History Series / RumpoleOfTheBailey

** Sam Ballard, Guthrie Featherstone, and even Rumpole himself, on separate occasions.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Played with and discussed in “Rumpole and the Honourable Member”. Rumpole treated everything about the case with the same level of sobriety and respect that he would any other crime (read: very little). However, this wasn’t shown to be because he didn’t regard rape as a serious crime but rather because he believed a man who’s innocent of rape (as he always assumes his clients to be innocent) deserves just as thorough a defence as one who’s innocent of petty theft. At the same time, Rumpole acknowledged that everyone in the courtroom would regard the crime differently particularly because it was a rape. In particular, Erica was shocked by the way he would attack the alleged victim which led Rumpole to challenge her on whether it’s fair that a lower standard of proof (the victim’s word) should exist for rape as opposed to other crimes.

A ThamesTelevision for Creator/{{ITV}} series, intermittently from 1978 to 1992, following a one-off [[Creator/TheBBC BBC]] drama, focused on the professional and personal life of one Horace Rumpole, barrister at law (played by Leo [=McKern=]).

** Claude Erskine-Brown fancies himself a wine connoisseur ("Rumpole and the Blind Tasting").[[note]]This is largely because [[TheCastShowOff Julian Curry]] ''is'' a wine connoisseur.[[/note]]

** Claude Erskine-Brown fancies himself a wine connoisseur ("Rumpole and the Blind Tasting").

* ThemeNaming: Claude and Phyllida's children are named [[Creator/RichardWagner Tristan and Isolde]].

** Claude Erskine-Brown's obsession with {{Opera}}; ''[[Creator/RichardWagner Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg]]'' gets mentioned a lot.

** Rumpole executes a magnificent one in "Rumpole and the Last Resort." [[spoiler: The gambit was focused on the solicitor Blythe, who at once owed Rumpole nearly £2,500 in fees going back as ten years earlier (at a time when Rumpole was late on his utility bills and overdrawn at his bank) and was a material witness in the fraud case he was defending. Blythe was known to hold out payment to barristers until they died, then wheedle the widow into settling the payment for a small fraction of the original fee. On top of that, Blythe had a tendency to have "just slipped out of the office" every time somebody called the office; he was more or less nowhere to be found. After Rumpole fails to convince Judge Bullingham to grant an adjournment in the fraud case to find Blythe, he decides to [[FakingTheDead fake his own death]]: he collapses in the middle of his application to Bullingham, sends a message to Chambers (supposedly from his wife) informing them that he is dead, and hides in his house for some time (possibly a week or more) until Blythe shows up at the door, offering Mrs. Rumpole the same pittance of a settlement he usually offered. She declines, forces him to sign a check for the exact amount Rumpole was owed, and then lets in PrivateDetective "Fig" Newton, who hands Blythe a subpoena. Finally, when Blythe is forced to take the stand and the fraud case recommences, Bullingham starts something of a eulogy for Rumpole. At this point, Rumpole appears in the courtroom and begins his questioning of a terrified Blythe. In the meantime, Chambers had gotten rather excited by the prospect of the death of Rumpole, with "Soapy Sam" trying to use it as an excuse to take on Guthrie Featherstone's well-connected nephew, and Claude Erskine-Brown hoping to take possession of Rumpole's umbrella stand: all of which Rumpole heard about and used to make a point about his Chambers.]]

** A nasty one is played on Rumpole in "Rumpole and the Golden Thread", where he's called to a fictional African nation to defend a former student of his from a capital charge by a corrupt government. He finds his client surprisingly uncooperative despite the stakes, but nonetheless keeps investigating and finds the evidence that will clear his name. Unfortunately, [[spoiler: the alibi that proves his client's innocence is proof of his second marriage with a woman from a different ethnic group. Rumpole's client was actually counting on being condemned, which would have caused his faction to revolt and break him out of prison, but instead the knowledge of the love affair results in him being killed by his own people shortly after being acquitted. The government was counting on Rumpole to find and use the evidence of innocence, as this way they got to have the appearance of a "fair" trial yet eliminate a thorn in their side while keeping their own hands clean.]]
** Hilda and Liz Probert join forces in the final episode, "Rumpole on Trial," to trick Rumpole out of giving up his career. All it takes is [[spoiler: Hilda detailing all the things they're going to do together now that he's retired]].

** Another literal ChekhovsGun appears in ''Rumpole and the Show Folk''; whilst demonstrating with a gun in court, Rumpole notices that the hammer is extremely prone to going off accidentally when cocked, which becomes relevant when the defendant testifies to the gun going off accidentally in self defence. [[spoiler: Subverted when it's [[TheReveal revealed]] the defendant did actually murder the victim in cold blood and was just very good at covering her tracks.]]

* DrivenToSuicide: One of the characters in "Rumpole and the Official Secret" winds up [[spoiler: throwing himself under a train.]]

* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler: See BatmanGambit above]]. And the entire scheme serves as the setup to one TV's greatest OverlyPrepreparedGag moments: [[spoiler: Rumpole, after it's revealed he's alive: "It must have come as a huge relief for those who heard Rumpole had kicked the bucket, to hear he had just turned a little pail."]]

** In the final novel published, ''Rumpole Misbehaves'', Rumpole makes a serious attempt to become a QC, because his client wants a QC, and only a QC to defend him. [[spoiler: He doesn't get it because during a cross examination he implied that a Home Office official was connected to a prostitution ring much to anger of the presiding judge, who happens to be on the Committee that grants applications for [=QCs=].]]

** "Rumpole and the Sporting Life" features an unusual and literal example in the elderly Mr Justice Twyburne, who once sentenced a man to hang for killing a policeman. [[spoiler: The man was later proven innocent, a fact which has preyed on Twyburne's conscience ever since.]]

* RankUp: Phyllida Trant begins the series as a junior barrister and ends it as [[spoiler: a High Court judge]].

* TeethClenchedTeamwork: In the final episode, "Rumpole on Trial," Hilda dragoons Ballard into defending Rumpole after he insults Justice Oliphant. Ballard is horrified and Rumpole initially uncooperative, but Ballard for once manages to be effective: [[spoiler: he convinces Oliphant that it would look better if he accepted an apology from Rumpole.]]

* [[ReferencedBy/WilliamShakespeare Referenced By: William Shakespeare]]: Several references, and hardly surprising given Rumpole's love of English literature.
** Some are built into the stories. In "The Dear Departed," Rumpole opens and closes with a quote from ''Richard II'' ("Let's talk of graves, and worms, and epitaphs...") The solicitors in his will case are Mowbray and Pontefract -- Mowbray being the accused knight whose duel opens ''Richard II'', and Pontefract (Pomfret) being the castle where Richard is imprisoned at the end of the play.

* HangoverSensitivity: here's at least one episode of wherein Rumpole, after a night of "carousing" with Henry the clerk, has to come in to court shading his eyes.

* GoodLawyersGoodClients: Subverted. While it is true that almost all of Rumpole's clients that we see are in fact innocent of the crime they're on trial for, they are very frequently guilty of some other crime. This is particularly true of the Timsons, a clan of South London "[[HarmlessVillain minor villains]]" who make their living off of petty larceny and [[FellOffTheBackOfATruck fencing]], and whose fees seem to pay a fair chunk of Rumpole's own bills. There's also more than one DownerEnding where Rumpole's client tells him ''after'' he's got them off that they wre in fact guilty and thanks to the double jeopardy rule there's nothing he can do about it.

* ADayInTheLimelight: "Hilda's Story," collected in ''Rumpole and the Angel of Death.''

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: Averted. This is noted as one of the most realistic legal dramas ever producd. The writer and creator John Mortimer, QC was an actual practing barrister in addition to being a writer, and thus knew legal life, extremely well. He would get up at 4:00 in the morning to write the scripts and then go to work at court. He eventually retired from the Bar to focus on writing full time.

* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: They may fight and argue but in Rumpole's words "they'd rather have war together than a lonely peace". There are several indications that Hilda is secretly proud of her husband, despite her loud dissapointment that's he not a judge or a QC, although she'd never say so to her face. Lampshaded in "Rumpole and the Married Woman", where Rumpole notes that the couple in his divorce case stayed together because "they didn't want to be alone."

** Hilda and Liz Probert join forces in the final episode, "Rumpole on Trial," to trick Rumpole out of giving up his career. All it takes is [[spoiler: Hilda detailing all the things they're going to do together now that he's retired.]]

* CantStandThemCantLiveWithoutThem: The ever-antagonistic Rumpoles may not love each other, exactly, but they occasionally show signs of a deep-seated loyalty. Horace learns to dance to make Hilda happy; Hilda fiercely defends Horace in "Rumpole on Trial"; and they prove themselves unbeatable when they join forces in the BatmanGambit discussed above.

** A literal one occurs in "Rumpole and the Fascist Beast". The gun is in the titular "fascist beast"'s shed, where he keeps birds, hidden under the bird seed. [[spoiler:He commits suicide after his acquittal leads to the local chapter of the party -- an obvious stand-in for the BNP -- unseating him]].

* CloudCuckooLander: Uncle Tom, who hasn't had a brief in anyone's living memory, but still happily potters around Chambers playing golf. His chief role in the show is to go off on long semi-relevant recollections of past events whenever anyone discuses anything near him. (It is never explained how he supports himself.)

** At the beginning of the series, Claude Erskine-Brown is a somewhat pompous but nevertheless effective barrister with a thriving civil practice. By the end, he's an incompetent and completely un-self-aware milquetoast. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] when Erskine-Brown complains to Rumpole about how he's been reduced to "scraping the bottom of your [i.e. Rumpole's] barrel." Also, at the beginning of the series, Erskine-Brown is an all-around devotee of classical music in general and opera in particular, whereas at the end he focuses exclusively on Wagner.

** Most season finales where written in a way to wrap up the show, because [=Leo McKern=], although he enjoyed the role, wanted to avoid typecasting and was frustrated how it seemed to overshadow his other works (much like Alec Guiness with Star Wars), but John Mortimer convinced him to keep coming back. The ultimate finale was "Rumpole on Trial", where all of the cast main and supporting reunite for a party, at the end.
** In the final novel published, ''Rumpole Misbehaves'', Rumpole makes a serious attempt to become a QC, because his client wants a QC, and only a QC to defend him. [[spoiler: He doesn't get it because during a cross examination he implied that a Home Office official was connected to a prostitution ring much to anger of the presiding judge, who happens to be on the Committe that grants applications for [=QCs=].]]

'''Claude Erskine-Brown:''' Please, don't tell me! It's absolutely none of my business…You mean Tommy Tomkins?\\

** He calls Liz Probert "Miz Liz". [[StrawFeminist Guess why]].

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The "Ostlers" of the (fictional) town of Gunster in "Rumpole and the Right to Silence" bear a ([[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]]) resemblance to the Freemasons.

* NoodleIncident: Rumpole's greatest professional success, the case of the Penge Bungalow Murders, was a NoodleIncident for almost three decades before recently being told in a novel suprisingly named ''Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders''.

** Rumpole's habit of turning down more lucrative law practices, and promotions seems all find and admirable until you remember he how often his bank account get overdrawn. In ''Rumpole and the Last Resort'' he has no money to pay utilties because a particular seedy solicitor is refusing to pay him his due from a back case.

* Retcon: Somewhere along the line in the books Judge Roger Bullingham became Judge ''Leonard'' Bullingham. Whether or not they are the same charcter is open to fan debate.

* ShoutOutToShakespeare: Several, and hardly surprising given Rumpole's love of English literature.
** Some are built into the stories. In "The Dear Departed," Rumpole opens and closes with a quote from ''Richard II'' ("Let's talk of graves, and worms, and epitaphs...") The solicitors in his will case are Mowbray and Pontefract -- Mowbray being the accused knight whose duel opens ''Richard II'', and Pontefract (Pomfret) being the castle where Richard is imprisoned at the end of the play.
* SilentSnarker: A lot of Rumpole's snark is actually delivered in voiceovers, audible only to viewers. One of the [[RunningGag running gags]] is the frequent discrepancy between Rumpole's internal snarking and his external restraint. For instance, from "Rumpole and the Old, Old Story":

[[caption-width-right:348:Horace Rumpole]]

* BritishNewspapers: Make an occasional appearance. Rumpole is partial to ''The Times'', especially its crossword. Hilda prefers the ''Evening Telegraph'' (and its crossword). Papers appear as important points in certain episodes: "Rumpole and the Tap End" features embarrassing reports on a decision of (Mr. Justice) Guthrie Featherstone's in ''The Evening Standard''; "Rumpole and the Bubble Reputation" features Rumpole and Claude Erskine-Brown's dealings with an [[ProductDisplacement obvious replacement]] for ''The Sun'' (complete with PageThreeStunna!) called the ''Beacon''. Specifically, Rumpole has to defend the sleazy editor of ''Beacon'' on a libel charge (it's a "money brief", with an [[UndisclosedFunds unspeakably large]] fee and a £500/day refresher), while Erskine-Brown is caught at a strip club (doing research on his case about a fight at the club some time earlier) by the ''Beacon'' photographers and has to deal with the consequences.

* GoodLawyersGoodClients: Subverted. While it is true that almost all of Rumpole's clients that we see are in fact innocent of the crime they're on trial for, they are very frequently guilty of some other crime. This is particularly true of the Timsons, a clan of South London "[[HarmlessVillain minor villains]]" who make their living off of petty larceny and [[FellOffTheBackOfATruck fencing]], and whose fees seem to pay a fair chunk of Rumpole's own bills. There's also one DownerEnding where Rumpole's client tells him ''after'' he's got her off that she was in fact guilty and thanks to the double jeopardy rule there's nothing he can do about it.

** Claude Erskine-Brown fancies himself a wine connoisseur ("Rumpole and the Blind Tasting").[[note]]Julian Curry, who played Erskine-Brown, actually is an amateur expert on wine, and the episode was in many ways [[TheCastShowOff an opportunity to show off his knowledge]].[[/note]]

** Claude Erskine-Brown fancies himself a wine connoisseur ("Rumpole and the Blind Tasting").

* HarmlessVillain: The Timson clan, very, ''very'' low-level crooks ("minor villains" is what Rumpole likes to call them) whom Rumpole defends on a regular basis (they appear to be his primary source of income, and at one point he refers to himself as being "CT -- Counsel to the Timsons.").

* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: They may fight and argue but in Rumpole's words "they'd rather have war together than a lonely peace". There are several indications that Hilda is secretly proud of her husband, despite her loud dissapointment that's he not a judge or a QC, although she'd never say so to her face.

* CelibateHero: According to the novels, the Rumpoles had sex exactly once, on their honeymoon, which explains how they managed to have a child. Other than that, no, and Horace has only been MistakenForCheating.

* CloudCuckooLander: Uncle Tom, who hasn't had a brief in anyone's living memory, but still happily potters around Chambers playing golf. His chief role in the show is to go off on long semi-relevant recollections of past events whenever anyone discuses anything near him.

* FormerTeenRebel: Sam Ballard. In the later novels and short stories, he and his teenage rock group get back together for jam sessions.