The Diamond Brothers: South by South East (found CITV adaptation of children's detective book; 1991)

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Radio Times promotion of The Diamond Brothers: South by South East

Status: Lost

The Diamond Brothers: South by South East (also known simply as South by South East) is a six-part television series broadcast by ITV in 1991 as part of its CITV bloc. Based on the third book from Anthony Horowitz's children's detective series Diamond Brothers called South by South East, it stars Dursley McLinden as the hapless detective Tim Diamond, and Colin Dale as Tim's younger, street smart brother Nick Diamond.

Background

The series was relatively obscure, even for fans of the Diamond Brothers book series. The lack of available media for the show even led to its existence being questioned. Confirmation was achieved thanks to the television show being featured in several of Horowitz's "about the author" book pages, as well as a listing by the British Film Institute.[1] The show was a spiritual successor of the 1988 film Just Ask for Diamond, a film based on the first book of the series The Falcon's Malteaser, which starred McLinden and Dale in their respective roles.[2]

According to one viewer, The Diamond Brothers: South by South East was written and directed by Horowitz, and was co-produced by Red Rooster and a Dutch film company. The co-production with the latter enabled filming to take place in Amsterdam, a central location in the book. Broadcast on CITV, transmission of episode 3 was impacted due to technical issues midway through, resulting in episode 4 being extended with the affected episode 3 portion included at the start. The finale was also changed, with the main antagonist, Charon (Monique van de Ven), attempting to kill the protagonists with a gun at their office, rather than trying to electrocute them, the latter possibly being unsuitable for the young audience watching.[3]

Interestingly, the book was published the same year as the show was being broadcast. According to the IMDB page, the show began airing on 26th March 1991, just twelve days after the book it was based on was published.[4]

Availability

The Diamond Brothers: South by South East is coveted media for fans of the book series. It never received any repeats beyond its original transmission, nor any home media release in the guise of VHS or DVDs. It may be explained by how CITV media from the 1990s was poorly represented in the home media market.[5] None of the episodes have since resurfaced. However, the title sequence was uploaded by Jay Dragonarc Productions on 29th May 2021. Aside from this, as well as mentions in Radio Times issues, little about the show is currently accessible as of the present day.

Gallery

Videos

The show's title sequence

Images

External Link

References