I was sorry to hear of the demise of this series after only one season; it seemed to have a lot of potential despite a lot of over-writing and some rather farcical story-lines. Essentially it's `This Life' injected into `Rumpole.' Like most good series the interest was in the characters and their interaction and there was a great line-up here. There are the two young cavaliers, Alex (Rupert Penry-Jones) and Billy (Kevin McKidd), their spouses Helen (Victoria Smurfitt) and the redoubtable Rose (Helen McCrory), Morag (Ruth Millar) and Stevie (Sasha Behar) the duelling juniors. Towering over them all, is Peter McLeish (Philip Davis), nominally a mere clerk, but to all intents and purposes the boss. McLeish will do almost anything to advance the careers of his barristers, including it seems getting them struck off. The farcial element is mainly provided by the clients, or at least by the close relationship McLeish feels he has to cultivate with the crime bosses of Leeds, where the series is set, to hustle briefs for his chambers.
As befits a series of this sort there's lots of bonking and an almost unbelievable amount of drinking. Maybe that's the way they do things in the north of England; my recollection of the Sydney bar is that heavy drinking was a minority occupation and anyone with enough energy left for sex was clearly neglecting their practice. As for sex with an instructing solicitor, nothing could be further from most barrister's minds. However the court stuff here is cool. North Square member Tom Mitford (Dominic Rowan) has a great line in final speeches to the jury which sometimes even work on judges sitting without a jury there's nothing harder than swaying a judge's emotions. Rose is also a star, and even Alex, the series male bimbo, does some good work from time to time.
But McLeish dominates proceedings. He's the master of the unexpected, keeping his own staff on their toes and his barristers well supplied with booze and briefs. The last episode explains a lot about the character and his motivation, but the Svengali act seems second nature. It's certainly the most swashbuckling portrayal of a barrister's clerk seen on the screen, but not a million miles from reality. Think of ex-Private First class Wintergreen, in the book `Catch 22', who did command assignments at Allied HQ, of whom even generals were afraid.
