This Granada serial follows a Scottish minister grappling with a crisis of faith following the death of his wife.
Adam Smith (Andrew Keir) is a respected Church of Scotland minister whose life is upended by the sudden death of his wife. Plunged into a profound spiritual crisis, he struggles to reconcile his personal grief with the professional demands of his parish and his role as a single parent to two daughters, Helen (Kara Wilson) and Annie (Brigit Forsyth). His manse often serves as a refuge for those in his community, and his work becomes entwined with the life of Elizabeth Crichton (Janet Munro), a troubled parishioner whose personal crises intersect with his own. The second series sees Smith take a temporary post in South Africa before returning to a new ministry in the tough, working-class Glasgow district of Dunstan.
Produced by Granada, with location filming in Scotland undertaken by Scottish Television, this was a sober and introspective character study. The serial was conceived as a serious-minded successor to the popular Dr Finlay’s Casebook and was built entirely around Andrew Keir’s grave performance as a man whose spiritual foundations are shaken. Unlike more sentimental religious dramas of the period, the scripts, penned largely by Trevor Griffiths under the pseudonym Ben Rae, directly confronted the minister’s doubts. The production is also notable for featuring the final television role of Janet Munro, who died during the transmission of the second series. An early television appearance by Tom Conti as the local doctor provided a cynical counterpoint to Smith’s earnestness.
Broadcast: ITV – Granada, 39 Episodes, 23 January 1972 – 25 March 1973
Writers: Ben Rae (Trevor Griffiths), Tom Gallacher, C. P. Taylor, James MacTaggart
Directors: Richard Martin, Brian Mills, June Howson, Gerry Mill
Producers: June Howson, Richard Doubleday
Main Cast: Andrew Keir (Adam Smith), Kara Wilson (Helen Smith), Brigit Forsyth (Annie Smith), Janet Munro (Elizabeth Crichton), Tom Conti (Dr Andrew Calvi), Michael Elphick (Ben Davis)
