Wish Me Luck/Bluebells

[pauliepoos]

Did anyone love these 2 fantastic wartime based feisty female heroine driven mid 80s dramas?

Wish Me Luck was a mid 80s Chalotte Grey, with undercover British agents infiltrating the Nazis in France. Jane Asher, possibly wearing a beret, featured as an M type character if I remember rightly. I remember the women having to put their transmitters onto rooftoops so they could send messages back to London while the Nazis were getting closer and closer with their tracking gear and terribly daring stuff like that.

It was so terribly exciting and I remember feeling quite confused that the women involved were the same age as my Grandmother. It's available on dvd but I'm not sure I want to watch it again just in case it's aged so terribly badly.

And Bluebells featured the one from Emmerdale that Lorraine Chase kept hidden under the stairs, and was about a British woman in Paris who ran a sort of dance trouble that worked with the resistance and helped plucky Brits and stuff.

[Ben]

Hi Paul,

I remember both shows.

Wish Me Luck was basically Secret Army meets Tenko. Jane Asher bravely carried on against Jerry in London, while there was plenty of resistance intrigue going on in occupied France. Warren Clarke played one of the Nazis.

Bluebell was a BBC Sunday night thing in the mid-1980's. Starred Carolyn Pickles, who turned up as Jane Tennison's sister in the last Prime Suspect.

[skillex]

Jane Asher fighting Nazis. In a beret.

Two questions immediately spring to mind...

a) Why was I unaware of this programme's existence until now?

b) Could this perhaps be the basis for the forthcoming Wonder Woman film?

[QuincyMD]

Wish Me Luck ran for 3 seasons,

SPOILERS AHEAD

Season 1 saw Kate Buffery and Suzanna Hamilton trained to be dropped into Occupied France, with training from Jane Asher and Julian Glover, where they were pursued by Warren Clarke. Suzanna is captured despite using the "quick take your clothes off and we'll pretend to shag" defence but Kate and the wonderfully named character of Kit Vanston (who also happens to be in love with the married Kate and she so wants to jump his bones) rescue her and make their escape. Warren is dragged off by the Gestapo/SS never to be seen again.

Season 2 sees Suzanna quit the show and be off on assignment somewhere else (it's been 20 years and I'm dragging this up from memory but I'm sure it's implied that she has been killed by Jerry and that they just don't want to tell Kate). So this time Kate goes in with Catherine (Space 1999) Schell and Jane (whatever happened to?)Snowden and try more derring do, this time it ends with them having to escape the Jerry hordes but Kate has to kill Catherine - Catherine is French and has joined OSS to rescue her daughter from France but the daughter is killed in the final escape and Catherine won't leave the body so Kate has to shoot Catherine to stop Jerry getting his hands on her.

Season 3 sees Kate and Jane join up with a big resistance movement holed up in the mountains, Julian Glover has jumped ship by this point but Kit Vanston is still around and by now is making the beast of two backs with Kate, the penultimate episode ends with Jerry launching an unexpected attack on resistance HQ. The final episode sees the team fleeing and whilst Kate makes it back to Blighty, Jane is captured and shot by the Jerry.


During all three years, Jane Asher sits back in blighty and says things like "We can't tell Kate, this could jepordise the mission."

I enjoyed the show.

[QuincyMD]

It's Jane in a publicity shot for WML:


Typecast, me, never!


He really was called Kit Vanston:



Julian Glover points out his escape route from Series 3:

[pauliepoos]

Is that not Jeremy Northam as a frightfully dashing officer type?