very British mini-series

I saw this mini-series on "Mystery" on PBS and absolutely loved it. I usually hate movies/shows with a romantic bent but Alan Bates and Sinead Cusack have the most wonderful (and non-saccharine) chemistry of anybody I have seen. It was lovely to see a romance between two intelligent people who have plenty of lines on their faces instead of the typical 'Friends' twentysomethings. I honestly had to check the credits to make sure they weren't married to one another.

The writing overall is very well done, especially the conversations between Oliver and Diane, the two main characters. The plot has enough twists and turns to keep you interested and the humor is...well...very British. But very very funny. Highly recommended.