Writer John Mortimer saw the future of Higher Education. He was not alone. Andrew Davies has already adapted A Very Peculiar Practice on the BBC several years earlier.
The leaders of these universities knew what the future was. It was a case of when and not if local authority grants would be abolished and the end of free university education for some.
This is why in the last few years Vice Chancellors salaries skyrocketed with the cap on university tuition fees very much relaxed.
Rumpole and Hilda attend the graduation ceremony of their niece. It just so happens that later in the evening the Vice Chancellor was pushed off the balcony. He was a man who wanted the university to be businesslike and that meant he had little time for the Classics.
English Professor, Clive Clympton is accused of his murder. He is a radical lefty. Clympton does not like Wordsworth because he was a Tory. He earlier had an argument with the deceased. Rumpole was present when it happened.
However Clympton wants to exercise his right of silence. Something Rumpole acknowledged is under threat. It just that in Clympton's case, remaining silent might not be the best idea.
The right to silence leapfrogs from the courtroom to the barrister's dometic life. Samuel Ballard hits a road bump in his married life as his new wife wants to know what is in his holdall. Claude Erskine-Brown lies to his wife as to who he took to the opera with. Hilda is annoyed that Rumpole suggests that there are things that wives should be unaware of.
It is a good balance of comedy and courtroom antics. Mortimer takes aim at Northern judges and their emphasis on brass tacks and common sense. An earlier scene also indicated the involvement of a Freemason type group in the story as well.
Patricia Hodge returned for the first time in this series. By now she had become a busy star in her own right and she only had one pivotal scene as she discussed Uncle Tom's visit to the opera.
Sadly both Maurice Roëves who played Clympton and Julian Curry who played Claude Erskine-Brown died in the summer of 2020.
The leaders of these universities knew what the future was. It was a case of when and not if local authority grants would be abolished and the end of free university education for some.
This is why in the last few years Vice Chancellors salaries skyrocketed with the cap on university tuition fees very much relaxed.
Rumpole and Hilda attend the graduation ceremony of their niece. It just so happens that later in the evening the Vice Chancellor was pushed off the balcony. He was a man who wanted the university to be businesslike and that meant he had little time for the Classics.
English Professor, Clive Clympton is accused of his murder. He is a radical lefty. Clympton does not like Wordsworth because he was a Tory. He earlier had an argument with the deceased. Rumpole was present when it happened.
However Clympton wants to exercise his right of silence. Something Rumpole acknowledged is under threat. It just that in Clympton's case, remaining silent might not be the best idea.
The right to silence leapfrogs from the courtroom to the barrister's dometic life. Samuel Ballard hits a road bump in his married life as his new wife wants to know what is in his holdall. Claude Erskine-Brown lies to his wife as to who he took to the opera with. Hilda is annoyed that Rumpole suggests that there are things that wives should be unaware of.
It is a good balance of comedy and courtroom antics. Mortimer takes aim at Northern judges and their emphasis on brass tacks and common sense. An earlier scene also indicated the involvement of a Freemason type group in the story as well.
Patricia Hodge returned for the first time in this series. By now she had become a busy star in her own right and she only had one pivotal scene as she discussed Uncle Tom's visit to the opera.
Sadly both Maurice Roëves who played Clympton and Julian Curry who played Claude Erskine-Brown died in the summer of 2020.
