YMMV / Rumpole of the Bailey

• Can't Un-Hear It: It's pretty hard not to hear Leo McKern when reading one of the stories— especially later ones. You may even start to hear other actors from the show in their respective characters.
• Genius Bonus: Rumpole peppers his conversations and speeches with snippets of poetry and more allusions to literature than you can shake a stick at. Attentive viewers will find everything from Shakespeare to Wordsworth to The Scarlet Pimpernel (and that twice in the same scene).
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • The show became a big hit with American PBS viewers when it was packaged as part of that network's Masterpiece Theatre spinoff Mystery!.
  • Reginald D. Hunter professed his love for the PBS showings on Screenwipe as it showed a world completely different from that of his own.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Dr. Cogger from "Rumpole and the Quacks" is played by Gary Waldhorn, who would later be best known for playing David Horton in The Vicar of Dibley.
  • Gaston LeBlanc from "Rumpole a la Carte" is played by John Bluthal, who would later be best known for playing Frank Pickle in The Vicar of Dibley.
  • Rosemary Tuttle from "Rumpole and the Official Secret" is played by Judy Cornwell, who would later be best known for playing Daisy in Keeping Up Appearances.
• Values Dissonance:
  • It's hard to imagine an episode like "Rumpole and the Honorable Member" (where Rumpole badgers a rape accuser to the point of Slut-Shaming) would ever fly today. Then again, it is brought up to Rumpole that he may have been too harsh, and in typically Rumpole fashion he declares that the standard of evidence shouldn’t be lowered for the most serious of crimes, so it certainly wasn’t treated as a great laugh.

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