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Before there was Quincy and The Practice, there
was Rumpole. Rumpole of the Bailey is, 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, Rumpole is 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 in Alcatraz
Island, and Justice Sir Guthrie Fetherston is played by Peter Bowles, known
for his Richard DeVere in TV's To the Manor Born.
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