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Actor Ian Carmichael tried valiantly to get Dorothy L Sayers'
Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries on air for almost seven years
before they eventually made it to the screen in 1971.

  Opposition came not only from the BBC whose various excuses included the fact that they had only just finished a popular period drama in The Forsyte Saga and that the aristocratic Wimsey couldn’t compete with the popular American detectives of the day such as Columbo, Cannon and McCloud etc. British detective fayre at this time being largely represented by Z Cars, Softly Softly and Dixon Of Dock Green as opposed to the myriad of poor quality police/detective fodder unimaginative TV executives serve up at every given opportunity today.

Thankfully Carmichael was not deterred and telephoned Harrods to send him the complete set of Wimsey novels which Dorothy L Sayers produced between 1923 and 1938. Eventually in 1971 the BBC finally relented and Carmichael found an eventual ally in the form of Australian producer, Richard Beynon, whom he describes as a formidable taskmaster.

An actor's sense of continuity

Several problems still had to be surmounted. Originally Beynon did not want Carmichael to play Wimsey, as being well-known as Bertie Wooster in the famous PG Wodehouse TV series The World Of Wooster, Beynon feared that Carmichael would portray Wimsey as a ‘silly ass’ and stamped down firmly on any attempt by Carmichael to bring any great humour into the role. A further problem was that although the BBC now owned an option on all 13 Wimsey books, they wanted to start in the middle of the series with Murder Must Advertise which Sayers wrote in 1933. Carmichael justifiably protested against this complaining that by this time, Wimsey’s sister, Lady Mary had married Chief Inspector Charles Parker of Scotland Yard and it would look silly if they kept going back and forth with ‘Polly’ as Wimsey called her married, single then married again.

Trial by his peers

Eventually a compromise was reached and Anthony Steven adapted the second Wimsey book Clouds Of Witness as the first televised story. This was an excellent choice as it sees Wimsey’s brother, Gerald, 7th Duke of Denver (David Langton, later better known as Lord Bellamy in Upstairs Downstairs) charged with the murder of Lady Mary’s (a superb portrayal by Rachel Herbert) then fiancée, Captain Cathcart (Anthony Ainley). This serial is memorable not only for its superb production values which were always a constant factor of the series’ success, its outstanding cast which included Kate O’Mara, Isobel Jeans, Francis De Wolf, Anthony Jacobs, George Coulouris and Judith Arthy, but because it gives us an insight into the Wimsey family; as Well as the Duke of Denver, we also meet, Helen, Duchess of Denver (Georgina Cookson), Wimsey’s mother, the Dowager Duchess (Isobel Jeans) and Wimsey’s friend and future brother-in-law Chief Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard (Mark Eden) as well as Wimsey’s former army sergeant and now loyal butler Mervyn Bunter (Glyn Houston).

Above all the story is noteworthy in its depiction of a long since discontinued legal practice of the right of a peer of the realm to be tried by his peers in the House of Lords. This wonderfully gripping scene also gives us a comic duo worthy of the great TV scriptwriter, Robert Holmes in the form of Counsel for the defence, Sir Impey Biggs (Francis De Woolf) and the fussy counsel for the prosecution Sir Wigmore Wynching (Anthony Jacobs), amusing referred to by Wimsey as ‘Wiggy’! Justice is eventually done and His Grace freed.

A good deal of unpleasantness

A year later Wimsey returned in an adaptation of Sayers 1928 novel The Unpleasantness At The Bellona Club. This is one of Sayers best and most gripping books as Old General Fentimann is found murdered beneath his copy of The Times at his London club.

The production values are still wonderfully high, but the transfer to television in this instance inexplicably loses something, again largely the casting is superb, Donald Pickering, Terence Alexander, John Welsh, Mark Eden, but the narrative seems slow and drawn lacking the pace and excitement of Sayers wonderful novel. One inexplicable absence is that of Glyn Houston as the faithful Bunter, here, the role is played by Derek Newark who although a fine actor plays the role completely unmemorably and rather woodenly in such a way that the rapport between Wimsey and Bunter is lost. A situation not helped by Bill Craig’s dull adaptation and Ronald Wilson’s mediocre direction.

For all that, by the increasingly rushed and poor standards of modern television drama The Unpleasantness At The Bellona Club still stands out as a copybook piece of television production.

Read all about it ...

In 1973 Beynon, adapter Anthony Steven and director, Rodney Bennett turned their attention to Sayers 1933 novel Murder Must Advertise. By this time Sayers had settled into writing about places and situations she knew well, this time Pym’s advertising agency where Victor Dean is murdered after falling down an iron staircase. Sayers spent several years in the 1920s working as a copywriter at Benson’s advertising agency where she coined the then popular slogan for Coleman’s mustard; ‘has father joined the mustard club?’. Murder Must Advertise was in its day as evolutionary and epoch marking as Wimsey’s debut in print WHOSE BODY in 1923. Then Sayers shocked the bourgeoisie by having a naked murder victim in a bath, here, decades before it became a cinematic and literary norm, we have drug abuse.

After the rather mediocre ... Bellona Club, the series is once again back on form, although once again we are deprived of Glyn Houston’s definitive portrayal of Bunter as Sayers did not feature him in this novel. Wimsey joins Pyms as a copywriter, using only his middle names of De’ath Bredon as at the behest of Mr Pym (a masterly cameo performance by Peter Pratt) Wimsey attempts with help from Chief Inspector Parker, to trap Dean’s murderer. Again, the casting is first-rate and the acting from such stalwarts as Paul Darrow, Fiona Walker and Gwen Taylor is quite superlative.

A campanologist's delight

1974 brought future Professionals producer Raymond Menmuir to direct Anthony Steven’s adaptation of Sayer’s 1934 novel The Nine Tailors (the title refers to a peel of bells), regarded by many as her best and as one of the 100 best crime novels ever written. The story is a complex one spanning both ends of the First World War to East Anglia in the 1930s. Staying at a Country house party near the village of Fenchurch St Peter Wimsey is present when a valuable necklace is stolen (yes, the butler did it – and scarpers!) the butler later absconds from a prison working party and unsuccessfully tries to pose as a soldier on leave and is once again arrested. Over 20 years later, Wimsey and Bunters car breaks down near Fenchuch St Peter where the local gravedigger discovers a skeleton…..

Again, the casting is superlative, Desmond Lllewellyn on a break from Q branch, Keith Drinkel, David Jackson, Neil McCarthy, Donald Eccles and a decade before she became famous as Coronation Street’s favourite battleaxe, Maud Grimes, Elizabeth Bradley more like the gentle lady she was as vicar’s wife Mrs Venables. The Nine Tailors is interesting as it also gives us an insight into the Wimsey/Bunter relationship from the trenches of World War One to Bunter’s appointment as Wimsey’s manservant after the war.

Scottish herring - a nice catch?

In 1975 plans were afoot to produce an adaptation of Sayer’s 1930 courtroom drama Strong Poison which would have introduced Wimsey’s future wife, the crime writer, Harriet Vane saved from the gallows by Wimsey having being charged with the murder of her lover, Philip Boyes. However, the economic unrest prevalant at the time had reached the BBC which was by now shrouded in strike action, so the Wimsey team moved up to Scotland to produce a story which could be made largely on location, namely, Anthony Steven’s adaptation of Sayers 1931 book Five Red Herrings.

Carmichael has claimed that this story killed off the Wimsey series. Perhaps I’m biased as it was my personal introduction to the series and indeed to the works of Dorothy L Sayers but to me, it is every bit as good and as gripping as the other four stories in the series and I refute the claim of one critic that a book whose solution depends on knowledge of train timetables is bound to be dull – it isn’t! Director Robert Tronson creates an intriguing atmosphere and his photography of the locales of Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway is stunning!!!!

Here Lord Peter and Bunter travel to Kirkcudbright for a holiday, Jock Campbell an unpopular local artist is murdered by one of his fellow artists and with help from Inspector McPherson (PPS’s good friend Micheal Sheard) Wimsey sets about catching a killer with an artistic bent. Again, the acting is excellent from the crème de la crème of Scottish talent; James Copeland, Irene Sunters, Donald Douglas, Clive Graham, Jean Faulds, Eileen McCallum, Ian Ireland (later ‘Kenny’ Ireland of Victoria Wood fame), John Junkin and an almost unrecognisable Russell Hunter (looking like a cross between Roy Wood of the pop band Wizard, Charles Manson and Rasputin) add panache to a fine story. Indeed, this story gives us the best line of dialogue of the whole series as after a row at the local golf club, the soon-to-be-murdered Campbell rounds on his fellow artist Waters and booms “Och, gerratofit ye hairy wee monster!”

A mystery Wimsey couldn't solve

Personally I can see no reason why this story should have seen the demise of the series other than that it was shown in August when ratings aren’t very high. Clearly from what he has said in the past, Carmichael clearly missed Richard Beynon, but yet it is hard to understand what new producer Bill Sellars didn’t understand about the series. Like the previous four stories it is faithful to Sayers novels' and made with great care and attention.

Alas, that was that! Strong Poison did make it to the screen a decade later in a vastly inferior series of Dorothy L Sayers' Mysteries with Edward Petherbridge as Wimsey, Richard Morant as Bunter and Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane, but for the Carmichael series that was the end.

In many ways, Carmichael was indeed an unlikely choice for the role of Wimsey as by the time the series eventually aired, he was 51. Peter De’ath Bredon Wimsey was born in 1890, making him 38 at the time of Clouds Of Witness and 53 at the time of the final Wimsey novel Busman's Honeymoon in 1938, but so strong and endearing is Carmichael’s portrayal that such inaccuracies seem minor and Carmichael’s interpretation is truly the definitive article.

article copyright PPS / G. Phillips 2002