Product ReviewsShoestring - Series 1 - Complete (DVD, 2011)

A young charming Trevor Eve as a late 70s Bristol private eye

Shoestring is a Bristol private eye in late 70s Bristol, who connects with clients and leads trough the local radio station. Trevor Eve is very charming as the clean cut young detective with a 'tache. The general level of acting is high, both for the regulars and the cameo parts, with Michael Medwin standing out as Eve's boss. The writing is pretty good for the first 3 stories, but the plots become a little thin and cliche thereafter, and sometimes serve an obvious socio-political subtext.

As a teenager, I enjoyed the series for Shoestring's youthful cheekiness, the fights and car chases. Fourty years later, living quite close to Bristol, it's interesting to see the postwar decay, cheap cars at a time of changing social attitudes.

The picture quality is pretty good, even on a wide screen.Read full review...

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At long last we have classic Shoestring excellently remastered on DVD

At long, long last, we have Shoestring on DVD. It is only the 1st series at the moment. I understand there were legal problems with licensing the music causing years of delay.

What we have is a very well digitally remastered product. The colour is clear and sharp, not faded as you often find with series recorded around this era. All round a great buy for the Shoestring fan.

The first series includes that classic episode featuring Toyah Wilcox, Christopher Biggins and Gary Holton. There is also an episode featuring a young bearded Sean Arnold who went on to find fame as Barney Crozier in Bergerac.

Let's hope that series 2 will soon be available.Read full review...

Fab programme

This little gem of a programme lasted just two series and was only curtailed by the decision of the star to move on and do other projects abroad. As a result the show was rewritten and reborn as Bergerac, which lasted for 9 seasons. However, Shoestring is better. Enjoy it now.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: adiwanroc

Shoestring

Excellent program took me back a few years great watch

When TV was good

Loved this when first broadcast
Still love it now

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: dptotorouk4

Vintage viewing

Brought back nostalgic memories of Bristol in the 1970s. Best regarded as vintage viewing but very enjoyable nevertheless.

Shoestring

Trevor Eve in his early days - really good

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: latics

Worth getting

Better than I remember.

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: musicmagpie

Shoestring: Series One - UNCUT (except for one minor music replacement) !!!

Having been a huge Shoestring fan since childhood, and being well aware of the past difficulties in releasing this programme to DVD, I thought I was dreaming when I found out that 2entertain was releasing Series One to DVD. As if this was not a surprise enough, it was widely reported that, apart from one minor music replacement, this entire first series is being transferred uncut. I have many different recordings of both Series One and Series Two, recorded via many different broadcasts, and, apart from my 2008 BBC Four broadcast of 'Mocking Bird' (Series Two, Episode Three), none of these broadcasts are uncut. I also have the past VHS release of `Private Ear/Find the Lady', which has also been slightly edited. As an interesting side-note, I also have a `Compact Cassette' (remember those!) audio recording of the original uncut 1980 broadcast of the final episode of Series Two `The Dangerous Game', which I made when I was 11, with a microphone placed to the TV speaker! (I had to stifle any coughs!).

I can confirm that this DVD release of Series One is uncut, apart from one minor music replacement. It occurs in Episode 1 `Private Ear', about 23 minutes into the episode, during Eddie's conversation with Don Satchley on the boat. The music playing in the background was originally Lene Lovich's "Lucky Number", and has been replaced with Blondie's "Heart of Glass". Unless you knew of this music replacement, you would not notice anything has been changed. All dialogue is intact and completely unaffected and it does not alter the episode's running time, as all visual footage also remains intact. Ditch your old UKTV Drama/Alibi recordings, and the 2002 BBC1 afternoon repeats of Series One - this 2entertain release is THE definitive collection of Series One episodes!

The transfer is relatively noise-free. The audio and visual quality of Shoestring does vary from episode-to-episode, and, as such, there is film dirt here-and-there, the occasional washed out picture and some slight aliasing in places, but I have never seen Shoestring look as good as this. The mono audio does have occasional partial dropout, but nothing serious. I understand that, because there did not seem to be any masters of the Series One episodes in existence which were uncut, 2entertain made fresh telecine transfers from the original film materials in order to ensure that all episodes were, indeed, the uncut episodes. They then made this one minor audio replacement in Episode 1 and then transferred them all to DVD. 2entertain should be applauded for taking this trouble and they have certainly done an excellent job in transferring this 16mm material to DVD.

For anyone who is interested, the running times of all episodes in this DVD release are as follows:

Ep.1 `Private Ear' 55'04"
Ep.2 `Knock for Knock' 50'00"
Ep.3 `Higher Ground' 48'04"
Ep.4 `An Uncertain Circle' 50'31"
Ep.5 `Listen to Me' 48'34"
Ep.6 `Nine Tenths of the Law' 48'42"
Ep.7 `The Link-Up' 53'22"
Ep.8 `Stamp Duty' 51'12"
Ep.9 `Find the Lady' 49'50"
Ep.10 `The Partnership' 53'27"
Ep.11 `I'm a Believer' 50'02"

This 2entertain DVD release is worth every penny, and I urge all Shoestring fans to buy this. I have been reliably informed that there are no plans - at present - to release Series Two, so, the more people who buy this DVD release of Series One, the more chance there is of 2entertain releasing Series Two, hopefully also uncut. Here's hoping !!!Read full review...