Campion (1989)

Peter "Davo" Davison stars as Albert Campion in this BBC detective series. Made around the same time as the BBC's Miss Marple series (which Davo made a guest appearance in) and the start of ITV's long-running Poirot, this has a similar feel and production style - helped a lot by this having a similar 1920s-30s period setting. Eight novels were adapated, with each being split across two 50-minute episodes.

Campion as a character is a posho with a shady past, able to pass among the aristocracy and the criminal classes just as easily. He also has a sense of humour, which involves cracking lame jokes at inopportune times, such as when a body has just been discovered. Davo fits the part well, able to give Campion a lightness of touch that sets him apart from other TV detectives of this subgenre, although his voice and mannerisms do occasionally remind me of his time as the Doctor. He also puts me in mind of a similar detective character, Mr Laxworthy, memorably played by Bernard Hepton in the 1970s Rivals of Sherlock Holmes series, with his superior intelligence and habit of using criminals (or ex-criminals) to do his dirty W-word for him.

Foremost of these ex-criminal servants is Campion's mannyservant Magersfontein Lugg, played by Brian "Gaffer" Glover. The third regular character is the ubiquitous friendly rival police Inspector (what private detective would be without one?) Stanislaus Oates, played by Andrew "Jarvik" Burt. Purr. Not as dim as some, Burt has the unenviable task of carving out his own niche in an overcrowded field full of Lestrades, Japps, and Slacks.

If names like "Magersfontein" and "Stanislaus" seem a bit too pointedly unlikely, I am quite sure this is deliberate. The series is played straight (save for Campion's in-character humour), but the events it depicts are at times so OTT that they must come across to viewers as parodies of the genre. That is because they are - something which I think is important to keep in mind as, paradoxically, this makes it easier to take them seriously.

1. Look to the Lady

The first story is a perfect example of what I mean, with an absurd plot about a noble family who keep an ancient chalice in their country house, which they must keep safe or else forfeit all of their wealth and estate. Fake chalices abound, as well as supernatural elements that Campion and Lugg reveal have mundane explanations... or do they? And then at the end it is implied that the chalice is your actual Holy Grail.

On first hearing the theme music you could be forgiven for thinking it was too twee to be real, but the important thing to remember is that it is Peter "Button Moon" Davison that is singing the "Da-da-da-da-de-da-dum" bits himself, and that knowledge suddenly makes it pawesome.

2. Police at the Funeral

A more conventional murder-mystery than the first story, much more approachable for any fan of the genre, though the downside of this is that Campion comes across as more of a conventional, Agatha Christie-style detective in this one than in the first, where he got to make use of a broader selection of his skills.

The guest cast in this is pretty impressive, with Mary "Dance of the Dead" Morris as the stern matriarch of the upper-class family Campion is staying with, and Timothy West as Inspector Oates's prime suspect. West had a run of appearances alongside Davo in the late '80s, this being the third after they were in the same Miss Marple together, and then West made a memorable one-off appearance in Davo's A Very Peculiar Practice.

3. The Case of the Late Pig

Davo is reunited with Michael "Hedin" Gough in the most convoluted case yet. With mysterious cryptic letters, a dead manny turning up only to have been killed again, and bodysnatching, not to mention a substantial cast of suspects to be introduced, there's little time for Campion and Lugg's own eccentricities so it resembles a more generic murder mystery. Since this also happened in Police at the Funeral, it seems the promise of the first story for Campion to be a manny of many skills beyond just being an amateur detective seems to have fallen by the wayside, now he's just an amateur detective with an ex-criminal for a mannyservant sidekick.

That said, the actual murder mystery plot is a good one. The audience is kept guessing throughout part one, and it isn't until after a second murder takes place that things begin to fall into place. John Fortune also appears, and the police presence is provided by Moray "George Frobisher in Rumpole" Watson.

4. Death of a Ghost

This is the first time we hear "Albert" Campion addressed as "Bertie," which made me think that surely somebody somewhere has done a crossover with Jeeves and Wooster? Once again this has little room for Campion to show any of his skills other than his detecting, though there is a larger role for Chief Inspector Oates this time, with Lugg somewhat sidelined and mostly reduced to sniping quips and making impertinent comments about Campion's lack of progress with the case.

A strong first part sets up a nice mystery, and the second part looks to be confounding the typical tropes of the genre when Campion explains who did it and how well before the end of the episode. But Oates needs proof before he will arrest the suspect, which Campion lacks, so the final act is him trying to get the murderer to incriminate themselves.

There are shades of Columbo in this, perhaps (though we viewers don't actually know Campion is right, having not seen them do it like we would have in a Columbo), but few Columbos have a resolution that's as poorly handled as this, with Campion coming out on top only through luck, not through using his brains or skills. This ending lets the story down badly, making this the weakest of the series so far. Davo does get to do some nice "drunk as a lord" acting, though, so it's not terrible.

Milton Johns and Rosalie Crutchley are the main guest actors of note. I daresay there were a few other faces we cats recognised from other TV programmes of the era.

5. Sweet Danger

The second season sees a change to the titles, with Davo no longer being allowed to sing along with the theme tune. To make up for it, we get what is definitely the best story yet, largely thanks to the presence of Iain Cuthbertson as a master criminal. In a welcome change from yet another murder mystery, this is a plot with a treasure hunt and a race against the baddys to get to it first.

Campion even has more allies (or Companions, might we call them?) than just Lugg in this one, with David "Pangol" Haig as an old friend, and Lysette "Krull" Anthony as a love-interest-of-the-week helping him out, while Cuthbertson has on his side reliable old character actors Paul Brooke and Richard Pearson, the latter playing a random satanist.

The twists and turns of the plot get increasingly outlandish, but at least this is the first time since the first episode where the series has fulfilled its promise of being more than just a knock-off Agatha Christie, and Campion more than a generic period detective. The presence of Cuthbertson tips it over into being the best story of the whole series by a comfortable margin.

6. Dancers in Mourning

We return to murder mysteries with a bang. A murder is followed by the killer having to do more murders and murder attempts to try and keep their identity from the first murder covered up, including one done using a bomb that explodes in public, killing several innocent bystanders. This is a spectacular event to end the first episode on, but the spirit of JNT lives on when that's not the cliffhanger - instead there's an additonal scene where Campion is told about the bombing, and then Davo looks into camera while making a sort of "well whaddaya know?" type face as the credits start to roll.

The convoluted tale takes screen time away from the regulars, though Campion still has time to fall for a married woman, the second episode in a row to feature an unsuitable love-interest-of-the-week for him. On the plus side, we see more of Chief Inspector Oates, and while he can't quite keep up with Campion, he is shown to be no fool. The biggest problem with this story is that too many of the characters are ahead of the viewers - knowing things we've not been made privy to, that sort of thing - that we are left playing catchup in a pretty unsatisfactory manner.

The main guest star is Ian "Drusus" Ogilvy, who plays a stage musical actor. Despite the packed plot, the first part takes time to show us a significant amount of his musical number, which I suspect was more fun for the actors than the viewers. And pity the poor choreographer who must have been asked to recreate a deliberatly hideous, cheesy 1930s dance routine.

Oh yes, the series is now confirmed as being set in the mid-1930s. I'm no great expert on the inter-war period, but it feels to me like it could have been set any time in the '20s or '30s due to the lack of any topical events pinning it to a particular year, save that they have started being more specific in the dates they give on screen.

7. Flowers for the Judge

Probably the best of the straight murder-mystery plots, largely thanks to a satisfying twist ending. Part of the story looks as though it may have been shot around the same London docklands environment where Davo would have made Resurrection of the Daleks a few years earlier, needing little changed to make it plausibly the 1930s.

Christopher "Any politics?" Benjamin has a guest appearance as a magistrate, though the main guest characters are played by Robert Lang (most familiar to me as the titular "fascist beast" from the Rumpole episode of the same name) and Barrie Ingham (who I would like to say is best known for playing Sejanus in ITV's The Caesars, but obviously he is really best known for playing the worst Irish stereotype of all time in an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation) as two of the murder suspects.

8. Mystery Mile

The final story has parallels with the earlier Sweet Danger, since in both Campion goes up against a mysterious master criminal and his organisation. While this is undoubtedly one of the better stories of the series, with Campion using his criminal skills and contacts, and assembling his own gang to combat the villain's gang - and to rescue the damsel-in-distress-of-the-week - it is clearly inferior to Sweet Danger, lacking an adversary of Cuthbertson's stature. This time the criminal's identity is unknown, though anyone familiar with the genre may be able to deduce who it is by applying the law of conservation of narrative details to the shortlist of possible suspects.

Spoilers for the identity of the main villain follow: There are really only two possible candidates, and since Miles "House of Cards" Anderson is too obviously playing a wrongun, it can only really be Robert Robinson (not that one, tush and fipsy) and his wandering foreign accent. Was Paul Freeman not available?

Other guest actors of note include Geoffrey Bayldon - who might have been a suspect/red herring if only he had been in it for long enough - and Gary Parker, who was a familiar rentayank on British TV screens in the late '80s and early '90s.

Andrew Burt is missing and much missed from the final two stories, as a result of which neither end up having much involvement from the police. They are both quite packed stories, so it might be that he was cut for time, I am - alas - not at all familiar with the original Campion novels in order to say how much was omitted, added, or changed in adapting them for TV.

Oh, and just as Jon Pertwee got the gratuitous chase sequence included in his swansong, here Davo gets the opportunity to sing.

In many ways this series is worth checking out for Davo alone. Made only five years after he left Doctor Who, he is a leading manny again and playing a heroic character with some traits in common with the Doctor, yet he has matured considerably as an actor. When he is allowed to (some scripts just didn't seem to have the room) he gives Campion an edge which we really only saw him give the Doctor in Caves of Androzani. Perhaps it helped having Brian Glover as his sidekick instead of Janet Fielding?

The three stories in which Campion is allowed to be more than just a generic period TV detective, easily taken for a ripoff of an Agatha Christie, show what could have been done with the series, but even these are - with one exception - hampered by the style of the production. Even when trying to convey to us that people's lives are in danger or other high stakes situations, the feeling you mostly get as a viewer is that this is a comfy pair of slippers; a sleepy Sunday evening drama. Campion's sense of humour, where he cracks barely-witty jokes in the face of adversity, doesn't help, but the tone is set from the outset, with an incredibly lightweight title sequence and theme music.

So it was probably destined to never be considered a classic of the genre - especially with David Suchet's definitive Poirot starting around that same time - but it has a number of positives that make it worthwhile, not least the strong regular cast and interesting guest cast, which I have tried to highlight here.

I have to wonder how easy it would be to edit the series, possibly using clips taken from Black Orchid, to give the impression that Campion was the Doctor all the time? After all, in the first episode it was stated that "Albert Campion" was not his real name, and that he was a minor member of the aristocracy... in other words he is related to lords, or Time Lords..?