Genre | Sitcom; Legal drama |
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Running time | 30 minutes |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Language(s) | English |
Home station | BBC Radio 4 |
Syndicates | BBC Radio 7 |
TV adaptations | Chambers |
Starring | John Bird Sarah Lancashire Lesley Sharp James Fleet Jonathan Kydd |
Written by | Clive Coleman |
Produced by | Paul Schlesinger |
Original release | 17 April 1996 – 30 March 1999 |
No. of series | 3 |
No. of episodes | 14 |
Chambers | |
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Written by | Clive Coleman |
Directed by | John Stroud |
Starring | John Bird Sarah Lancashire Nina Wadia James Fleet Jonathan Kydd Jeremy Clyde John Hodgkinson John Rowe |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 2 |
No. of episodes | 12 |
Production | |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | BBC One |
Release | 15 June 2000 – 2 September 2001 |
Chambers was a BBC radio and television sitcom. It was written by barrister Clive Coleman and starred John Bird and Sarah Lancashire in both versions. The radio version was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in three series between 1996 and 1999, [1] and the television version was broadcast on BBC One. The theme music was "Dance with Mandolins" from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet .
John Bird plays the lead role of John Fuller-Carp, a monstrously egotistical and avaricious barrister heading Forecourt Chambers. His colleagues are Hilary Tripping, a rather ineffectual young man, and Ruth Quirke, initially a rather militantly left wing feminist. After Lesley Sharp left the role after the first series and Sarah Lancashire took over, Ruth became more of comic neurotic, but many of the 'original' Ruth's harder characteristics were later given to the character who replaced her in the second run of the television series, Alex Kahn.
John Michael Bird was an English actor, director, writer and satirist. He performed in the television satire boom of the 1960s, appearing in That Was the Week That Was. His television work included many appearances with John Fortune. Bird had an acting career in film, television, theatre and radio for over 55 years. He appeared in films including Take A Girl Like You (1970) and Jabberwocky (1977) as well as in television shows such as Joint Account, Marmalade Atkins, El C.I.D. and Chambers. He and Fortune also starred with Rory Bremner in the sketch show Bremner, Bird and Fortune (1993–2010), on Channel 4, which was nominated for BAFTA TV Awards.
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Pauline Perpetua Sheen is a retired English actress. She began her career with roles on various television series, before fronting her own comedy sketch show, Pauline's Quirkes, in 1976. She later starred as Vicky Smith on the BBC drama series Angels (1982–1983), and achieved fame with her portrayal of Sharon Theodopolopodous on the long-running sitcom Birds of a Feather, for which she won a British Comedy Award and was nominated on three occasions for a National Television Award. In 1997, she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress for her role in the BBC miniseries The Sculptress. Between 2010 and 2012, Quirke played Hazel Rhodes on the ITV soap opera Emmerdale.
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Brothers in Law is a 1955 comic novel by British author Henry Cecil, a county court judge, about Roger Thursby, a young barrister experiencing his first year in chambers. It was followed by two sequels Friends at Court and Sober as a Judge.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, sometimes called The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents, is an American television anthology series that originally aired on NBC for one season from September 29, 1985 to May 4, 1986, and on the USA Network for three more seasons, from January 24, 1987, to July 22, 1989, with a total of four seasons consisting of 76 episodes. The series is an updated version of the 1955 eponymous series.
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