Hazell (1978–80) and the disappearing detective: 1970s British television, a genre literature and the end of an era

Abstract

This article considers links between 1970s British television and male-oriented detective fiction. It takes as its focus the eponymous protagonist of Thames Television’s Hazell (1978–80), whose first incarnation, in the ‘P. B. Yuill’ novel Hazell Plays Solomon, dates back to 1974. During the 1970s the investigator figure was to British television what the espionage adventurer had been in the 1960s – all but ubiquitous. Contemporaneous genre literature, often influenced by the US ‘hard-boiled’ tradition, played a pivotal role in establishing such a presence. Yet its relationship with television remains obscure. Why should this be the case? And what might be gained from looking at the changing world of the 1970s through the eyes of an obsolete archetype? In response to these questions, the article retrieves one cultural history (literature) on the back of, and while augmenting, another (television). Hazell, with its distinct ‘meta’ quality and end-of-era proximity, proves useful to this exercise.