Public Eye – “How About A Cup of Tea?” 13 January 1975

“Public Eye is a British television series that ran from 1965 to 1975 (7 series in total). It was produced by ABC Television for three series, and Thames Television for a further four series. The series depicted the investigations and cases handled by the unglamorous enquiry agent (i.e., a Private Eye - hence the twist in the title) Frank Marker, an unmarried loner who is in his early forties when the series begins.” – Wikipedia

I ordered this from Amazon UK at the same time I ordered “Boon”. I knew Robin appeared in an episode from 1975 so I ordered the “complete 1975 final cases” and crossed my fingers! And yes, whew, his episode was on it.

The episode starts out with Marker recovering from having been beaten up in the previous episode. He is bitter and tired of the dangerous aspects of his line of work. So, once released from the hospital he goes to an employment agency and inquires about what is available. Robin plays the employment clerk! Odd role for someone with his groovy longhaired look, being behind a desk, asking official questions better suited for a more clean-cut type of guy. Remember, back in “Fenn Street Gang” he played the out-of worker on the OTHER side of the employment desk! But anyway. He looks awesome in his big-collared ‘70s blouse and is hilarious as he gripes about people who say they want to work, but don’t have any skills to offer. That’s the extent of his role in this one, but it’s worth seeing. I also watched all the other episodes. Good series, good stories. I enjoyed the title character (played by Alfred Burke) with his quiet, sneaky way of getting things accomplished. I see that he just died recently, in Feb 2011, age of 92. He had also been acting as recently as 2002, when he played Professor Armando Dippet in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Hehe, if you go to their wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Eye_(TV_series)You’ll notice that Robin’s name is inserted in the place where they talk about this episode. I put that in! First time I ever made an “edit” to a Wikipedia page!