THE WANDERER

Clanking around in early medieval armour and sword-fighting on the Yorkshire moors is about as far as you can get from the beaches of Sydney, but Australian film star Bryan Brown put all thoughts of home behind him for six months in 1994 to film this Yorkshire Television series of American style and quality but with British humour and pathos from the pen of Last of the Summer Wine creator Roy Clarke. Brown played two roles - reclusive billionaire Adam and his evil twin brother Zachary. Both once lived as warriors one thousand years ago, and they have been reincarnated in the present day, where Zachary is out to destroy Adam and gain revenge for his brother killing him last time.

Although a little on the corny side, the series was original and progressive, with different adventures each episode, overlaid with the continuing and developing reincarnation theme. It takes Adam two-thirds of the series before he can even remember where he buried his brother, and the body-count has been rising since the first, rather grim and bloody episode. Because of financial backing from several European television companies, a number of episodes were filmed in Austria, Germany and Spain respectively, before the action moved to Britain. The horse master was Steve Dent, the stunt coordinator Marc Boyle, both of whom worked on Robin of Sherwood. Deborah Moore is daughter to Roger.

REGULAR CAST

Adam/Zachary Bryan Brown   Godbold Tony Haygarth
Beatrice Kim Thomson   Mathias Otto Tausig
Lady Clare Deborah Moore

Writer: Roy Clarke from an idea
  by Tom Gabbay
Executive Producers: Keith Richardson
  and Tom Gabbay
Producer: Steve Lanning
Music: Paul Hart and Joe Campbell
Title Song Lyrics: Bob Mahoney

A Fingertip Film Production for
Yorkshire Television, ZDF, Antena 3
13 colour 46-minute episodes
14th September - 14th December 1994
(Sky One)

Reclusive billionaire financier Adam is visited by his evil brother Zachary, and left pinned to a tree by a medieval lance. As Adam begins to rediscover his heritage, people with whom he has contact begin to die around him. Zachary has to reawaken him properly, but Adam decides that to prevent any more bloodshed he must leave his Austrian home and become a wanderer in what is a superbly atmospheric and beautifully filmed opener to an otherwise disappointing series.

Inspector Mentael Tatjana Blacher
Surgeon Metin Yenal

Adam stumbles across a young girl who has just been released from an institute for the criminally insane. She was framed for a murder, and looks likely to be so again. (With thanks to Claire K for supplying the missing episode title.)

(Guest cast unknown)

Adam helps an old man who is being forced from his home by a band of menacing bikers. His efforts lead to a showdown in a seedy part of Munich. Godbold is tested in the ring by Beatrice, who is naturally in disguise.

The Prussian Bear Otto Wanz

Adam helps a distraught father to find his missing daughter, only to find out too late that he is instead an ex-mental patient of hers who won't let her go. Meanwhile, Adam is also getting more clues as to where he buried his brother's body.

Helga Katherine Bröhm

Zachary forces Adam to remember more about his past by leading him into a castle bedecked with motifs of 1000 years before, and by calling up the embodiment of a Berserker by whom Adam was defeated and almost killed in his previous life. His most important recollection is that he loved, and still loves, the Lady Clare, who nursed him and almost became his wife.

Lady Clare (intro) Deborah Moore
Curator Anika Pages

Zachary prevents the modern day Clare marrying a Spaniard. Adam discovers that he did marry Clare, and now he must rescue her when Zachary hatches a plan involving two dropouts and a kidnapping to prompt his memory again. Clare is puzzled to discover that she knows Adam and Zachary and, when Adam drops her off safe and sound, vows that she will find him again.

Prussian Bear Otto Wanz
Clare's Mother Isobel Prinz

It doesn't take Clare long to catch Adam up, and she attaches herself to him, refusing to leave even when Zachary unwraps a plot to grab Adam's sword. This involves Beatrice doing a turn as a worried Spanish mother, complete with full costume to fool Adam, and he and his brother come face to face for only the second time in a bull ring, where Adam loses the stone from his sword, but escapes with his and Clare's lives.

(No guest cast)

Clare holds the key and Adam remembers his brother's grave is in England, which is where he must go next, but not before sorting out a local Romeo-and-Juliet-style love story, and leaving Clare with her parents, who have finally forgiving her for cancelling her wedding.

Clare's Mother Isobel Prinz

Zachary has his own pet gangster in London's China Town, and the man is trying to gain control of a local restaurant, and the owner's daughter. This leads him into conflict with Adam, who is forced to pay him a visit in his Dockland's offices when he takes the girl by force. Elsewhere, Mathias receives a message telling them to go to York.

Ling Fat Bert Kwouk
Sun Li Choy Ling Man

On the trail of his brother's grave, Adam stumbles across a pair of car thieves, and meets Fay, a woman whose blindness is psychosomatic, caused by the shock of the death of her parents in a car crash. When Adam's sight comes out in sympathy, his visions help him to discover that Fay and the car thieves are linked.

Lynne Farmer Judy Brooke
Fay Gaynor Faye
Russ David MacCreddy

Princess Beatrice is on her way north to marry Zachary, on the orders of her father, the king. On her journey she stops off at the castle home of Lady Clare where Adam catches her attention. Now, 1000 years after Beatrice was spurned by Adam, embarrassed by Clare, and burnt down the castle, the site is occupied by a shopping mall. Clare and Beatrice come face-to-face for the first time in a millennium, and Adam's chemical plant is blamed for toxic waste shipments. In fact, it's Zachary, fooling around to keep himself interested.

(No guest cast) 

All the players in the game are being drawn to the ruins of Fenton Abbey for a penultimate confrontation. On the way, Adam prevents a young man from jumping from a train to rid himself of the guilt of supposedly doing the same to his mother ten years before. 1000 years ago, Beatrice continues her journey, where she meets Zachary, and plots revenge on Adam. After the brothers' confrontation, Beatrice offers Adam the Book, which, when used with the Stone, confers power on the owner. Adam refuses. But where is the book now? And Zachary's grave? Adam is back on his ancestral lands, and the answer is so very close.

Sir Niles Mark Burns
Mark Toby Sawyer
Fortune Teller Sandra Gough
King Aethelred David J Nicholls

The Past and the Present are coming together. In the Past, The Wanderer wouldn't love Beatrice, so she had him killed, shortly after his confrontation with Zachary. Adam walks into that Past where he witnesses the events surrounding his wedding day to Clare. He finds he was drugged and intended to be a sacrifice to Zachary's dreams of godhood. But Beatrice really loved the knight. Back in the Present, Adam finds his brother's grave, and the stone, but the monk had carried off the Book, and Zachary escapes, vowing to find it.

(No guest cast)

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