Shoestring star 'blacklisted' by BBC after 'annoying' bosses with show exit

Legendary actor Trevor Eve has opened up on why he left BBC series Shoestring back in the 80's. Appearing on he shared that he had been "blacklisted" by the broadcaster after fears of becoming "typecast".

gushed over the actor as he shared that when he was a teenager he loved to watch Shoestring, but was disappointed that there were only ever two series. He asked: "Did you ever look back and think 'I should have done more series'?" The 73-year-old TV star replied: "Well, no, because I had a play called Children of a Lesser God."

He continued: "And I had to go to New York for six months before we started rehearsal to learn American Sign Language." Trevor went on to explain that to enter the Deaf world, you had to learn how to communicate.

Ed asked: "So was it quite clear there would only be two series [of Shoestring]?" Trevor replied: "No, this came up quite late. I annoyed everybody with my departure. I won't talk about things like the BBC blacklist because we know they don't exist."

Susanna asked: "Why do you think you were blacklisted?" He replied: "Well, I didn't please them by departing. There were 23 million people watching that show. I didn't do it out of any grand gesture. It was in the days when you didn't do series repeatedly because you got a word that doesn't exist now - typecast."

Ed then asked why not let Shoestring make a comeback now. Trevor replied: "Well, I held the rights to it for a very long time to make sure that nobody came up with... I don't think I do have them now. In fact, I don't, but I don't think it has the same public resonance that Bergerac did."

Detective drama Shoestring first aired on One in 1979 and 1980, starring Trevor. Upon his exit, the team reworked some storylines and popular elements from Shoestring to create Bergerac as a new drama.

In another recent interview, Trevor said: "There isn't a day goes by when someone doesn't ask me about it. And that's fabulous. I remember being quoted as saying I hate people mentioning Shoestring. But I'm very proud of it."