Candy Jar is pleased to announce the upcoming release of Gangsters: Deathtouch to coincide with the forty-fifth anniversary of this landmark series.

However, this announcement is tinged with sadness, after the death of Philip Martin in December 2020. Candy Jar’s Will Rees, who worked very closely with Philip on the book, says:

“Philip was very excited to have completed this final Gangsters book and was just going through the final proofs before he passed away. The second Gangsters TV series is famous for breaking the fourth wall. This was something Philip wanted to achieve in prose, and worked incredibly hard to make this possible. It is testament to his skill as a writer that has done this magnificently. In my opinion this book is a classic in the making. I just wish Philip was around to enjoy the positive reception the book will certainly get.”

Philip was also known for his various contributions to Doctor Who, which included the serials Vengeance on Varos and Mindwarp, multiple novels for Target and Telos, and the Big Finish audio productions The Creed of the Kromon and Antidote to Oblivion.

Philip had recently returned to the Doctor Who universe, revisiting his original creation, the unscrupulous Sil, in an independent production for Reeltime, Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor.

Starring original Sil actor Nabil Shaban, as well as Sophie Aldred, Devil Seeds proved a hit with audiences and critics alike, winning multiple prizes and earning an official selection from the Philip K. Dick Science Fiction and Supernatural Festival 2020.

Philip began his career as an actor. His first major screenwriting role was on Z Cars, on which he had once appeared. After writing seven episodes for the classic police drama, he contributed an episode to the seriesPlay for Today – a gritty depiction of underground violence in the streets of 1970s Birmingham. The episode’s popularity led the BBC to commission a two-series continuation: Gangsters, the show that made Philip’s name.

Airing in 1977 and 1978, these two six-part serials quickly earned cult classic status, garnering plaudits as one of the most singular shows ever broadcast by the BBC.

This reputation for originality is well deserved. Gangsters was at once a genre-blending deconstruction of crime drama, and a scathing polemic against the managed decline of industrial Britain.

Featuring one of the first truly multi-racial casts to be seen on British screens, Gangsters unsparingly depicted the exploitation of illegal immigrants, the complicity of a corrupt establishment, and the misery of heroin addiction.

At the same time, it featured magical kung fu assassins; Martin himself, pondering where to take the show next (memorably throwing the script up into the air in the show’s finale); and fight scenes choreographed to comic book POWS! and OOFS!

This iconoclastic blend of the high and the low, the serious and the absurd, the realist, the postmodern and the sheer surreal, won the opprobrium of Mary Whitehouse along with a legion of admirers.

Gangsters: Deathtouch is Philip’s return to the show that made his name. Over forty-five years since it was first broadcast, it will no doubt be welcomed by fans of his truly unique vision.

But this anticipation will of course now be bittersweet, as we commemorate a singular writer and his distinctive contribution to British culture.