by David Bishop
Morse realises they have yet to check the church cellar. The detectives find Peter’s body beneath a pile of coal. Brenda Josephs is murdered by an unseen assailant.
Ruth tells Morse she cleans the church on Wednesdays after work. He believes Pawlen’s death was suicide because the priest took off his glasses before jumping, a typical act for short-sighted suicide victims.
The detectives search Brenda’s possessions. A diary notes the days she drove her husband to the church – he was disqualified from driving. But there is no entry for the day Harry was murdered. Morse discovers the Feast of the Conversion of St Augustine is not celebrated in the liturgical calendar. So why was the service held?
Lewis investigates the vicar’s bank accounts. Pawlen withdrew £30,000 at the time of the first murder. The detectives return to the church. Morse hides in the confessional box while Lewis waits outside. A man watches from the tower as Ruth arrives to clean the church. The man descends and talks to Ruth – he is her lover. He tries to strangle her but Morse intervenes. The man kicks Morse several times before going back up the tower. The inspector follows, stricken by vertigo. Lewis sees them atop the tower and rushes into the church. The man ties to throttle Morse. Lewis smashes a heavy golden candlestick on the man’s head. The killer falls to his death.
Morse tells Ruth she’s been an accessory to murder. Ruth agreed to help Pawlen for money to fund her arthritic mother’s treatments.
Lewis is stunned when Morse says the killer was Harry Josephs. The fake service was part of a conspiracy to kill the vicar’s brother. At her trial, Ruth says Simon was given the morphine so it would be easier to swap his clothes with Josephs’. Morse lies for Ruth in court, to mitigate her guilt. She is sentenced to 18 months.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE: The Pawlen brothers are called Lawson in the novel. The screenplay condenses events into a handful of days, where the novel stretches them over several months. In the book, Detective Inspector Bell is the first person to investigate the death of ‘Harry’ – Morse only enters the case months later. In the television version, Morse is involved from the start. Bell only makes a cameo appearance as a chief superintendent, having been promoted to that rank during The Dead of Jericho. In the book, Morse visits Ruth after she leaves prison and they have sex. On television the inspector gets only hugs and kisses.
THE MANY CAMEOS OF COLIN DEXTER: The author can be seen in the background talking to a woman with a bicycle when Morse questions an arch deacon about Pawlen’s feelings towards choirboys.
DRINK UP, LEWIS: This episode is awash with alcohol, but it takes Morse more than 30 minutes to sup a drop. Instead the story is filled with sequences of people sipping altar wine intercut with tramps guzzling cheap beer and spirits. The inspector has a sherry with Ruth’s mother. Lewis drinks a whisky at Morse’s home as he updates the inspector. Morse takes his sergeant to the Green Man pub, but says it is Lewis’ turn to pay. The sergeant complains it’s always his round. Morse loses his thirst after seeing Ruth drinking with another man.
The detectives have a pint in another pub several days later. Morse has finished his while Lewis is only starting. The inspector wants another pint but the cask has run out.
As the case concludes, the detectives go to the pub. Lewis has to pay, of course. Morse is struggling to swallow after nearly being strangled. He is annoyed as the beer is so good. Shockingly, he leaves his pint unfinished and goes home.
CRYPTIC CROSSWORDS: Morse sees a crossword and realises Swanpole is an anagram of S O Pawlen – the name of the vicar’s brother.
UNLUCKY IN LOVE: Morse falls for Ruth. He invites her to dinner but she declines. He thinks this is because her mother is so demanding, not realising there is someone else involved. Ruth is attracted to Morse, but holds back. He walks her home after she identifies Morris’ body, and kisses her on the front steps. Next day he visits Ruth at work and solicits further kisses.
At her trial Ruth says she was in love with Harry. Despite this, Morse lies for Ruth, claiming he heard her say to Harry she was going to tell the police everything. The inspector visits her in the cells. She hugs him thankfully.
PEOPLE JUST CALL ME MORSE: Like all women attracted to Morse, Ruth decides she can’t keep on calling him by his rank or surname. ‘Morse. People just call me Morse,’ he replies.
LEWIS’ KITH AND KIN: The sergeant is perturbed by the speed of Morse’s driving, whereas in the novels, fast driving is listed as one of Lewis’ few vices!
SOPHOCLES DID DO IT: Morse spends the entire story thinking the first victim is Harry, when in fact Harry was the killer. The inspector suspects Pawlen of being a paedophile.
ONE FOR THE MORGUE: This episode is among the bloodiest of Morse stories, with half a dozen people dying. Simon Pawlen is first, stabbed in the back by Harry Josephs. Lionel Pawlen is next, falling from the tower of the church. Harry hints the death may not have been suicide, but the truth is unclear. Paul Morris is strangled by Harry and thrown from the tower. Harry also kills Peter Morris and Brenda Josephs by unspecified means. Finally, Harry himself dies after falling from the church tower.
MURDERS: at least four. BODY COUNT: six.
MORSE DECODED: The inspector can’t understand religious types. Morse and a uniformed police sergeant swap dialogue from a Sherlock Holmes story, Silver Blaze.
QUOTE-UNQUOTE: When Morse says he likes music, Ruth assumes he favours jazz. The inspector’s reply is a single word, laced with disdain: ‘Music...’
The inspector explains his working methods: ‘It’s a very funny thing but as soon as someone doesn’t want to discuss something, I do.’
Morse tires of theorising without the aid of alcohol: ‘I’m not supposing anything until I’ve had at least two pints of beer.’
Max wryly takes note of the ever-increasing body count: ‘I don’t know why they let Morse stay on this case. It’s a murder a minute.’
SOUNDTRACK: Paul Morris plays part of Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A Minor on the church organ. The inspector plays a cassette of Weber’s opera Euryanthe in his car. Morse has no time for jazz. He likes music, but not church choirs so much. The inspector hears Bruckner’s Locus Iste and Palestrina’s Iste Confessor being sung in church. Morris is playing Bach’s Toccata, Adagio and Fugue when Harry approaches him in the church. Morse listens to Puccini’s opera Manon Lescaut at home after kissing Ruth for the first time.
SURVEILLANCE REPORT: This story uses mirrors as an image system to highlight the difference between perception and reality. Scene after scene features characters in mirrors, their images reflected and often distorted. Stained glass windows frequently throw lurid blocks of colour across the action, accentuating the weight of guilt and emotional turmoil among those involved. Director Peter Hammond’s obsession with reflective surfaces will be no news, however, to fans of Granada’s contemporaneous Sherlock Holmes dramas starring Jeremy Brett.
There’s a clever sight-gag for theatre fans. Morse wonders aloud where the tramp Swanpole is while flicking through a copy of Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, which features two tramps. This reference is made explicit as the story nears its end. To add to the in-joke, Peter Woodthorpe, the actor playing Max, had played one of the two tramps in the very first London production of Godot over 30 years earlier.
Another visual reference is the death of Brenda. She floats on the Thames in a canoe, her body posed in such a way as to replicate the famous painting of Ophelia by John Everett Millais. Last but not least, the climactic sequence when Morse climbs the church tower is an homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo.
IDENTITY PARADE: Gina McKee makes an early TV appearance as the girl behind the counter in the betting shop. She’s since starred in such noted TV dramas as The Lost Prince and Our Friends in the North, winning a Best Actress BAFTA for the latter. Actress Maureen Bennett appears as ‘wife’ in this episode. She would later have a recurring role as Val Lewis in three episodes of series five.
RATINGS: 14.78 million. The audience fo
r series one grew progressively, averaging 14.4 million. Its main competition came from repeats of Hancock’s Half Hour on BBC 1.
THE VERDICT: ‘Service of All the Dead’ is a bloodthirsty story rendered in lurid style. The endless visual affectations threaten to overpower the mystery, calling attention to themselves far too often. Using an image system to underline a subtext within a film can be clever, but here it has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Despite that, this is a humdinger of a tale. Julian Mitchell’s adaptation strips away the novel’s over-reliance on coincidence and also deletes Morse’s shockingly cavalier use of Ruth as bait to trap the killer. John Thaw gives his best performance to date as Morse and his interplay with Max is one of the episode’s great joys.
SERIES TWO (1987-1988)
When work began on the second series, the show had already used three of the seven novels written by Dexter at that time. For Morse to continue, the programme makers needed more material. Two of the remaining novels – Last Seen Wearing and Last Bus to Woodstock – were identified as suitable for adaptation, while Dexter set to work devising two new storylines for the screenwriters.
The author provided a 16-page treatment for the first story, with working titles such as ‘Timetable for Murder’, ‘Double Alibi’, and ‘The Jewel That Was Ours’. Julian Mitchell developed the treatment into The Wolvercote Tongue. [Dexter later used his original treatment as a basis for the ninth Morse novel, The Jewel That Was Ours.]
The other episode based on a Dexter treatment in this series was The Settling of the Sun. Interviewed several years later, writer Charles Wood confessed to having a torrid time with the script: “I made a terrible mess of the first draft. I offered them their money back... but Kenny McBain refused to let me drop it.”
Both of the novels that underwent adaptation contained elements the producers felt were too seedy for prime-time. In the prose version of Last Seen Wearing, Morse visits sex clubs to question a suspect. For the TV audience, this scene was shifted to an upmarket show home for young urban professionals.
In the novel of Last Bus to Woodstock, Sylvia Kane was a part-time prostitute and John Sanders a porn addict – but not in the TV version. The televised incarnation of Morse was building the sort of upmarket audience profile beloved by advertisers. If that meant removing less salubrious sections from the source material, so be it...
Produced by Kenny McBain
Executive Producer: Ted Childs
REGULAR CAST:
John Thaw (Chief Inspector Morse)
Kevin Whately (Sergeant Lewis)
Peter Woodthorpe (Max)
RECURRING CAST:
Elizabeth Kettle (policewoman in Last Seen Wearing and The Settling of the Sun)
THE WOLVERCOTE TONGUE
‘That wasn’t a case, Lewis. It was two.’ The detective duo gets little sleep as they solve a robbery and two murders in just 24 hours.
UK TX: 25 December 1987
SCREENPLAY: Julian Mitchell, based on a story by Colin Dexter
DIRECTOR: Alastair Reid
CAST: Simon Callow (Theodore Kemp), Kenneth Cranham (Cedric Downes), Roberta Taylor (Sheila Williams), Robert Arden (Eddie Poindexter), Christine Norden (Laura Poindexter), Bill Reimbold (Howard Brown), Helena Stevens (Shirley Brown), John Bloomfield (Phil Aldrich), Mildred Shay (Janet Roscoe), Jane Bertish (Marion Kemp), Christine Kavanagh (Lucy Downes), Cherith Mellor (Fiona Hall), Nicholas Bell (Dr Swain), Tim Faulkner (hotel manager), Iain Ormsby-Knox (duty sergeant), Maureen Morris (nurse), Sara Coward (Lynn), Ron Copsey (waiter), Teddy Thompson (waitress)
STORYLINE: A coach load of retired American tourists arrives at Oxford and checks into the Randolph Hotel. Leading the tour is guide Sheila Williams. She ducks out to see Dr Theodore Kemp from the Ashmolean Museum. He ends their affair.
Two of the tourists, Eddie Poindexter and Shirley Brown, go for a walk before dinner. When Eddie gets back to his room, 156, he discovers his wife Laura is dead. The hotel’s physician, Dr Swain, believes a massive coronary was the cause. Morse arrives and immediately antagonises the doctor, accusing Swain of criminal negligence. The doctor storms off.
A valuable jewel called the Wolvercote Tongue was stolen from the Poindexters’ room. The jewel was being reunited with its counterpart, the Wolvercote Buckle, which is kept at the Ashmolean. The jewels were found separately in the Thames at Wolvercote.
Downstairs in the hotel, Sheila introduces the rest of the tourists to Dr Kemp, and Cedric Downes of St Thomas’ College. Morse calls Sheila away to interview her. She says there were only 12 people on the tour. It is designed to be exclusive and expensive. The theft took place between 4.15 and 5.15 pm.
Kemp is upset at the theft. He has spent 15 years working to reunite the Wolvercote Tongue and Buckle, which have been apart for 1100 years. It could be worth as much as half a million pounds.
Max confirms Dr Swain’s diagnosis. All the tourists seem to have alibis. Morse wonders if the jewel is insured. Eddie believes it is.
The tourists have an Elizabethan dinner. Sheila and Downes join them for the meal. Kemp phones and persuades Downes to fill in for him as after-dinner speaker. Kemp claims he has to look after his sick wife. Downes cycles home to collect some lecture notes. Eddie slips out of the hotel and into a taxi. He meets a younger woman in a graveyard.
Kemp’s naked body is discovered in the Cherwell. Lewis visits Mrs Kemp. She is confined to a wheelchair after a car accident that was Kemp’s fault. Mrs Kemp knows of her husband’s affair with Sheila.
Next day the detectives go to Cedric Downes’ house but he is out. Morse and Lewis speak to his wife, Lucy. She is going to London to have some curtains changed. Lucy says her husband rushed home the previous night, grabbed some notes and went back to the Randolph. He didn’t get home again until after 11.00 pm. Cedric told her about Kemp’s death. Lewis carries her suitcase to a waiting taxi. Lucy says Cedric will collect her when she returns from London that afternoon.
Morse and Lewis discover Mrs Kemp has committed suicide. A note says she couldn’t live without her husband.
Lucy arrives at Paddington. She puts the suitcase into a left-luggage locker. She is then murdered in a public telephone booth.
Morse believes Kemp’s clothes are in the suitcase. The detectives rush to the railway station to meet Lucy. Cedric is standing on the platform. He says Sheila told him about the death of Kemp. When the detectives challenge his story, he tries to run away. But he bumps into Eddie, who has just got off a train. Eddie says his wife collapsed and died when they first entered the hotel room. He decided to take the jewel and claim the insurance. He abandoned the tour to meet his illegitimate English daughter, whom he sired while stationed in Britain. He admits throwing the Wolvercote Tongue back into the river where it was originally discovered.
The police discover blood in the boot of Downes’ car. Cedric says he caught Kemp with Lucy. Kemp fell, hitting his head on the corner of the chimney. The detectives get word of Lucy’s murder. Morse realises Cedric killed her. Downes has the left-luggage disc. He confesses to having killed Lucy.
Police divers recover the Wolvercote Tongue from the river.
THE MANY CAMEOS OF COLIN DEXTER: Dexter can be seen in the background, sitting at a table drinking white wine with writer Julian Mitchell when Morse and Lewis have their first beer of the story at the Randolph.
DRINK UP, LEWIS: Morse has Lewis fetch a gin and tonic for Sheila. The sergeant asks if his boss wants a drink. ‘No thank you, Lewis – not on duty!’ Morse replies, to his sergeant’s surprise.
The detectives head to the hotel bar where Morse thinks the ale is well-kept. Lewis says it should be at the price charged. The inspector sinks his pint and decides to revisit the crime scene in the time it takes Lewis to start drinking.
Morse has a gin and tonic with Sheila when he tells her Kemp is dead. The inspector goes home, where he and Lewis have a beer at four in the morning. That afternoon they have another pint in a pub.
As the story ends, Morse decides to go for a beer in Wolvercote.
UNLUCKY IN LOVE: Morse extricates himself from the arms of a distraught Sheila after he tells her Kemp was murdered. Morse later says having sex can be very good for the over-65s, especially if they didn’t have much before they were 65.
PEOPLE JUST CALL ME MORSE: Sheila asks the inspector’s name. ‘Morse. It’s just... just Morse,’ he replies awkwardly.
LEWIS’ KITH AND KIN: Lewis’ wife has an Aunt Cissy living at Wolvercote. Lewis decides to work all night rather than go home, because his wife is decorating. The sergeant hurt his back painting the ceiling last time they decorated. He prefers to do overtime and get a professional in. Mrs Lewis wants some new curtains. As the story ends, Lewis goes to visit Aunt Cissy as another way of avoiding the decorating chores.
SOPHOCLES DID DO IT: Morse thinks Eddie may have killed his wife and may be trying to flee the country. He has an all-ports warning issued for Eddie. When Kemp’s body is discovered, Morse initially expects it to be that of Eddie, presuming that he has drowned himself.
Morse decides Eddie killed Kemp at Wolvercote by the Thames, drove the body to the Cherwell and dumped it in the water. Morse describes Eddie as a psychopath who has killed twice in ten hours. Morse decides Mr Brown and Mrs Poindexter were having an affair.
ONE FOR THE MORGUE: Laura Poindexter dies of a massive heart attack. Theodore Kemp dies after being attacked by Cedric Downes, cracking his skull open on brickwork. Kemp’s wife Marion commits suicide by swallowing enough sleeping pills to kill an elephant. Cedric travels to London and murders his wife in a public telephone booth at Paddington.
MURDERS: two. BODY COUNT: four.
MORSE DECODED: The inspector doesn’t use credit cards, he prefers to send cheques. Max thinks Morse operates on the principle that the last person to see somebody alive is usually the killer – a rather warped version of Morse’s Law (as featured in ‘The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn’).
YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN, LEWIS: Lewis says he doesn’t want to go home, he’ll just get nagged about the decorating. This triggers the crucial realisation for Morse about the Downes’ curtains and what was really inside the suitcase.