This theme tune was written by Ron Grainer (who also wrote the ‘Doctor Who’ theme tune) and was more upbeat and energetic than the show itself usually was. You young folk will realise that Chris Evans borrowed the tune for ‘TFI Friday’, not a bad show in its trashy way but not in the same league as something as complex and iconic as ‘Man In A Suitcase’.
This show was largely what the team behind ‘Danger Man’ (see TOP TV THEME TUNE Number 38) did next after their star, Patrick McGoohan, went off to make ‘The Prisoner’. McGill, whose first name we never learned, was a former US CIA agent, who moved to the UK because of some career catastrophe in the US. In exile, living out of a suitcase (hence the title), McGill made ends meet by working as a private eye in the UK and in Europe. I loved the show because it was so cynical. He was a good man in a bad, bad world and he was pretty flawed himself, a refreshing antidote to the gung-ho stereotypes you would normally get in those days.
Also, Richard Bradford (playing McGill) was such a shag and a great actor. Years later, I discovered that Morrissey felt the same and used a photo of Bradford on the cover of the single version of Panic.
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