by David Bishop
SOUNDTRACK: Humphrey Appleton conducts a rehearsal of the Andante from Brahms’ Sextet for Strings No1 in B Flat Major. In his office Morse listens to the aria ‘Adieu, Notre Petite Table’ from Massenet’s opera Manon, sung by Janis Kelly. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor plays when Holly Trevors is found in the church.
BEHIND THE CRIME SCENES: By this point in the programme’s history, many of its recurring elements had been stripped away or toned down. Morse’s love of alcohol becomes increasingly marginalised. Lewis hardly ever gets to unwittingly supply the clue that puts the inspector onto the murderer. Even the inspector’s wild and unlikely theories become less frequent. The show had outgrown these eccentricities, preferring to concentrate on good stories. Judging by the ratings, this approach was working.
IDENTITY PARADE: Keith Allen is best known for appearing in many of The Comic Strip comedy films for Channel 4. He also co-wrote the number one song ‘World in Motion’, which was England’s football anthem for the 1990 World Cup. His daughter Lily is a pop singer with several hits to her name, such as ‘Smile’. Richard Griffiths starred in the detective drama Pie in the Sky for the BBC and appeared as Uncle Monty in the cult film Withnail & I. More recently he’s appeared in the Harry Potter films as Uncle Vernon. Gavin Richards is a familiar face from seven years as Terry Raymond in the BBC soap EastEnders. Harriet Walter subsequently starred as Natalie Chandler in the crime drama Law & Order: UK.
RATINGS: 18.77 million. This is officially the highest rating episode of Inspector Morse ever. It’s unlikely this figure will ever be exceeded by a non-soap drama thanks to the rise of multi-channel viewing in Britain.
THE VERDICT: ‘The Day of the Devil’ abandons the usual whodunit formula for a very different story. Instead of stalking a murderer, Morse and Lewis spend the episode hunting an escaped prisoner who worships the occult. This case provides a fresh challenge for the detectives and new interest for regular viewers. But how well this episode works depends on whether you can accept comic actor Keith Allen as a satanic rapist. Buy into that and, yes, the tale reeks with fear and tension. Find it hard to believe and, well, it all seems a bit silly. Ultimately, the episode has an inherent weakness – Morse and Lewis could easily be replaced by any other TV detectives in this story. They’re not essential to the case, nor do they have anything personal at stake. That’s fine for other police dramas, but we’ve come to expect more from Inspector Morse.
TWILIGHT OF THE GODS
‘Kill or be killed, that’s what I learnt in the camps. That’s life – real life!’ A journalist is murdered and an opera diva gets shot on her way to receive an honorary doctorate. Could the two cases be connected?
UK TX: 20 January 1993
SCREENPLAY: Julian Mitchell, based on characters created by Colin Dexter
DIRECTOR: Herbert Wise
CAST: John Gielgud (Lord Hinksey), Robert Hardy (Andrew Baydon), Sheila Gish (Gwladys Probert), Jean Anderson (Lady Hinksey), Elaine English (Tammy), Alan David (Sir Watkin Davies), Celia Montague (Adele Baydon), Rachael Weisz (Arabella Baydon), Paul Rattigan (Mark Scott), John Bluthal (Victor Ignotas), Julian Curry (Alan Cartwright), Don Fellows (Lyman Stansky), Joan Blackham (Helen Buscott), Michaela Noakes (Janet), Allan Corduner (Gentile Bellocchio), Harry Ditson (Simon Vavasseur), Caroline Berry (Mari Probert), Paul Stacey (Stephen Bartlett), Jennifer Piercey (Mrs Thompson), Steven Beard (florist), Brian Bovell (Pierre), Julie Legrand (Brigitte De Plessy), Glen Davies (policeman), Doug Bradley (Clergyman Williams), Charles Walker Wise (page boy), David Shimwell (police constable), Jason Arcari (police constable), Billy Hartman (police sergeant), Lynne Verrall (librarian), Myles Hoyle (reporter), Janet Jefferies (reporter), Ian Keith (police sergeant), Philip Childs (police detective), Michael Vaughan (reporter), Iain Rattray (fingerprint lab director), Susan McCulloch (singing voice of Gwladys)
STORYLINE: Morse attends a masterclass by world famous soprano Gwladys Probert. Business tycoon Andrew Baydon plans to build a new college at Oxford, resembling an Indian palace. Baydon’s money will help the university unfreeze ten of the country’s major academic seats.
Baydon threatens a journalist with legal action for defamation, while Gwladys’ sister Mari reassures her boyfriend, Stephen Bartlett, that everything will be fine if they stick to their plan. Next morning, a woman walking her dog by the River Isis discovers the body of a dead man. He has been shot once in the head. Morse seems unconcerned. He is still on a high from the Gwladys masterclass.
Gwladys argues with her younger sister. The singer has a temper like a volcano, but she’s all sweetness and light when Baydon’s wife Adele visits. The singer is staying with the Baydons. Baydon has the tattoo of a Second World War concentration camp prisoner on his left arm.
The corpse, it emerges, is a reporter called Neville Grimshaw.
A man dressed as a clergyman, Williams, breaks into Arabella Baydon’s room in college. He finds an airmail letter hidden behind a desk drawer.
The detectives discover Grimshaw was investigating Baydon. Baydon and Gwladys Probert, meanwhile, are to be given honorary doctorates by Oxford University. They march in procession to the Sheldonian. Mari watches her sister pass then leaves to meet her boyfriend. As the procession nears the Sheldonian, Probert is shot. Baydon thinks he could have been the target. Morse is stunned anyone would shoot Gwladys.
Arabella discovers the break-in. She thinks it was a burglary because her jewellery is missing, but then realises the concealed letter is gone too. Lewis learns Mari is missing. Morse deduces the gunman must have shot Gwladys from a research library overlooking the Sheldonian. The detectives believe the shot came from an unlocked staff room.
Arabella tells her mother about the stolen letter. It was from her brother Freddie, who is in Paraguay. Arabella says Grimshaw had been pestering her with questions about Freddie, who’s estranged from his father. Baydon’s secretary, Helen Buscott, gives her boss the letter stolen from Arabella’s room, while Mari and her boyfriend hurry back to Oxford.
Lewis reads Grimshaw’s notes. They suggest Baydon was not a prisoner at a Lithuanian concentration camp – he was a guard. The sergeant thinks Grimshaw was killed to conceal the allegations. The target for the second shooting may have been Baydon, not Gwladys. The police discover a revolver in the library. The librarian says the only person interested in books about the Baltic states is Dr Ignotas, from Lithuania. The detectives bring him in for questioning. His fingerprints match those on the gun, but forensic tests show a different weapon was used to shoot Grimshaw.
Ignotas says he told Freddie and Grimshaw the truth about Baydon. A Sunday newspaper decided against publishing Grimshaw’s story. Baydon collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War, torturing prisoners in the concentration camp, including Ignotas. The Lithuanian spent years hunting for Baydon. When the story was withdrawn, he tried to shoot Baydon. Ignotas apologises for shooting Gwladys, but is happy to know he will be able to testify in court about what Baydon did in the camps.
Morse arrests Baydon for the murder of Grimshaw. Williams tries to escape but Lewis catches him. The security man has a pistol in his pocket. Forensics shows the gun was used to kill Grimshaw.
THE MANY CAMEOS OF COLIN DEXTER: The author is among the dons in full academic regalia gathered in the Sheldonian after Gwladys is shot. He sits behind Sir John Gielgud when Lord Hinksey complains about wanting lunch. Writer Julian Mitchell appears as a consultant examining Gwladys’ medical chart in hospital. He addresses several lines to Morse later in the episode.
DRINK UP, LEWIS: Morse chides Lewis for thinking about sex while being a married man, but the sergeant has a snappy reply: ‘You didn’t go off beer just because the pubs are open all day.’ Amazingly, the inspector not only doesn’t step into a pub during this story, he drives straight past one when Lewis suggests they go inside for lunch.
CRYPTIC CROSSWORDS: Morse is only seven seconds away from breaking his personal best for completing the Times crossword. He blames Lewis, who int
errupts the inspector just before he finishes.
LEWIS’ KITH AND KIN: The sergeant’s dad used to love football, but didn’t like footballers. He said you have to keep people who do things apart from what they do. Morse says Lewis’ father was right. When the case is concluded, Lewis says his wife is fine. She’s at home that night, for once.
SOPHOCLES DID DO IT: Morse believes Gwladys was the target because the gunman only fired once. Morse suspects Mari may have shot her sister.
ONE FOR THE MORGUE: Neville Grimshaw is murdered by Williams, who shoots him in the head on orders from Andrew Baydon.
MURDERS: one. BODY COUNT: one.
MORSE DECODED: Morse doesn’t approve of the honours system.
YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN, LEWIS: When Morse’s investigation into the shooting of Gwladys runs out of steam, the sergeant gets him back on track by suggesting the bullet was meant for Baydon. ‘You’ve done it, Lewis, you’ve done it!’
QUOTE-UNQUOTE: The Secretary of State wonders if Baydon can spare a word. ‘Knobhead! That’s the word I can spare – knobhead!’ Baydon tells his secretary.
Lewis explains his lack of mental processes to a member of the public: ‘I never think, ma’am. Sergeants aren’t allowed to, not in Thames Valley.’
The inspector gently reproaches his sergeant: ‘Allowing the pages of the Sun to pass before your eyes does not amount to reading, Lewis.’
Morse refutes claims that he gets depressed: ‘Down? I’m never down, Lewis. I’m the cheeriest chief inspector in the division, everyone knows that.’
SOUNDTRACK: During the masterclass Gwladys sings from Brünnhilde’s immolation scene in the Wagner opera Götterdämmerung. The piece recurs throughout the episode. Gwladys’ accompanist bashes out Chopin’s ‘Militaire Polonaise’ to show his anger. He also plays the Prelude from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. The singing voice of Gwladys Probert is supplied by Susan McCulloch.
IDENTITY PARADE: It’s an all-star extravaganza, packed with familiar faces. Sir John Gielgud was, of course, a legendary star of stage and screen. Robert Hardy is best-known for playing Siegfried Farnon in the television series All Creatures Great and Small. Among the minor characters are a police sergeant played by Billy Hartman (now familiar as Terry Woods in the soap opera Emmerdale) and the villainous Williams, played by Doug Bradley; fans of horror films may recognise the latter as Pinhead from Hellraiser. This was one of Rachael Weisz’s first acting jobs on TV. She’s gone on to Oscar-winning success in films like The Constant Gardener.
RATINGS: 18.76 million. The final regular episode pulls just 10,000 fewer viewers than its predecessor. The three stories comprising series seven drew an average rating of 18.7 million, an astounding number for a cerebral two-hour murder mystery.
THE VERDICT: ‘Twilight of the Gods’ is a grand finale for the seventh and final series. For the fourth year in succession Julian Mitchell comes up trumps with the last script of a series. The two crimes in this story are relatively routine, but the joy comes from the little moments, the dialogue and the performances. John Gielgud steals all his scenes as a university chancellor who can’t stop saying the wrong thing – a trait for which Gielgud himself was notorious. At times this episode feels like a compilation of Morse’s greatest moments revisited, but the humour carries everything along. The tale ends with Morse contemplating a sabbatical, much like the show itself. But both would return, in time...
THE SPECIALS (1995-2000)
Morse may have ended as a regular TV series in 1993, but that didn’t preclude bringing back Oxford’s most famous detective. Dexter had continued to write new novels, with two of them – The Wench Is Dead (1989) and The Way Through the Woods (1992) – winning the Crime Writers’ Association’s coveted Gold Dagger.
In 1995 a deal was struck to adapt The Way Through the Woods, reassembling most of the creative team responsible for series seven. Joining the regular cast was pathologist Dr Laura Hobson, a character created by Dexter in the novel and played on screen by Clare Holman. Her association with Lewis would prove to be an enduring one.
‘The Way Through the Woods’ was a hit, leading to a new Morse special almost every year, each one adapted from one of Dexter’s novels. America’s Rebecca Eaton joined the team as an executive producer for ‘Death is Now My Neighbour’ in 1997, providing valuable funds for the show from US broadcasts of the acclaimed mystery series.
‘Death is Now My Neighbour’ also introduced a new love interest for Morse in Adele Cecil, played by Judy Loe. She returned for ‘The Wench is Dead’ in 1998, but a more familiar face was conspicuous by their absence. For the first time, Kevin Whately did not appear as Sergeant Lewis in a Morse story, reportedly over a contractual dispute.
There was no new special on TV in 1999, but the detective’s future was being written by his creator, Colin Dexter. The final Morse novel was published on September 15 that year, killing off the curmudgeonly chief inspector. His TV incarnation did the same on November 15, 2000. Despite its mournful nature, ‘The Remorseful Day’ did see the welcome return of Whately for Morse’s last ever case...
Produced by Chris Burt
Executive Producer: Ted Childs
Executive Producer: Rebecca Eaton (on ‘Death is Now My Neighbour’, ‘The Wench is Dead’ and ‘The Remorseful Day’)
REGULAR CAST:
John Thaw (Chief Inspector Morse)
Kevin Whately (Sergeant Lewis) [except ‘The Wench is Dead’]
James Grout (Chief Superintendent Strange) Clare Holman (Dr Laura Hobson)
RECURRING CAST:
Judy Loe (Adele Cecil in ‘Death is Now My Neighbour’ and ‘The Wench is Dead’)
THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS
‘I should feel something. I killed her.’ A murderer’s dying confession leads Morse to reopen an old case. Three more lives are lost before the end and Lewis almost joins them.
UK TX: 29 November 1995
SCREENPLAY: Russell Lewis, based on the novel by Colin Dexter
DIRECTOR: John Madden
CAST: Nicholas Le Provost (Dr Alan Hardinge), Malcolm Storry (DCI Johnson), Neil Dudgeon (David Michaels), Michelle Fairley (Cathy Michaels), Gary Powell (Steven Parnell), Vivienne Ritchie (Claire Osborne), Steve Crossley (prison chaplain), Maggie Shevlin (Margaret Daley), James D White (Philip Daley), Chris Fairbank (George Daley), Mark Feakins (TV reporter), John Malcolm (Williams), George Beach (DC Renton), Robin Soans (Alisdair McBryde), Peter Needham (estate manager), Kay Stonham (Lynne Hardinge), Simon Scott (Croxley), Alex Richardson (mourner), Shaun Williamson (cashier)
STORYLINE: Serial killer Steven Parnell is stabbed to death in prison. He makes a final confession to the chaplain. Morse, meanwhile, attends a classical music concert at Lonsdale College, where he meets Claire Osborne. She is there with Dr Alan Hardinge.
Parnell was awaiting trial for the Lover’s Lane killings, an investigation originally led by Detective Chief Inspector Johnson. Lewis is working as Johnson’s sergeant while Morse writes a report for Strange.
Morse does not believe Parnell murdered Karen Anderson. The suspect confessed to five killings but Karen’s body was never located. Her bag was found at Blenheim Park. Strange warns Morse away from the case.
George Daley sees a woman called Cathy Michaels at a petrol station. He follows her.
The chaplain tells Lewis about Parnell’s confession. The dying man indicated he didn’t kill Karen, but Johnson dismisses this.
George Daley digs out newspaper cuttings about the case, and a packet of photos. He found Karen’s bag while driving to work at Blenheim.
Morse approaches Lewis about the case. The sergeant reluctantly tells him about Parnell’s confession. The inspector then questions Daley about the bag. Daley gets angry and says he will call Johnson about Morse’s actions. The inspector gets a bollocking from Strange after Johnson reports what has happened. Morse insists Karen’s disappearance goes against Parnell’s modus operandi. Parnell killed couples, striking after dark and leaving the victims w
here they were. Karen came to Oxford alone; she disappeared in the afternoon and her body has never been found. Morse insists the corpse is in Wytham Woods. The inspector tells Strange about Parnell’s dying confession. A body is then found at Blenheim.
Johnson begins investigating the latest murder. The gatekeeper recalls seeing Daley’s van drive into the estate. Morse arrives at the crime scene. The body is Daley – he’s been shot. Strange gives the investigation to Morse and Lewis, further irking Johnson. The reunited detectives interview Hardinge, bursar of Lonsdale College. Daley worked part-time at the college. Hardinge is Claire Osborne’s brother-in-law.
Morse encounters David Michaels, head forester at Wytham Woods. He offers to give the inspector a tour. Johnson and Lewis never located any of Karen Anderson’s family. Her hobby was photography. She had visited Oxford twice in the months before her disappearance, taking pictures, but her camera was never found. Morse visits Wytham and meets Michaels’ wife, Cathy. She denies knowing Daley. The inspector questions Daley’s widow Margaret. She admits Daley found Karen’s camera. Margaret’s son Philip gives the detectives the camera and photos developed from the film inside it. The pictures include two of a man, one at the rear of an Oxford house, the other in a forest.
The detectives trace the house in Karen’s photo. The property is owned by Alisdair McBryde. He says the man in the picture is Dr James Myton. They shared an interest in taking erotic photographs. Karen came to his house for a photo session on the day she disappeared; also present was Hardinge. The bursar gives them an address for Myton.
Myton vacated his flat four months early, after paying all his bills. He left behind posters, including a reproduction of a painting by John Everett Millais. The same image was on a postcard in Karen’s bag. The background of the painting was based on Wytham Woods. Morse instigates a search of the woods, with guidance from Michaels. A skeleton is discovered; near it is part of Karen’s clothing.
The gatekeeper at Blenheim says Daley often stopped at a nearby petrol station to chat up the female cashier.