Buses on Screen - TV shows D-Dl

Dad's Army (BBC comedy series)

Episode: Everybody's Trucking
Mulleys Coaches 1931 Gilford AS6/Taylor registration DX9547 was driven by actor Felix Bowness in this episode. Mulleys supplied several vehicles throughout the series.

More photographs (and more information) at Tony Pritchard's Dad's Army Locations Website

Episode: A Soldier's Farewell
In which the platoon go to the cinema and Captain Mainwaring dreams he's Napoleon. There is a very unconvincing mock-up of a bus:

Daisies in December (HTV drama)

Roger Wortley asks "Many Christmases ago, one of the TV channels started showing a sad film called 'Daisies in December'....A young couple decide to dump off the boy's father at Christmas at a hotel in Cornwall, so that they can have some peace. The father, being a bit like Victor Meldrew, causes mayhem as you can imagine. Eventually, he befriends a lady who is dying, and they spend a lot of time in a Shearings coach on days out. I managed to record this film last Christmas, and all the scenes with Shearings coaches were edited out, and there was one shot at the end, of a Wallace Arnold coach. Have you come across this? Made in 1995, the film starred Joss Ackland and Jean Simmonds, but I can tell you no more!"
Norman Johnstone adds "My wife and myself were on holiday in St Ives in Cornwall when the film was being made. We watched the filming taking place at the lifeboat station at St Ives, and the hotel was we think the Tregarron Hotel at Carbis Bay just outside St Ives. We didn't see any Sshearings coaches during filming. Although Shearings own a hotel in St Ives the filming wasn't done there. As regards the Wallace Arnold coach we certainly didn't see any coach during filming." Allan Haynes adds: "Made by HTV, presumably working out of their Bristol studio - I think Cardiff only did Welsh language drama - the hotel was the Tregenna Castle. One of the other locations was St. Michael's Mount. Today Shearings and Wallace Arnold are one company, though the Wally's part of the name has been abandoned from the 2008 season, but in 1995 they were deadly rivals."

Daisy Daisy (Channel 4 documentary series)

Episode 1:2: Daisy Donovan goes on tour with metal rockers Spineshank, and of course ends up on the (unidentified) tour bus.

Episode 2:1: Daisy visits Los Angeles to become personal assistant to evangelist Tammy Faye Messner, and a replica streetcar is sighted.

Dalziel and Pascoe (BBC crime drama)

Episode: Cunning Old Fox:
Features Frodingham MAN coach L994NLL touring Haworth in Yorkshire.

Episode: Glory Days

A coach carrying a victorious football team is deliberately parked on a railway level crossing by the driver.

Central Bus and Coach Sales of Staffordshire provided the coach. David Finney reports: "Vehicle was LAG Panoramic registration F21 WNH which was refurbished inside and out to make it a Premiership football team coach in the episode. All the driving in the episode of the coach was done by myself, which was filmed over a 10 day period in and around Birmingham,Coventry and the Nene Valley Railway in Peterborough." The coach displays regstration WC257.

Dales Diary (Yorkshire TV documentary series)

"This locally aired YTV programme had a feature on Smiths Coaches of Thirsk and their restored Leyland Tiger PS1/Plaxton on Thursday 7 June 2005. The piece featured an interview with the current owner of the company and told of how his mother had kept all the original documentation for the coach from both Leyland Motors and also Plaxton, which in the 1940s was a very minor player on the coach scene, with its products mainly confined to the North. Now fully restored and with a current certificate of fitness, the coach is used regularly in the North York Moors National Park." (thanks Chris Hough)

Dancing With The Stars (BBC Worldwide/ABC reality tv show)

Geoff Cook notes an episode in which the roof of transit bus 5055 can be seen outside the windows of the dance studio where contestants rehearse!

Danger Man (ATV thriller series, 1960-1)

First incarnation of this thriller series:
Season 1 Episode 20: Name Date and Place
John Drake (Patrick McGoohan) boards London Transport RTW242 (KLB972) on route 74 to Earls Court.

The following scene on the upper deck has trolleybus wires visible through the rear window.

As Drake alights, apparently in Acton Vale in West London, two trolleybuses pass eachother. This is one of them:

Danger Man AKA Secret Agent (ATV thriller series, 1964-6)

Second incarnation of this thriller series:
Season 1 Episode 3: Colony Three
Opening features a London Transport AEC Routemaster/Park Royal seen from behind, being followed by John Drake in a car. thanks Bob Wingrove)

Mike Lloyd observes "I used to see this at a friend's house in late 1964-1965 and buses featured in more than one episode. One I recall very clearly had Patrick McGoohan chasing another bus, this was Red Rover (Aylesbury) HLW 175" (ex London Transport RT188 - AEC Regent III RT/Weymann)

Dangerous Davies - The Last Detective (Meridian detective series)

Chris Hough reports the episode broadcast 20 February 2004 included a sequence on an open top Routemaster.
Chris also notes "The first episode of the 2007 series featured a London Metrobus being used as a battering ram in a security van robbery. The front of the bus was badly damaged by the end of the sequence."

Dangerous Minds (ABC drama series)

School-set US drama often shows Crown school buses.

Dark Angel ( science fiction series)

Episode: Brainiac
Poorly seen, a grey prison bus.
Alan Gryfe comments: "there have been junkyard scenes in several (c. half a dozen) episodes where numerous Can-Car Brill TC's (Canadian Car & Foundry T-48 trolley coaches, for the uninitiated) can be seen. These scenes were filmed in a lot in Surrey, British Columbia (see, there's a British connection!), not Seattle, Washington where the story is set." - one of these episodes is 'Borrowed Time'
Two of these trolleybuses were bought for use in the show: 2222 and 2316.
Carlos Wallberg reports a Silversides coach in another episode. There is also an episode which features a GM New Look 4519.

The Darling Buds of May (Yorkshire TV serial)

Episode 1.1 and 1.2: The Darling Buds of May
"The Darling Buds of May had an opening episode which showed one of the characters then employed as a tax inspector alighting from a Maidstone and District nineteen fifties saloon with BET style bodywork" (thanks Chris Hough) Nick Webster confirms this as ex Maidstone and District Commer Contender UKN207, "although actually at this point in its life it was having an identity crisis with another bus kept as spares and was actually UKN 210."

Episode 1.5 and 1.6: A Breath of French Air:
A cross-Channel double episode features this Chausson APH:

Episode 2.1:
There's not much of this London Transport AEC Routemaster to see:

Episode 2.7:
Terry Jones notes Bedford OB/Duple PPC275 appeared several times, including in this episode:

"Bedford OB HAA874 owned by River Valley Coaches of Sutton Valence featured in one episode." (thanks Adam Floyd)
Another Bedford OB to appear (not sure of the episode) is this rare Whitson-bodied example, KYW335:

Dawn Gets Naked (BBC documentary)

2008 documentary by presenter Dawn Porter, who according to the BBC website 'bares all in order to reveal how our idea of perfection has been perverted to fit the demands of the beauty industry.' The programme makes some interesting points; the climax is a hilarious open top bus ride around London during which a group of women of all shapes and ages strip off and wave to passers-by. The (male) driver shakes his head with a smile and keeps his clothes on....
The escapade begins calmly enough with smart MCW Metroliner B240LRA being decorated with side adverts featuring Ms Porter naked but airbrushed. The bus is with Stowmarket-based Travel with Hunny, but still carries internal advertising for previous operator the Original London Sightseeing Tour. It was new as City of Oxford 901 in 1985. It's also festooned with pink balloons; as Dawn sits upstairs with a mannequin on the way to pick up the other girls, there's no hint of the mayhem to follow:

Accompanying B240LRA is Imperial Bus GFS448N, a Leyland Atlantean AN68/Alexander new to Lothian Transport, used as a camera platform, and seen from time to time in background:

Once the girls board, (most of) their clothes come off:

The reaction of passersby and tourists is priceless:

Several Mercedes Citaro artics appear, also Arriva London's VLA176 (LJ55BVH), a Volvo B7TL/Alexander:

A Day Off The Buses (BBC documentary)

1983 entry in the BBC's Open Space strand follows a group of busmen from London Transport's Putney garage on a day trip to the then-new Alton Towers theme park. Footage of the trip is intercut initially with views of the drivers going about their work. The coach used for the four hours each way trip is a Volvo B10M/Van Hool of Atlas Coaches, but this being a low budget documentary we don't get a clear view of it!

We do get to see RM107 (WLT107) and RM661 (WLT661) in action, and some footage of Putney garage.

Day Return AKA Tocyn Diwrnod (HTV history series)

Noel Baxendale recalls "HTV made an educational series about Welsh history which lasted for 30 episodes around 1989/90 and featured four people living on what I think was a Newport Leyland Atlantean that magically took them back in time to key moments in history. Each episode was shot twice... one in English and the other in Welsh. The English version was called 'Day Return' and the Welsh version 'Tocyn Diwrnod'. Both versions aired in the weekday morning schools programmes slot on S4C, with the Welsh version getting another showing during Friday afternoon childrens shows on S4C, while the English version had a peaktime repeat as a Tuesday evening regional variation on HTV Cymru Wales."
Can anyone else recall this?

The Dead Zone (USA Network science fiction)

An episode set ostensibly in Manhattan that mostly keeps up the illusion until a BC Transit trolleybus passes in the closing scenes. Also seen are several Vancouver buses.

Demob (Yorkshire TV miniseries)

Starring Griff Rhys Jones, this was filmed in Liverpool but set in post-war London. "The 'pre-war' RT glimpsed briefly at the end of an alley with passengers boarding is RTL 1050 carefully disguised - I was the conductor, the owner is my pal David Thrower from Warrington who was in the cab but not seen. The day after filming, I got the task of removing the rear roof box (cardboard dummy), false number plates, masked out blinds, etc." (thanks Mike Lloyd)

Department S (ITC thriller series)

Episode: Blackout
Opens with a passing unidentified London Transport AEC Routemaster at Piccadilly Circus.

Episode: A Cellar Full of Silence
A piece of black and white film shown during the episode ostensibly features a student Rag Week event in St Johns Wood, but the rear entrance bus in the background is not in London Transport livery.

The Derby (various)

Coverage of this horse-racing event from Epsom Downs regularly features lines of open and closed top double deckers, with Southdown 'Queen Mary' Leyland Titan PD3s prominent in their traditional apple-green and cream livery.

Dermot's Sporting Buddies (BBC series)

In one show Dermot O'Leary meets comedian Johnny Vegas in his hometown of St Helens. Part of the show was filmed aboard former Southport open top 1947 all-Leyland Titan PD2/3 87 (FFY404). (thanks to Grahame Bessey and Nigel Utting) Pete Weatherby adds "It was converted to open top in the early sixties along with five others from the same batch. Their roofs could be replaced in winter (These roofs were scrapped in about 1970). It along with FFY 401/3 survived till 1976 and passed into preservation. All three had different owners until they were gradually bought by MR H.J.M. Royden and are currently stored at the St Helens Transport Museum. FFY 402 is also preserved and under going restoration at Wythall, Birmingham."

The Diceman (Discovery Channel travel documentary)

"First shown on The Discovery Channel in 1997. A travel documentary with Russell and his cameraman Sean touring Britain with destinations decided by the throw of a dice. In series 1 episode 3 they are on the Isle of Arran and leave Brodick heading to the North of the island on an open top Alexander bodied Leyland Leopard which I am fairly sure was Stagecoach Western Buses OSJ636R. They both complained about the rough ride (it was a Leopard then!)." (thanks Malcolm Rennie)

Dick Emery Presents: Legacy of Murder (BBC comedy drama serial)

Episode one has glimpses of several London Transport AEC Routemasters, including one from the WLTxxx batch, also a London Transport Red Arrow Leyland National 2, LS452 (GUW452W).

The Dick Emery Show

"A 1976 edition of the Dick Emery show featured two shots of a London Country RML in National green livery with the destination 'Staines'. In one of the shots the bus entered a depot. Could this have been filmed at Staines LCBS depot? The scenes featured Dick Emery's inept group of undertakers trying to load a coffin onto the RML." (thanks Alan Sinclair)
One sketch showing a group of undertakers on holiday in Blackpool has several views of Blackpool trams, including 798 (or 758) and a glimpse of a Blackpool Corporation Leyland Titan.

Disappearing Britain (Channel 5 documentary series)

Mike Shaw reports: "In the series 'Disappearing Britain' with Sarah Lancashire, broadcast on Five on 30 November 2006 they used a clip from the colour newsreel/feature 'Look at Life' from 1961. Two of Manchester Corporation Transport's two-tone blue Leyland Tiger Cub Airport coaches, numbers 31 and 38, were briefly featured, loading up at Royal Exchange, Manchester."

The District Nurse (BBC drama serial)

Made between 1984 and 1987.

Episode 1.10:
District nurse Megan Roberts joins the local brass band and goes on a trip to a brass band competition. Transport is superb preserved 1929 Leyland Lioness/Burlingham DM6228 of Brookes Brothers:

Episode 1.11:
DM6228 appears again, this time in a crash scene which doesn't actually happen until the very end of the episode, when the driver is distracted and swerves to miss a flock of sheep:

Episode 1.12:
The aftermath of the crash: a convincing-looking replica was constructed for the scene, and there are also interior shots:

The replica rear is even better painted than the real thing. Compare the real bus on the left from episode 11 with the overturned replica on the right - on the real one you can see they've covered over 'Rhyl and Prestatyn' (Brooks Brothers' real address) and added the fictional 'Pencwm':

This is my own photograph from the 2007 C(h)obham Rally:

Check here and here for photographs of the filming.
A different episode also included footage shot on a rear entrance bus with a green interior, but I need more information!

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