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Start giftingRumpole: The Teenage Werewolf & other stories
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreTimothy West stars as Rumpole in these four fantastic radio dramas
Rumpole and the Teenage Werewolf
Rumpole heads to the Home Counties to defend Ben, a teenager accused of sending emails deemed to be sexually harassing, and of an actual physical attack on a girl.
Rumpole and the Right to Privacy
Rumpole leaves the Old Bailey to defend a civil case: an editor of a local newspaper who is accused of breaching a successful businessman's right to privacy.
Truth Makes All Things Plain
If one man can be counted on to fight injustice and insist on a fair trial for everyone, whatever their circumstances, it is Horace Rumpole. So when the beautiful Tiffany Khan learns that her husband has been arrested on suspicion of terrorism, she calls for his help right away.
The Past Catches up with us All
As he struggles to win justice for his client, Rumpole finds that his marriage to She Who Must Be
Obeyed is, rather like his waistcoat, straining at the seams.
Timothy West stars as Rumpole and Prunella Scales as Hilda, with Matt Smith as Ben, Nigel Anthony as Claude Erskine-Brown and Michael Cochrane as ‘Soapy Sam’ Ballard.
Cast and credits
Written by John Mortimer
Directed by Marilyn Imrie
Rumpole and the Teenage Werewolf
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 19 July 2006
Horace Rumpole - Timothy West
Hilda Rumpole - Prunella Scales
Hermione Swithin - Felicity Montagu
Mr Beazley - Nicholas Le Provost
Chris Swithin - Philip Jackson
Ben Swithin - Matt Smith
Judge Denis Wintergreen - Karl Johnson
Adrian Hodinott - Sean Baker
Felicity Halliday - Ellie Beaven
Rumpole and the Right to Privacy
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 26 July 2006
Horace Rumpole - Timothy West
Hilda Rumpole. - Prunella Scales
Mr Rankin - David Shaw-Parker
Claude Erskine-Brown - Nigel Anthony
Liz Probert - Elaine Claxton
Hugo Winterton - Anton Rogers
Gervase Johnson - Stephen Critchlow
Sir Mike Smedley - Kim Durham
Mrs Justice Erskine-Brown - Joanna David
Truth Makes All Things Plain
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 15 August 2007
Horace Rumpole - Timothy West
Hilda Rumpole - Prunella Scales
Judge Bullingham - Christopher Benjamin
Tiffany Khan - Lily Bevan
‘Soapy Sam’ Ballard - Michael Cochrane
Bonny Bernard - Bruce Alexander
Dr Mahmood Khan - Shiv Grewal
Barrington Whiteside - Geoffrey Whitehead
Will Timson - Ben Crowe
Peter Plaistow - Christopher Scott
Mrs Justice Templett - Joanna David
Fred Sugden - Kim Durham
Ian Antrim - Nigel Anthony
The Past Catches up with us All
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 22 August 2007
Horace Rumpole – Timothy West
Hilda Rumpole – Prunella Scales
Claude Erskine-Brown – Nigel Anthony
Fred Sugden – Kim Durham
Dr Mahmood Khan – Shiv Grewal
Will Timson – Ben Crowe
Judge Bullingham – Christopher Benjamin
Bonny Bernard – Bruce Alexander
Barrington Whiteside – Geoffrey Whitehead
Peter Plaistow – Christopher Scott
John Mortimer was born on 21 April 1923. His father was a successful divorce lawyer, and was to be a considerable influence on his son's life. Schooled at Harrow, Mortimer went on to study law at Brasenose College, Oxford. On finishing his degree, he was called to the Bar in 1948 and entered his father's chambers. At first he followed his father and specialised in divorce cases, but he soon switched to criminal law, as he maintained that murderers and the like were nicer to work with than divorcing spouses. In 1966 he became a Queen's Counsel, and he continued to work as a barrister until 1979. A lifelong champion of free speech, he has argued for the defence in some of the most famous obscenity trials in Britain, including the one brought against the underground magazine Oz for its notorious 'School Kids' issue. John Mortimer started writing before he became a barrister. His legal career inspired his fiction, however, with his first radio play, The Dock Brief (1957) dealing with the subject of an ageing barrister who is asked to defend a man accused of murdering his wife. It won the Italia Prize and was adapted for the stage, television and a film starring Peter Sellers and Richard Attenborough. He also had great success with his autobiographical play A Voyage Round My Father, which ran in the West End starring Jeremy Brett and Alec Guinness. It was subsequently adapted for TV starring Sir Laurence Olivier and Alan Bates. He first wrote about Rumpole in a BBC TV Play for Today called Rumpole of the Bailey. Centring on a lovable Old Bailey hack with a penchant for cigars and claret and a domineering wife, She Who Must Be Obeyed, the play was an instant hit, and in 1978 the first Thames Television series was aired under the same name, starring Leo McKern as Rumpole. It became hugely popular, and five more series followed. The first collection of Rumpole stories was published in 1978, and was followed by a further twelve volumes. His other novels include the trilogy of Titmuss novels, Paradise Postponed, Titmuss Regained and The Sound of Trumpets, and he has also written three volumes of autobiography (Clinging to the Wreckage, Murderers and Other Friends and Summer of a Dormouse) and numerous TV and film adaptations, including Brideshead Revisited, Cider with Rosie and Tea with Mussolini. John Mortimer received a knighthood for his services to the arts in 1998 in the Queen's birthday honours list. He died in 2009.