There's little doubt by this point that the comedy of Rumpole of the Bailey was growing ever broader as time passed. Clear evidence of this is to be found in the first episode of the season, Rumpole and the Bubble Reputation, when the private detective character of "Fig" Newton returns. Previously played straight by Jim "Bishop Brennan" Norton in his first appearance back in season three, he is now recast as a sitcom caricature of a private detective, played by Frank Mills with a big mackintosh, a big hat, and the red nose of someone with a permanent cold.
In this first episode Rumpole has a go at defending in a defamation case alongside Charles "Pendleton" Kay as a posh barrister, more used to the lucrative law of libel and slander than Rumpole's criminal practice. As a result he makes the mistake of looking down his nose at Rumpole, and is more concerned with trying to settle on favourable terms than actually prove his client innocent. No surprises then when it is Rumpole's methods that solve the case in the end.
Rumpole and the Barrow Boy is the topical episode of this season, being as it is centred around insider trading in the city of London's financial district, the, er, City of London. This was topical at the time because of the "Big Bang," an absurdly self-important phrase used to describe the deregulation of the UK's financial market in 1986, the after-effects of which were still unfolding at the time this was made.
The episode itself is probably most notable for an appearance by Elizabeth Hurley as the girlfriend of the accused, one of her earliest television roles.
Rumpole and the Age of Miracles is arguably the most farcical episode of the series, certainly up to this point. It is the one episode of the season set away from London, as is traditional, but this time Rumpole is not alone in his travels, since he is accompanied by both Claude Erskine-Brown and Sam Ballard QC from his chambers, the former to prosecute the case, the latter to act as judge in the ecclesiastical court.
She Who Must Be Obeyed also accompanies Rumpole, and the farce unfolds in their hotel as Rumpole tries to fool the gullible Ballard into thinking Hilda is the ghost of an earlier miscarriage of justice, warning him not to repeat the error in their current case.
Martin Jarvis makes a guest appearance as the accused, a vicar suspected of adultery, but who happens to be the nephew of Horace and Hilda Rumpole. Last season it was old school friends of Erskine-Brown who kept turning up, this time it is relatives of the Rumpoles.
Just as broadly comical is Rumpole and the Tap End, which is the obligatory one episode of the season to guest-star Peter "A" Bowles. This follows a similar format to season four's Rumpole and the Judge's Elbow, with Judge Featherstone first making a gaffe in court, then his increasingly desperate measures to correct the situation only end up making things worse for him. Once again the experienced sitcom actor Bowles carries the majority of the episode himself, with Rumpole seeming more like the guest-star in his own show.
Several themes for the season come together in Rumpole and Portia, which gives us the only episode of the season to focus on former regular Phyllida Erskine-Brown QC (Patricia Hodge). Just as we saw Ballard become a part-time ecclesiastical judge earlier in the season, here Phyllida is made a recorder (another kind of part-time judge), and her first case naturally involves Rumpole acting for the defence.
The most notable one-off guest appearance here is Leslie "ding dong" Phillips, who is frankly wasted in his role as another of Hilda's distant relatives, a second cousin with whom she had a youthful infatuation. This subplot, unusually for Rumpole, isn't connected with the main plot, and seems to just be there to give Hilda something to do this week.
Connections to other episodes in the season aside, on its own this story is the least cohesive of the season, perhaps trying to do too much in the space of one hour of television. It attempts to draw a parallel between the Erskine-Browns sending their son away to boarding school with the separation of a father and son when the father is in prison, but the twist at the end is that young Tristan Erskine-Brown wants to attend the boarding school because his relationship with his parents is already so distant. The writer seems to have ignored the possibility that Tristan might have had any friends his own age at his previous school whom he would be separated from, but given that virtually all the main characters in this series (and their children, including Rumpole himself and his son Nick) attended boarding school, I have to assume that this is an autobiographical detail.
This is also the now-obligatory one loss for Rumpole per season. However it is not all bad, as for once there is a subplot for Uncle Tom, a regular character who has provided comic relief since the start of the series, but who very rarely gets a significant role. Ballard wants to get rid of Uncle Tom for practicing his golf in the clerk's room, but has his mind changed when told by an American client that this is a "great gimmick" that will be sure to attract other rich Americans like him. As fun as this scene is, it is worth noting that this subplot - just like the one with Leslie Phillips - has no bearing on the main plot, and this one doesn't even involve Rumpole.
Another good point that I feel I have to mention is the brief appearance by a stunt cat, who we see startled by a gunshot at the beginning of the episode. Maybe he was a naughty cat up to no good, lol.
The last episode of the season, Rumpole and the Quality of Life, opens with some gratuitous nudity, as the accused-of-the-week is having her topless portrait painted by her husband, who soon winds up dead.
For a change this finale does not try to misdirect the viewing audience into thinking this might be the very end of the series. Instead of Rumpole being faced with death or (worse!) retirement, the life-changing event here occurs to Ballard.
Rumpole is warned about his health by his doctor (played by Robert "Ven Glynd" James), and spends much of the story complaining about the special diet he has been put on. Meanwhile we see Ballard embracing a healthy lifestyle of exercise. With predictable sitcom logic, it is Ballard who comes a cropper first, knocking himself out with his chest expander. This allows Rumpole to take over from the QC as the lead defence counsel in the murder trial (not that his lack of being a QC has stopped Rumpole from leading on murder trials on numerous occasions in previous seasons), while Ballard is taken into the care of the Old Bailey's matron, "Matey."
With chambers regulars serving as judges in a third of the cases this season, it leaves less room for the guest judges. We do at least get two appearances from Judge Graves (Robin Bailey), including here in the final episode, and can see his increasing exasperation with Rumpole's behaviour.
By the time Rumpole has won the case, Ballard and "Matey" are engaged, and the season closes with their wedding. Claude Erskine-Brown makes a speech over the closing credits, while we see a number of the guests are familiar characters making cameo appearances for this scene only, including Phyllida Erskine-Brown, Marigold Featherstone, and George Frobisher. This would seem to be an attempt at making the extended cast of Rumpole of the Bailey out to be one big happy family. It's all very cosy.
Perhaps too cosy? We're now even further away from the series' origins than when I described season four as being like "a comfortable pair of slippers." Rumpole has always had comedic aspects, true, but these are now completely dominant over the serious parts. If you enjoy the sitcom side of Rumpole then this might be the best season yet, but this comes at the expense of any dramatic elements.
This can most clearly be seen in Rumpole and Portia, simultaneously both the best and worst episode of the season, where the tragic fate of the separated father and son is lost among the overtly comedic subplots. The episode's favouring of these scenes over those of the main plot could easily cause viewers to forget that in the very first scene of the programme we saw for ourselves the evidence of the father's innocence, just as his son did, and therefore that what we then witnessed play out in the courtroom scenes was a miscarriage of justice.
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