A Pinch of Snuff (TV series)

A Pinch of Snuff is a British television crime drama miniseries, consisting of three fifty-minute episodes, that broadcast on ITV network from 9 to 23 April 1994.^[1] The series, adapted from the 1978 novel of the same name by author Reginald Hill, was the first Dalziel and Pascoe adaptation for TV, arriving two years before the more widely known BBC adaptation that followed in 1996. In this miniseries, the characters of Dalziel and Pascoe were played by comedians Gareth Hale and Norman Pace, with Christopher Fairbank as loyal sidekick Edgar Wield, and Malcolm Storry as Insp. Ray Crabtree.^[2]

A Pinch of Snuff
Genre	Crime drama
Created by	Reginald Hill
Written by	Robin Chapman
Directed by	Sandy Johnson
Starring	Gareth Hale Norman Pace Christopher Fairbank Freddie Jones John McGlynn Malcolm Storry John Woodvine
Composer	John E. Keane
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	3
Production
Executive producer	Keith Richardson
Producer	Emma Hayter
Cinematography	Sean Van Hales
Editor	Janey Walklin
Running time	50 minutes
Production company	Yorkshire Television
Original release
Network	ITV
Release	9 April (1994-04-09) – 23 April 1994 (1994-04-23)

Reception

The series broadcast over three consecutive Saturday nights, from 9 April 1994. Reginald Hill was said to have been unhappy with the series, and so prevented ITV from creating any further adaptations for television. The Independent went on to describe the "critical contempt heaped on the first television version" of the legendary characters. It described how "a complex story of pornography and murder was turned into a vehicle for the dramatic talents of Hale and Pace, by common consent breathtakingly miscast as the chalk-and-cheese Yorkshire coppers. While either of them might conceivably have scraped by as the blunt, earthy Dalziel, it's hard to see how anybody could have imagined one of them playing the sensitive, intellectual Pascoe".^[3]

BBC Worldwide subsequently approached Hill with a view to creating a new TV adaptation, to which Hill agreed. Actors Warren Clarke and Colin Buchanan were subsequently cast in the roles of Dalziel and Pascoe, and between 16 March 1996 and 22 June 2007, eleven series consisting of both novel adaptations and original stories were produced.^[4]

Cast

• Gareth Hale as Insp. Andy Dalziel
• Norman Pace as Sgt. Peter Pascoe
• Christopher Fairbank as Det. Sgt. Edgar Wield
• Freddie Jones as Dr. Gilbert Haggard
• John McGlynn as Jack Shorter
• Malcolm Storry as Insp. Ray Crabtree
• Ursula Howells as Alice Andover
• Elizabeth Spriggs as Annabelle Andover
• John Woodvine as Godfrey Blengdale
• Linda Marlowe as Gwen Blengdale
• Paul Copley as Charlie Heppelwhite
• John Simm as Clint Heppelwhite

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original release date
1	"Episode 1"	Sandy Johnson	Robert Chapman	9 April 1994 (1994-04-09)
2	"Episode 2"	Sandy Johnson	Robert Chapman	16 April 1994 (1994-04-16)
3	"Episode 3"	Sandy Johnson	Robert Chapman	23 April 1994 (1994-04-23)