Mortimer's Law

Last updated

Mortimer's Law
Genre Crime drama
Written byDavid Reid
Directed byMoira Armstrong
Peter Barber-Fleming
Starring Amanda Root
Nicholas McGaughey
Gwenyth Petty
Shirley King
Clive Merrison
Louise Breckon-Richards
Valentine Pelka
ComposerIlona Sekacz
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series1
No. of episodes6 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producersMalcolm Heyworth
Jen Samson
ProducerStephen Jeffery-Poulter
EditorMichael Parkinson
Running time50 minutes
Production companyChatsworth Television
Original release
Network BBC One
Release6 February (1998-02-06) 
13 March 1998 (1998-03-13)

Mortimer's Law is a British television crime drama series, first broadcast on 6 February 1998, that ran for six episodes on BBC One. [1] The series starred Amanda Root as Rachel Mortimer, a London-based barrister who finds herself relocating to rural Wales after her defence in a sexual assault case goes horrifically wrong. Taking up the post of Coroner, Mortimer finds herself investigating a series of gruesome cases alongside her loyal partner, Gwil Humpries (Nicholas McGaughey). Initially broadcast at 21:30 on Fridays, a single series was broadcast before being axed by the network. [2] The series was a co-production between Chatsworth television and BBC Wales.

Contents

Root said of her role in the series; "When researching the role, I listened to some tapes from a Coroner's Officer where they were trying to establish if someone who had died under the wheels of a train had committed suicide. There was an interview with the train driver, who had to give all the facts about what he saw in the last moments before the train hit this man - how he had run on to the line, how he had braced himself. I will never forget those images. I also went to see a woman coroner in Southwark who was fantastic. She was very centred and self-controlled. She organised her court quite brilliantly, and she was formidable in the best sense of the word." [3]

Cast

Episodes

No.TitleDirected byWritten byBritish air date
1"Trial By Fire"Moira ArmstrongDavid Reid6 February 1998 (1998-02-06)
When London-based barrister Rachel Mortimer visits Wales to defend a man charged with sexual assault, her cross-examination of the key witness, DC Gwil Humphries, affects both their careers.
2"Dripping Blood"Moira ArmstrongDavid Reid13 February 1998 (1998-02-13)
When a corpse is found in the freezer room of a butcher's shop, Rachel and Humphries suspect a sinister reason behind the man's death.
3"Martyr"Peter Barber-FlemingDavid Reid20 February 1998 (1998-02-20)
A young boy's body is found in a ravine and the locals believe that his death is a human sacrifice. A suspect is arrested, but Rachel thinks there may be another explanation for the tragedy.
4"One Dies Every Minute"Moira ArmstrongDavid Reid27 February 1998 (1998-02-27)
An inquiry is launched when a woman dies in the county hospital after her baby is born.
5"Long Lost Love"Peter Barber-FlemingDavid Reid6 March 1998 (1998-03-06)
Rachel and Humphries hear a case that has split a community. Wendy Frampton has been missing for several years, and her mother believes she has been murdered by her husband. But is the truth more sinister than she ever thought?
6"Sundown"Peter Barber-FlemingDavid Reid13 March 1998 (1998-03-13)
A disturbing course of events lead Rachel to believe she is being stalked, and she fears it may be the psychopathic Batty.

Related Research Articles

Paul Julian Whitehouse is a British actor, writer, presenter and comedian. He was one of the main stars of the BBC sketch comedy series The Fast Show, and has starred with Harry Enfield in the shows Harry & Paul and Harry Enfield & Chums. He has appeared with Bob Mortimer in the BBC series Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, and has also acted in films including Corpse Bride (2005), Alice in Wonderland (2010), and The Death of Stalin (2017).

<i>Silent Witness</i> British crime drama television series

Silent Witness is a British crime drama television series produced by the BBC, which focuses on a team of forensic pathology experts and their investigations into various crimes. First broadcast in 1996, the series was created by Nigel McCrery, a former murder squad detective based in Nottingham. Twenty-seven series of Silent Witness have been broadcast since 1996, with series 27 airing in January/February 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Mortimer</span> British barrister and author (1923–2009)

Sir John Clifford Mortimer was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author. He is best known for short stories about a barrister named Horace Rumpole, adapted from episodes of the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey also written by Mortimer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rachel Roberts (actress)</span> Welsh actress (1927–1980)

Rachel Roberts was a Welsh actress. She is best remembered for her screen performances as the older mistress of the central male characters in both Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and This Sporting Life (1963). For each, she won the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress. She was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for This Sporting Life. Her other notable film appearances included Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and Yanks (1979).

Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his 1997 Comedy Premiere special of the same name. The series follows three couples experiencing the ups-and-downs of romance, originally Adam Williams and Rachel Bradley, Pete and Jenny Gifford and Karen and David Marsden. As the original series progressed, the Giffords divorced and Pete married Jo Ellison, whilst Karen and David also separated, forming relationships with Mark Cubitt and Robyn Duff.

<i>Rumpole of the Bailey</i> British television drama series (1978–1992)

Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It starred Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, a middle-aged London barrister who defended a broad variety of clients, often underdogs. The popularity of the TV series led to the stories being presented in other media, including books and radio.

<i>This Life</i> (1996 TV series) British television series

This Life is a BBC television drama that was produced by World Productions and screened on BBC Two. Two series were broadcast from 18 March 1996 to 7 August 1997, with a later reunion special on 2 January 2007. It centres on a group of law graduates in their twenties, embarking upon their careers while sharing a house in south London. There are no courtroom scenes in either the first or second series, and only one brief scene in the TV sequel.

Claire Goose is a British actress. She played Tina Seabrook, a nurse in BBC One's Casualty, DS Mel Silver in Waking the Dead, and Sergeant Rachel Weston in ITV's The Bill. She played a leading role as undercover cop Rebecca Ryan/Margaret in the British gangster film Bad Day (2008), she also narrated two series of Road Wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tracy-Ann Oberman</span> English actress, playwright, writer and narrator (born 1966)

Tracy-Ann Oberman is an English actress, playwright and narrator. She is known for roles including Chrissie Watts in the BBC soap opera EastEnders (2004–2005) and Valerie Lewis or "Auntie Val" in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner (2011–2020).

Amanda Root is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her starring role as Anne Elliot in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Persuasion. A familiar face on both stage and screen, she worked regularly with the Royal Shakespeare Company during her early career, performing as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, among other roles. In 2009, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance as Sarah in Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Madoc</span> Welsh actress (1943–2022)

Ruth Madoc was a British actress who had a career on stage and screen spanning over 60 years. She was best known for her role as Gladys Pugh in the BBC television comedy Hi-de-Hi! (1980–1988), for which she received a BAFTA TV award nomination for Best Light Entertainment Performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orla Brady</span> Irish actress (born 1961)

Orla Brady is an Irish theatre, television, and film actress born in Dublin. She has been nominated for several awards from the Irish Film & Television Academy for her work in televised programs, as well as starring in the RTÉ-BBC co-production A Love Divided, for which she won the 1999 Golden Nymph Best Actress Award. She began her career with the Balloonatics Theatre Company as a touring performer, later gaining her first television work in a minor role in the series Minder in 1993. Her first role in film was in Words Upon the Window Pane in 1994. Brady later appeared in recurring roles in a number of US and UK series and in two supporting character roles in the CBS-Paramount+ series, Star Trek: Picard. Brady appeared in the 2020 list of Ireland's greatest film actors, published by The Irish Times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeanette Nolan</span> American actress (1911–1998)

Jeanette Nolan was an American actress. Nominated for four Emmy Awards, she had roles in the television series The Virginian (1962–1971) and Dirty Sally (1974), and in films such as Macbeth (1948).

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a series of radio dramas based on Arthur Conan Doyle's detective Sherlock Holmes. Written by Bert Coules as a pastiche of Doyle's work, the series was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002, 2004, 2008–2009 and 2010. There are sixteen episodes, all of them produced and directed by Patrick Rayner of BBC Scotland. Clive Merrison stars as Holmes, having portrayed the detective in a 1989–1998 BBC radio series of dramatisations of every Sherlock Holmes story by Doyle. Andrew Sachs appears as Dr. Watson, replacing Michael Williams after Williams died following the Radio 4 run of Sherlock Holmes adaptations. Each of the stories is based on a throwaway reference from an actual Doyle short story or novel. The first two series are repeated regularly on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

<i>Lost in Austen</i> 2008 British television fantasy series

Lost in Austen is a four-part 2008 British television series for the ITV network, written by Guy Andrews as a fantasy adaptation of the 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Amanda, a young woman living in modern London, enters the plot of the novel through a portal in her bathroom, to join the Bennet family and affect events, generally disastrously.

"A Scandal in Belgravia" is the first episode of the second series of the BBC crime drama series Sherlock, which follows the modern-day adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and was first broadcast by BBC One on 1 January 2012. It was written by co-creator Steven Moffat, and directed by Paul McGuigan. The episode was based on "A Scandal in Bohemia", a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

<i>Upstairs Downstairs</i> (2010 TV series) British television series from (2010–2012)

Upstairs Downstairs is a British drama series, broadcast on BBC One from 2010 to 2012, and co-produced by BBC Wales and Masterpiece. Created and written by Heidi Thomas, it is a continuation of the London Weekend Television series of the same name, which ran from 1971 to 1975 on ITV.

<i>Toast of London</i> British TV sitcom

Toast of London is a British television sitcom. It was created by Arthur Mathews and Matt Berry and stars Berry as Steven Toast, an eccentric, middle-aged actor with a chequered past who spends more time dealing with his problems offstage than performing on it.

"The Forget-Me-Knot" is the first episode of the sixth series of the 1960s cult British spy-fi television series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, and introducing Linda Thorson as Tara King. Its first broadcast was on the US ABC network on 20 March 1968. Its first UK broadcast was on 25 September 1968 by Thames Television, who commissioned this series of the show for the ITV network. The episode was directed by James Hill, and written by Brian Clemens.

The Richmond child murder was the case of Amy Gregory who was convicted in 1895 of strangling to death her daughter, Frances Maud Gregory, whose dead body was found on the ice in the Old Deer Park, Richmond, England. She was granted a reprieve from execution by the Home Secretary.

References

  1. "Mortimer's Law[13/02/98] (1998)". Archived from the original on 13 November 2017.
  2. "Search - BBC Programme Index".
  3. "Don't look at me, I'm famous". Independent.co.uk . 5 February 1998.