Rumpole of the Bailey
Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It starred Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, a middle-aged London barrister who defended a broad variety of clients, often underdogs. The popularity of the TV series led to the stories being presented in other media, including books and radio.
Quotes
[edit]- Horace Rumpole: [of his wife, Hilda] She who must be obeyed.
- Taken from H. Rider Haggard's She (1886; 1887)
- Horace Rumpole: [of Phyllida] The Portia of our Chambers.
Season 1
[edit]1. Rumpole and the Younger Generation
[edit]- Nick Rumpole [to his father, Horace]: Go on, Watson, you interest me strangely.
- Fred Timson: It's, uh, young Jim's first, uh, appearance, like, at the Bailey.
- Horace Rumpole: [to himself] Ah, his Bar Mitzvah, his First Communion!
- Mr Justice Everglade: I imagine your client says he was not ejusdem generis with the other lads.
- Horace Rumpole: Ejusdem generis, my Lord? Oh yes, he's always saying that. Ejusdem generis is a phrase in constant use in his part of Brixton.
2. Rumpole and the Alternative Society
[edit]- Horace Rumpole: [describing his marriage] I had no choice in the matter at all. I was called up to marriage like military service. Her father was head of chambers. He gave me to understand what was expected of me.
- Bobby Dogherty: He says you'll find lime juice and soda has a potent little kick in it.
- Horace Rumpole: The kick of a mouse in carpet slippers, I should imagine.
3. Rumpole and the Honourable Member
[edit]- Rumpole: [to himself] Go into court on a rape — it's like stepping into a refrigerator with the light off. All the men are thinking of their daughters; all the women are sitting with their knees jammed together!
- Hilda Rumpole: You know why Erica went home, don't you? ... She didn't much like the questions that you asked in court; she thought they were tasteless.
- Horace Rumpole: Distasteful.
- Hilda Rumpole: What?
- Horace Rumpole: That's the word: distasteful. They have trouble with English, you know.
4. Rumpole and the Married Lady
[edit]- Horace Rumpole: Lawyers and tarts, Miss Trant, the two oldest professions in the world, and we always aim to please!
- Horace Rumpole: An Englishman's gin bottle is his castle.
- Phyllida Trant: We don't have to prove cruelty, do we, Mr Rumpole? It's "intolerable conduct" since the Divorce Law Reform Act, 1969.
- Horace Rumpole: [to himself] It's not the frivolity that makes women intolerable. It's the ghastly enthusiasm — that mustard keenness to get into the lacrosse team, that relentless drive to learn the Divorce Law Reform Act by heart. That, and the French perfume.
- Hilda Rumpole: You're going to seed. You can't even keep a divorce case going.
- Horace Rumpole: [to Hilda] Do you know why my divorce case collapsed under me? The clients were reconciled. [to himself] Because how ever awful it is, how ever silent and unendurable it is, how ever much they may hate each others' guts over the three-piece chintz-covered lounge suite, they can't stand to be alone. [to Hilda] Isn't that strange, Hilda? They'd rather have war together than a lonely peace.
5. Rumpole and the Learned Friends
[edit]- Horace Rumpole: The flu is a disease with endless possibilities.
- [Rumpole is ill in bed and Hilda is taking his temperature]
- Hilda Rumpole: Rumpole, you're not normal.
- Horace Rumpole: I'm dying.
- Hilda Rumpole: Nonsense! What did Doctor Hanson say it was?
- Horace Rumpole: Death. He says there's a lot of it about.
- [Rumpole's illness is interrupted by news of a safe-blowing case]
- Hilda Rumpole: I thought you were dying.
- Horace Rumpole: Dying will have to be postponed. Safe-blowing comes first.
- [Guthrie Featherstone is leading Rumpole in the case]
- Guthrie Featherstone: Of course I'll mitigate.
- Horace Rumpole: Mitigate? "My Lord, my client only went in to buy a seven-penny stamp. But as he was kept waiting by ten old ladies with pension books, he lost his patience and blew the safe."
- Horace Rumpole: I'm not exactly doing your case.
- Charlie Wheeler: Oh, you're not?
- Horace Rumpole: No, your case is being handled by Mr. Guthrie Featherstone, QC, MP, whose name is constantly mentioned in the corridors of power.
- Horace Rumpole: Here, I give you a toast. Here's to our future.
- Hilda Rumpole: The future!
- Horace Rumpole: Which now shows every sign of being exactly like our past.
