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By
FRANK BEHRENS
Of all the characters that
have appeared on Mystery Theatre, Horace Rumpole
seems to be the most beloved. (It is really
difficult to "love" Peter Wimsey or Hercule
Poirot.) With only the first season of the Rumpole
episodes available on DVDs from HBO -- although
all of them are on tape, I believe -- it should be
good to learn that a so-called "lost episode" is
now available and it is a gem.
There was once a BBC series called "Play For
Today," and one of its offerings was a John
Mortimer 65-minute piece called "Rumpole and the
Confession of Guilt." It proved so popular with
audiences that a mini-series was planned for this
character, and the rest is history. Now Acorn
Media has released the DVD of this show, and every
Rumpole fan must get a copy.
Here we have Leo McKern as a clean shaven Rumpole
ready to plead guilty (!) to lessen the sentence
of a young black who had already confessed to a
daylight stabbing of a perfect stranger. But even
more interesting is the relationship between
Rumpole and his wife (here played by Joyce Heron)
and between him and his son. The wife, who here is
more abrasive than she will be in the mini-series,
and seemingly addicted to gin, taunts him by
calling him an Old Bailey hack; while his son
(David Yelland) strongly disapproves of how his
father conducts himself in court. The scene
between the father and son is quite tense and
forms the core of this drama.
In the regular mini-series, the two actresses who
were to play Hilda Rumpole played her quite
differently and the son's attitude was to be more
tolerant. However, it is so interesting to see how
Mortimer first established these relationships,
before rethinking them. Grab this one, please. |
