Why Peter Wyngarde is the king of Department S - showing now on Rewind

Dame Judi Dench and her late husband Michael Williams in the oh, so bittersweet A Fine Romance or Nigel Havers perfectly cast in the lead role of The Charmer?

Let’s go for Department S – about a trio of agents working for a branch of Interpol who investigate the cases no one else wants or are willing to tackle.

The series is a cross between The Champions, The Avengers and The Saint and stars Joel Fabiani as team leader Stewart Sullivan; Rosemary Nicols as computer expert Annabelle Hurst – her computer is called Aunty; Dennis Alaba Peters as head of the department Sir Curtis Seretse and, saving the best til last Peter Wyngarde as writer-cum-sleuth Jason King.

The enigmatic Wyngarde – it’s neigh impossible to get the same answer to the same question – stole the series. His impact was such that he was given the eponymous spin-off show Jason King.

As a teenager, I adored him. While my school contemporaries pinned portraits of Donny Osmond and David Cassidy to their bedroom walls mine was adorned with pictures of two men.

They were Roger Moore in The Persuaders and Peter Wyngarde as Jason King sitting on a throne.

Watching Department S again in the past few weeks reminded me why I loved it – mostly because of the wonderful Wyngarde.

Department S consists of 28 episodes and originally aired in 1969 and 1970.

Everything about it is exotic – the settings including the Costa Del Sol, Rome, Paris and the South of France. I preferred the episodes in foggy London town – when you come from a Yorkshire mining village Farnham is foreign.

The characters live in fashionably-furnished apartments – never flats – drive flash cars, drink champagne, stay in five-star hotels, sit on restaurant terraces overlooking the sea and dine on oysters.

The plots involve blackmail, brainwashing, mysterious disappearances, robbery, spies and murder over a mirror.

Guest stars included Anthony Hopkins, Peter Bowles, Jean Marsh, Tony Selby, Anton Rodgers, Donald Houston and Alexandra Bastedo.

Casting a shadow over them all is Wyngarde – he has the best lines out of dialogue that is at best clunky or, may be, he delivers them best.

He is at times languid at others flash and flamboyant, camp, dashing, charismatic, rakish, suave, sexy, outrageous, humorous, self-effacing, serious and always immaculately turned out.

His hair bouffant, his moustache droopy and sporting a wardrobe of wide-lapelled, three-piece tailored suits, ties, cravats, furbelows and open-necked shirts in bright colours including purple, orange and yellow.

No one wore or tied a scarf like Wyngarde.

The way he turned his shirt cuffs over the bottom of his jacket sleeves became a fashion statement. I still wear mine like that to this day.

He, also, always had a cigarette dangling loosely from his fingers – as Jim Carrey said in The Mask … smokin’.