Each serial centres on schoolteachers Trevor Chaplin (James Bolam) and Jill Swinburne (Barbara Flynn), who work at a rundown comprehensive school in Leeds.

They say his playing sounded like bullets shot from a bell.The Beiderbecke Trilogy centres on two schoolteachers – Trevor Chaplin (James Bolam) and Jill Swinburne (Barbara Flynn) – who teach at a comprehensive school in Leeds, in West Yorkshire.

Each episode unfolds to a soundtrack of jazz music in the style of Bix Beiderbecke performed by Frank Ricotti with Kenny Baker as featured cornet soloist.

At the beginning of the events portrayed, Trevor lives - in some squalor - in a rented flat at the top of a large Victorian house and drives a beaten up Bedford HA van.

Big Al often makes quite abstract philosophical comments, however he claims the Vicar is the professional, whereas he being an ardent atheist is just an 'enthusiastic amateur'.

Little Norm deals with the more menial tasks of running the business, leaving Big Al to make all of the decisions.

Forrest sees Hobson as 'having it easy' as he spent his early years in the force 'stitching up pieces of dockers' in Liverpool.

Helen is a feeble and impressionable character, who is privately despised by the headstrong Jill, after a drunken night out together in a restaurant.

[2] Using characters inspired by Nick and Nora Charles,[2] the detectives in the film The Thin Man (1934) and its sequels, Plater sought to juxtapose the conventions of the hardboiled thriller, as expounded by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, with the mundanity of life in Yorkshire.

Aided by her colleague, woodwork teacher Neville Keaton (Armstrong), Judy sets out to find out what has happened to her husband.

Judy and Neville soon discover the existence of a secret organisation dedicated to assisting people who want to escape the mundanity of their lives and families and just disappear.

Plater apportioned elements of his own interests to his two heroes, making Judy an environmental campaigner and Neville a football and jazz fan.

aired to respectable ratings – averaging 10.9 million viewers across its run[4] – and Plater soon began work on a sequel.

The central characters Plater created for The Beiderbecke Affair – Trevor Chaplin and Jill Swinburne – were virtually identical to that of Neville Keaton and Judy Threadgold from Get Lost!.

Both were teachers of woodwork and English respectively and Trevor was a fan of football and jazz music (especially Bix Beiderbecke) and Jill was an environmental activist just like Neville and Judy.

The Beiderbecke Affair was broadcast in six parts in January and February 1985 and averaged 12 million viewers over its run.

[7] Shortly after the completion of The Beiderbecke Affair, David Cunliffe asked Plater to write a new serial with the same characters.

Plater intended The Beiderbecke Tapes to be another six-part serial set in Yorkshire, the Netherlands and Athens.

As well as Trevor and Jill, returning characters would include Big Al, Little Norm, Hobson (now an officer in British Intelligence), Mr Carter and the Headmaster.

When financial problems at YTV delayed production, Plater reworked his scripts as a novel, also titled The Beiderbecke Tapes.

[7] Frank Ricotti was nominated for a 1987 BAFTA Award for Original Television Music for The Beiderbecke Tapes, losing out to Porterhouse Blue.

The presence of the baby was a restricting factor on the plot; hence the introduction of the character of Yvonne, who would mind the child while Trevor and Jill went about their adventures.

The plot this time called for Trevor and Jill to look after "Ivan", apparently a refugee, for Big Al and Little Norm.

Plater originally intended that Trevor and Jill would have to keep Ivan hidden from his pursuers by means of different disguises and cover stories – for example, one scene called for him to pose as a school inspector – but this was dropped.

In this respect, Plater sought to ask the question, "If education is a universal right, if you are deprived of that by people in authority, how do you think you will resolve that?".

The Beiderbecke Connection was broadcast in four parts in November and December 1988 and averaged 8.8 million viewers over its run.

[7] Frank Ricotti was again nominated and this time won the 1988 BAFTA Award for Original Television Music for The Beiderbecke Connection.

Music from all three series (seasons), played by the Frank Ricotti All Stars, featuring Kenny Baker, was released as The Beiderbecke Collection on CD, LP and cassette by Dormouse Records.