Rumpole of the Bailey: Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons
Before there wasQuincyandThe Practice, there wasRumpole.Rumpole of the Baileyis, quite simply, one of the finest television series, and it has served as a model for all law dramas that followed it. Edgy and satirical,Rumpoleis based on John Mortimer's books of the same name. Esteemed actor Leo McKern portrays the antihero Rumpole, a determined and committed criminal defense barrister whose clients have included three generations of the Timson family, among others, at the Old Bailey (criminal court). As champion of the downtrodden, the self-righteous Rumpole loves to get in trouble with his wife, his peers, the head of chambers, and judges, to name but a few. A connoisseur of Wordsworth, cigars, and cheap liquor, McKern's usually disheveled Rumpole belies the character's dry sense of humor and astute skill as a barrister. His wife, the upwardly mobile Hilda, is played by Peggy Thorpe-Bates, known for her Miss Toliver inAlcatraz Island, and Justice Sir Guthrie Fetherston is played by Peter Bowles, known for his Richard DeVere in TV'sTo the Manor Born.This four-disc set includes all 12 episodes from the first two seasons in their original sequence of stories, plusRumpole's Return, the 1982 two-hour special that started off the third season. Typical of British drama, production values are low, while the caliber of scriptwriting and acting is unsurpassed. A rare example of a television serial that is as appealing and engaging on its 10th viewing as it is on its first.--Erik Macki