Warship 

Life in the Royal Navy aboard the fictional HMS Hero.

Creators:

Anthony Coburn, Ian Mackintosh

Stars:

David Savile, Andrew Burt, Donald Burton

Cast

Series cast summary:
David Savile	...	Lt. Cmdr. Beaumont / ... 32 episodes, 1973-1976
Andrew Burt	...	Lt. Peek 26 episodes, 1976-1977
Donald Burton	...	Cmdr. Mark Nialls / ... 20 episodes, 1973-1976
James Cosmo	...	L / ... 20 episodes, 1973-1977
John Lee	...	Lt. Cmdr. Kiley / ... 20 episodes, 1973-1977
Don Henderson	...	MAA Heron / ... 18 episodes, 1973-1976
Norman Eshley	...	Lt. Last / ... 17 episodes, 1973-1974
Graeme Eton	...	Lt. Wakelin / ... 14 episodes, 1973-1977
Bryan Marshall	...	Cmdr. Alan Glenn 13 episodes, 1976
Derek Godfrey	...	Capt. Edward Holt 13 episodes, 1977
Robert Morris	...	Lt. Cmdr. Napier 13 episodes, 1977

Storyline

Life in the Royal Navy aboard the fictional HMS Hero.

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Plot Keywords:

navy | 

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Genres:

Action | Drama

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Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 June 1973 (UK)

Also Known As:

Alle hens

Company Credits

Production Co:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

50 min (45 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The waves seen in the opening credits of Warship have also been seen in other seafaring programmes such as Captain Pugwash and Spongebob Squarepants.

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Connections

Referenced in Are You Being Served?: Fifty Years On (1976)

User Reviews

Did this really run for four years?

Stirring stuff opening titles with HMS 'Hero' plunging through the waves bow on to the camera, gave way to a fairly mundane 'soapy' drama about the crew of a destroyer in the Navy.

Being mainly exteriors and pre-dating electronic portability, most of this was shot on 16mm film, with a few studio based shots having completely different sound and picture quality. Very often the crash edits between the two media provided the only dramatic elements to these shows and would wake you from the slumbering state the script had left you in.

Standard plot vehicles were members of the crew smuggling drugs, affairs between crew members and each others wives, crew members resorting to crime to solve some financial crisis. Very occasionally there would be a rescue from some foreign shore, or a bit of gunboat diplomacy. You get the feeling though that being some time after the last 'high profile' navy engagement with Iceland in the Cod War and before the Falklands, the writers couldn't bring themselves to imagine the ship engaged in any kind of warfare. I think the only shots fired were warning ones from the Bofors machine gun in the bow.

Of course the appeal was the crew were all young and dashing, although none of that rescued this rather cheap looking series from its below par performance. Curiously some 30 years later the surviving cast are all turning up as old crocks on 'The Bill' 'Casualty' and all the other soaps that pervade the UK channels at present.

A much better treatment of life in the Navy was the documentary 'Sailor' made in the late seventies. Raw, and uncompromising this doco was a hit, but is puzzlingly absent from the IMDb's pages.