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Rumpole of the Bailey |
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"É a relatively poor man ... a common man
or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not
know his job. He will take no man's money dishonestly and no
man's insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you
will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw
him. He talks as the man of his age talks -- that
is, with a rude wit, a lively sense of the
grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for
pettiness É" Rumpole
of the Bailey was a British
television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John
Mortimer QC and which starred
Australian actor Leo McKern as Horace
Rumpole, an aging London barrister
who defends any and all clients. Mortimer wrote each and every episode of the
television series, and their subsequent novelizations. The show ran, off and
on, for seventeen years and inspired two well-received radio series. The
pilot TV episode and the first two television series were adapted by BBC
Radio 4 in 1980 for the first radio series under the title of: Rumpole: The Splendours and Miseries of an Old
Bailey Hack It
starred Maurice Denham as Horace
Rumpole and Margot Boyd as Hilda
"She Who Must Be Obeyed" Rumpole. There were 13 self-contained
stories in this excellent series of 30 minute programs. In
2001 a one-off 90 minute Rumpole story "Rumpole and the Old Familiar
Faces" was dramatized by BBC
Radio. It starred Desmond Barrit
as Rumpole and Joanna David as Hilda Perhaps
the definitive radio version belongs to those BBC Radio programs that began
emerging in 2003. These were excellent 45 minute stories with Rumpole &
Hilda being played by the real-life husband and wife team of Timothy West and Prunella Scales (remember Prunella as Sybil Fawlty in John Cleese's classic TV comedy Fawlty Towers?).
Through to 2008 there have been ten 45 minute programs produced with the
West/Scales pairing. Most
recently, in 2009, the BBC dramatized Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow
Murders for radio. This is one of
few original Rumpole novels (which were not adapted from Mortimer's own TV
scripts) and it takes us back to the great barrister's first big case. The
story is told looking back after a conversation in chambers convinces Rumpole
to write his memoirs and it gives us Rumpole in the early 1950s as young,
eager, and ready to begin his career as a trial lawyer. Timothy
West is back as Rumpole (senior)
with Benedict Cumberbatch
playing the young Rumpole. Told in two 45 minute parts, it provides a further
insight into this most complex of characters. Following on from that success,
BBC4 commissioned two further 45 minute collaborations between Rumpole Snr. (Timothy
West) and Rumpole Jr. (Benedict
Cumberbatch): Rumpole and the Family
Pride & Rumpole and the Eternal Triangle Want
to check out some Rumpole on Radio? - why not "taste & try"? Below
are the both 45 minute parts of the superlative Rumpole and the Reign of
Terror These
episode can be freely downloaded to your computer - just right button click
on any link below and chose "Download Linked File" (or words to
that effect). The file is on an average about 36Mb - download time will
depend on your (broadband) speed RBTW_2007-08-15
The Reign of Terror (I).mp3 RBTW_2007-08-22
The Reign of Terror (II).mp3 These 2 MP3 Discs contain the following Rumpole
of the Bailey programs: A.
Maurice Denham
(30 mins each) 1.
RBMD_1980-07-21 The
Confession of Guilt 2.
RBMD_1980-07-28 The
Dear Departed 3.
RBMD_1980-08-04 The
Gentle Art of Blackmail 4.
RBMD_1980-08-11 The
Rotten Apple 5.
RBMD_1980-08-18 The
Man of God 6.
RBMD_1980-08-25 The
Defense of Guthrie Featherstone 7.
RBMD_1980-09-01 The
Show Folk 8.
RBMD_1980-09-08 The
Fascist Beast 9.
RBMD_1980-09-15 The
Case of Identity 10.
RBMD_1980-09-22 The
Expert Witness 11.
RBMD_1980-09-29 The
Course of True Love 12.
RBMD_1980-10-06 The
Perils of the Sea 13.
RBMD_1980-10-13 The
Age for Retirement B.
Desmond Barrit
(90 mins) 1.
RBMD_2001-12-25 The
Old Familiar Faces C. Timothy West (45 mins each) 1.
RBTW_2003-09-24 The
Primrose Path 2.
RBTW_2003-10-01 The
Scales of Justice 3.
RBTW_2003-10-08 The
Vanishing Juror 4.
RBTW_2003-10-15
Rumpole Redeemed 5.
RBTW_2006-06-19 The
Teenage Werewolf 6.
RBTW_2006-07-26 The
Right to Privacy 7.
RBTW_2007-08-15 The
Reign of Terror (I) 8.
RBTW_2007-08-22 The
Reign of Terror (II) 9.
RBTW_2008-05-28 The
Anti-social Behaviour of Horace Rumpole (I) 10.
RBTW_2008-05-29 The
Anti-social Behaviour of Horace Rumpole (II) D. Timothy West & Benedict Cumberbatch (45
mins each) 1.
RBTWBC_2009-05-19 The
Penge Bungalow Murders (I) 2.
RBTWBC_2009-05-26 The
Penge Bungalow Murders (II) 3.
RBTWBC_2010-08-09
Rumpole and the Family Pride.mp3 4.
RBTWBC_2010-08-10
Rumpole and the Eternal Triangle.mp3 |