The Rat Catchers

The Rat Catchers

1966 - United Kingdom

Based in Whitehall, The Rat Catchers were a highly secretive band of men who officially didn't exist, but whose job it was to ensure the security of Britain and the Western Alliance. 

The three main characters were international playboy Peregrine Pascale Smith (Gerald Flood) an Oxford educated managing director and cold bloodied, but expert spy, Brigadier Davidson (Philip Stone) the analytical brains behind the organisation, and newcomer Richard Hurst (Glyn Owen) a former Scotland Yard Superintendent. 

The series was a far cry from the glitzy world of the superspy as being portrayed in the cinema at that time, and more like the bleak underground world seen through the eyes of James Mitchell's Callan, which began its televisual life just around the time that The Rat Catchers was ending its.

Published on January 24th, 2019. Written by Laurence Marcus for Television Heaven.

Read Next...

Over My Dead Body

Edward Woodward stars as a former best-selling mystery novelist who teams up with an aspiring reporter to solve crimes that have the police stumped

Also tagged Callan

Cathy Come Home

Harrowing drama of one family's downward spiral into poverty that sparked a national debate in the Houses of Parliament on the plight of the homeless.

Also released in 1966

Top Secret

A British Intelligence agent is engaged by a South American businessman to act wherever the official forces of law and order cannot or will not do so.

Also tagged Spy Series

Destination Downing Street 1957

Lost short-lived BBC spy thriller in which a team of experts in various fields are brought together by the Prime Minister to defeat ruthless saboteurs

Also tagged Spy Series

The World of Tim Frazer

Tim Frazer is an easy-going structural engineer who gets involved with a secret government department and is recruited as an undercover agent.

Also tagged Spy Series

Ron Randell in OSS

Secret agents operate behind enemy lines during World War ll

Also tagged Spy Series

Alice in Wonderland

Unimpressed with Disney's 1951 animated version of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Jonathan Miller was keen to develop a new version which would bring to the fore undertones of the story that had been glossed over in the often 'traditional' presentation of this classic children's tale.

Also released in 1966

Seaspray

Australian series about a widowed father travelling the Southern Pacific seas with his two sons, daughter and a deckhand.

Also released in 1966