by David Bishop
IDENTITY PARADE: Before becoming Morse, John Thaw was best known for playing a far more brutal cop, Jack Regan, in the 1970s police drama The Sweeney. He also starred as a military policeman in the 1960s series Redcap. Before becoming Sergeant Lewis, Kevin Whately had starred in the drama series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
Patrick Troughton is best known for starring as the title character in Doctor Who from 1966 to 1969. Gemma Jones is a character actress well known for the 1970s series The Duchess of Duke Street; film appearances include Sense and Sensibility (1995), Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002).
RATINGS: 13.87 million.
THE VERDICT: ‘The Dead of Jericho’ quickly establishes many of the show’s motifs – Morse’s love of beer, his car and classical music, his unorthodox methods and his sometimes fractious relationship with Lewis. However, the chief inspector shows no squeamishness at the sight of Jackson’s dead body. The supporting cast of Strange and police pathologist Max make the first of many appearances. The opening action sequence feels like something from The Sweeney, but the show quickly settles down into its more familiar and leisurely pace. Minghella’s screenplay almost goes over the top in portraying Morse’s dependence on alcohol but cleverly keeps the audience guessing as to the murderer’s true identity. A fine debut all round, with the exception of the hat and black leather jacket Morse wears in one scene – what was the wardrobe department thinking?
THE SILENT WORLD OF NICHOLAS QUINN
‘I do hope this is not going to be one of our sordid cases, Lewis.’ An apparent suicide quickly becomes a murder case, then a double murder for Morse, as duplicitous academics try to hide their guilty secrets.
UK TX: 13 January 1987
SCREENPLAY: Julian Mitchell, based on the novel by Colin Dexter
DIRECTOR: Brian Parker
CAST: Barbara Flynn (Monica Height), Michael Gough (Philip Ogleby), Clive Swift (Dr Bartlett), Frederick Treves (Dean of Lonsdale College), Anthony Smee (Roope), Roger Lloyd Pack (Donald Martin), Julie Neubert (Mrs Martin), Phil Nice (Nicholas Quinn), Elspeth Gray (Mrs Bartlett), Arthur Cox (Noakes), Gabrielle Blunt (Mrs Evans), Angela Barlow (nurse), Denyse Alexander (cinema manageress), Stefan Schwartz (Richard Bartlett), Saul Reichlin (Sheik of Al-jamara), Diana Blackburn (lip-reading teacher), Malcolm Mudie (Mr Parker), Hugh Evans (landlord), Kate O’Connell (barmaid)
STORYLINE: Oxford’s Foreign Examinations Syndicate hosts a cocktail party for the Sheik of Al-jamara. Nicholas Quinn has problems with his hearing aid during the party, so he lip-reads instead. He sees Roope talking with the sheik. Afterwards Quinn tells deputy secretary Ogleby that Roope and permanent secretary Bartlett are selling secrets.
Several days later, at noon on a Friday, there is a fire drill at the syndicate building. As the staff file out of the front of the building, someone drags a very heavy bag out into the rear carpark and puts it in the boot of Quinn’s car. Donald Martin is the last to leave. He tells colleague Monica Height he was in the toilet.
Later that afternoon Monica goes to Oxford’s Studio 2 Cinema to see the erotic film Last Tango in Paris. She spots Bartlett leaving the cinema – but he doesn’t see her. Ogleby returns to the syndicate after going to the Oxford University Press. At Oxford Railway Station, Roope bumps into the Dean of Lonsdale College, who is president of the syndicate. They have both just returned from London by train.
Ogleby snoops around in the syndicate building. Ogleby finds two sets of keys and the torn stub of a cinema ticket on Bartlett’s desk. Roope goes to the syndicate building with some papers for Bartlett. The caretaker, Noakes, says everyone is out except Quinn, whose car is still parked out back. Quinn’s hooded coat is in his office. Ogleby hides when Roope enters Bartlett’s office. Roope takes the keys and cinema ticket. Soon after Noakes sees a man in Quinn’s coat drive Quinn’s car away.
Four days later Morse and Lewis are called to Quinn’s home, where a body has been found. Quinn has been dead for several days. Max says the cause of death was poisoning by cyanide in a glass of sherry. Quinn probably died on Friday or Saturday. The body was found by Martin. He was sent to the house by Bartlett after Quinn missed two days at work. He says Quinn was a bachelor who had only been at the syndicate three months.
The detectives go to the syndicate. Bartlett thinks he last saw Quinn at the fire drill. The secretary went to a meeting in Banbury afterwards. Ogleby did not see Quinn after the fire drill.
Lewis finds a letter to Quinn’s predecessor, George Bland, from the Al-jamara Education Department. Morse realises the letter contains a coded message. The inspector asks Lewis to forewarn the syndicate staff about the need for alibis on Friday, so he can see what stories they concoct.
Monica tells Morse she spent Friday afternoon with Martin at her home. The inspector thinks she’s lying. Martin confirms her story. Lewis learns Monica’s daughter was at home revising on Friday.
Morse identifies a ticket stub found in Quinn’s coat pocket as being from the Studio 2 Cinema. The cinema manager says the ticket was purchased early on Friday afternoon. She remembers a man calling about ticket numbers on Friday. He claimed to be a detective writer.
Ogleby maintains he was in the syndicate building at 5.00 pm. Morse, meanwhile, finds a Studio 2 ticket stub in Monica’s handbag. The inspector confronts her. She admits being in the cinema with Martin on Friday afternoon.
Bartlett says Quinn accused him of selling syndicate secrets. Bartlett’s son suffers from a mental illness. Morse gets a phone call – Ogleby has been murdered. Monica found the body. She is taken to hospital in deep shock.
Max says Ogleby was probably murdered by a man striking him on the head with considerable force. Lewis finds a sketch Ogleby made of the cinema ticket stub found in Quinn’s pocket. Roope, meanwhile, can offer no alibi for the time of Ogleby’s murder.
Quinn’s cleaning lady says the shopping purchased on Friday afternoon contained salted butter. Quinn only bought unsalted butter. The shopping was a red herring to push back the time of Quinn’s death. Morse arrests Roope but has to let him go when the suspect’s alibi is proven. Lewis follows Roope, however.
The inspector goes to a lip-reading class. The teacher says certain letters can be confused with others. Quinn wouldn’t have heard the fire drill bell.
Roope has a meeting with Bartlett, making sure Lewis sees him. Monica admits seeing Bartlett leaving the cinema on Friday. Roope is re-arrested in connection with the murder. Morse arrests Bartlett for murdering Quinn. Soon after he realises Quinn made a mistake when lip-reading at the party. The dead man thought Doctor Bartlett was involved, but it was actually Donald Martin. Morse rushes to the Martin household. Martin throws a meat cleaver at him. Lewis has to rescue his boss.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE: The plot is thinned down to remove a few subplots and complications. The lengthy opening sequence from the novel is trimmed to a few key scenes. George Bland only rates a mention. Last Tango in Paris replaces the rather more sordid-sounding The Nymphomaniac. Otherwise the adaptation is faithful to the novel.
THE MANY CAMEOS OF COLIN DEXTER: Quinn brushes past Colin Dexter and screenwriter Julian Mitchell during the opening scene at the cocktail party. The author glances at Quinn as he walks away.
DRINK UP, LEWIS: Morse sups a pint of beer at home while doing a crossword.
Morse says sherry is better than the stuff that passes for ale at the Horse and Trumpet pub. The inspector tells Monica he always drinks at lunchtime – it helps his imagination.
Morse takes Lewis home and asks his sergeant to pour a couple of glasses of sherry. Lewis says he would rather have a beer but Morse insists on sherry. This is just a ruse to prove how easy killing Quinn could have been. Morse winces when he tastes the sherry. They go to a pub where the beer is drawn from wooden barrels. Lewis pays. He is shocked when the two pints cost him £1.98 – in total. Morse finishes his pint while Lewis has hardly started.
Morse meets Monica in the Horse and Trumpet. He is
unhappy with the beer, which he says is made of brewer’s swipes and added carbon dioxide. The inspector buys Monica a Cinzano and soda.
Ogleby and Morse drink Tamnavulin single malt whisky. The inspector thinks it’s very nice.
Roope apologises for having no beer. He and Morse have a gin and tonic each.
When Ogleby is murdered, Morse pours himself a glass of the dead man’s whisky. He suggests Lewis has some but the sergeant declines.
Morse has whisky with Bartlett after Martin is arrested.
The detectives have a pint in a pub. Morse amends his own law so it now states there is always time for one more pint. Only there isn’t on this occasion, as he wants to get to the cinema. Disappointed by the new film on show, he walks into the adjacent pub.
CRYPTIC CROSSWORDS: Morse struggles with a profusion of crosswords from the Times during this story. The first of these is set by Daedalus. The inspector later grapples with a crossword while waiting for the syndicate staff to go home. Morse finishes another crossword in 12 minutes.
Ogleby sets crosswords using the pen-name Daedalus. Morse has been wrestling with Daedalus’ puzzles for years. Ogleby says he always tries to make 5 Down particularly tricky. Morse later says Ogleby set the best crosswords in England.
Morse helps Monica with the crossword when he visits her in hospital. He says 13 Across held him up for quite some time.
As the story draws to a close, the inspector is yet again doing battle with the black and white squares in the Times.
UNLUCKY IN LOVE: Morse gently flirts with Monica when he first interviews her. He describes Monica to Lewis as very self-possessed. The inspector tells the Dean he considers her to be very attractive. When Ogleby is murdered, Morse awkwardly comforts Monica in hospital. As the case concludes, Morse offers his help but she refuses.
PEOPLE JUST CALL ME MORSE: Monica asks what she should call the inspector. ‘Morse,’ he replies. ‘Everyone just calls me Morse.’
LEWIS’ KITH AND KIN: Lewis is delighted to find that Studio 2 is screening 101 Dalmatians. He decides to fetch the wife and kids. Lewis admires Morse’s home. The sergeant wishes he had time to read. Lewis has never seen Last Tango in Paris.
SOPHOCLES DID DO IT: Morse speculates that Ogleby worked with Bland selling syndicate secrets. He dismisses Martin as too wet to be the killer.
When Ogleby is murdered, Morse wonders if the entire syndicate staff was involved in selling secrets. He wrongly arrests Bartlett for the murders. The inspector tells Monica his weakness is guesswork. He leaps to conclusions, usually wrong.
ONE FOR THE MORGUE: Quinn is murdered by Martin, who gives him a drink of sherry laced with cyanide. Martin also slays Ogleby, smashing his skull with a poker from Ogleby’s fireplace.
MURDERS: two. BODY COUNT: two.
YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN, LEWIS: Lewis suggests Ogleby sketched the cinema ticket at the syndicate building. ‘You’ve done it again, Lewis!’ Morse says.
MORSE DECODED: The inspector begins displaying his trademark squeamishness around corpses here, having Max check through Quinn’s pockets. Like Lewis, Morse has never seen Last Tango in Paris. The inspector alludes to the film’s most infamous sex scene by saying his doctor recommends cutting down on butter. Morse got his O-Levels 30 years ago.
QUOTE-UNQUOTE: The inspector offers wisdom: ‘You know Morse’s Law – there’s always a 50/50 chance the man who found the body did the deed.’ He later contradicts this in the story, even when it is proved right.
Morse unwittingly identifies one of those involved with the conspiracy to sell syndicate secrets: ‘Good name for a villain, Bland.’
Ogleby offers an observation that Morse lives by: ‘One of the few true pleasures of the bachelor, as I’m sure you have found, is the opportunity for guiltless self-indulgence.’
The inspector concedes his lack of perfection: ‘The trouble with my method, Lewis, is it’s inspirational and as a result I sometimes – sometimes – get things arse about face.’
SOUNDTRACK: The inspector is listening to Carl Maria von Weber’s opera Der Freischütz when he is called onto the case. The first movement of César Franck’s Symphony in D is playing while Morse washes his hair. Morse’s excuse for being unmarried is that no woman would put up with him – he plays his records too loud. The inspector recognises Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg being played when he visits Bartlett at home. He asks which recording it is. He listens to one of Handel’s Concerti Grossi at home.
IDENTITY PARADE: Clive Swift is best known for playing Hyacinth Bucket’s long-suffering husband in the sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. Roger Lloyd Pack is most recognised for his sitcom roles – Trigger in Only Fools and Horses, and Owen Newitt in The Vicar of Dibley. Michael Gough is a veteran character actor with numerous credits. He starred as Alfred the butler in four successive Batman films.
RATINGS: 14.64 million.
THE VERDICT: Writer Julian Mitchell proves himself adept at adapting Morse from page to screen with this, his first of many screenplays for the series. The show is remarkably faithful to the original novel, which shows the strength of the source material. Thaw and Whately have settled into their roles and the pairing seems to have existed forever, despite this being only the second Morse made for television.
‘The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn’ proved the first story was not a fluke. A major new drama series had been created, as well as a groundbreaking crime format that would be much copied. Colin Dexter has said this is his favourite adaptation in the series.
SERVICE OF ALL THE DEAD
‘This is a mass murder, Lewis. A high mass murder.’ Deception, conspiracy and six murders are the ingredients for this Grand Guignol excursion, which keeps the viewer guessing to the end.
UK TX: 20 January 1987
SCREENPLAY: Julian Mitchell, based on the novel by Colin Dexter
DIRECTOR: Peter Hammond
CAST: Angela Morant (Ruth Rawlinson), John Normington (Lionel Pawlen), Maurice O’Connell (Harry Josephs), Judy Campbell (Mrs Rawlinson), Michael Horden (Dr Starkie), James Griffiths (Paul Morris), Chrissy Iddon (Brenda Josephs), Karl Francis (Taffy), Michael Goldie (Jimmy), Michael Fenner (Detective Constable Mitchell), Bev Willis (Denman), Bill Moody (Police Sergeant), Saul Jephcott (Waterman), Stuart Saunders (church warden), James Greene (Defence Counsel), Robert Gary (Prosecuting Counsel), Ric Morgan (landlord), Paul Ridley (husband), Maureen Bennett (wife), Andrew Read (Peter), Norma Shebbeare (hotel proprietor), Christopher Gray (policeman), Joanna Wake (nurse), Gina McKee (girl in betting shop), Malcolm Kaye (gambler), Salome Bulle (choir boy)
STORYLINE: Preparations are made for a church service at St Oswald’s. The few people in the congregation look strangely nervous. A drunken tramp stumbles into the vestry and asks the priest for a drink. A crucifix-shaped letter-opener gleams on a nearby table. It is next seen plunged into the back of a corpse. A tramp walks away from the church.
Morse is summoned to the incident. The dead man is identified as Harry Josephs, a church warden. Nobody saw the killing. Josephs had taken the collection to the vestry as the service was ending. Organist Paul Morris says there was a tramp at the service. Lewis puts out an alert for the tramp, known as Swan or Swanny.
Morse asks Ruth Rawlinson and Morris to formally identify the body. Mrs Brenda Josephs is too distraught to be interviewed. Reverend Pawlen says there were 13 people at the service, a special mass for the Feast of the Conversion of St Augustine. Six of them were American tourists who leave Oxford soon after. The vicar says he heard a noise in the vestry during the service and saw someone run off.
The killer stole a few pounds from the collection. But Lewis finds several hundred pounds in the dead man’s wallet, along with betting slips.
Ruth Rawlinson tells Morse that Josephs stole money from the collection to fund gambling. The dead man was an unemployed ex-marine who drank too much.
There was enough morphine in Josephs’ stomach to kill an elephant. It was ingested with wine. He was as good
as dead by the time of the stabbing.
The detectives go back to St Oswald’s for a service, seeking divine inspiration. A church warden is last to receive the wine in Holy Communion. Morse and Lewis wonder if the vicar could have slipped the morphine into the altar wine, then wiped away the evidence as part of the ritual of communion. The reverend says Swanpole took communion just before Josephs.
A tramp tells the police Swanpole was the vicar’s brother.
When Lewis visits Morris at home, he sees Brenda Josephs inside. She and Morris are lovers. The detectives then go to the church to bring Pawlen in for an interview. The vicar apparently commits suicide by throwing himself off the church tower. Lewis learns the vicar’s brother, Simon Oliver Pawlen, tried to blackmail Lionel over a family inheritance from which Simon received nothing.
Brenda Josephs leaves Oxford. Morris plans to follow her soon. Later that day someone approaches Morris at the church. The detectives go back to the church. They decide to have a look at the top of the tower. Morse is afraid of heights. Lewis spots Morris’ body on a lower roof. Morse looks at it and passes out.
Max says Morris was garrotted and then shoved off the tower. Morse is worried about Morris’ 12-year-old son, Peter. Nobody can find the boy.
Later that day Ruth sobs in the arms of a man staying in the flat beneath her home. He says she’s perfectly safe with him.