John Mortimer is a playwright, novelist, and former practicing barrister who has written many film scripts as well as stage, radio, and television plays, the Rumpole plays, for which he received the British Academy Writer of the Year Award, and the adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited." He is the author of twelve collections of Rumpole stories and three acclaimed volumes of autobiography.
The wily and irascible Horace Rumpole, self-styled ``Old Bailey hack,'' is known to many from the public television dramatizations of Mortimer's stories featuring actor Leo McKern in the leading role. Because of the strong identification of McKern with Rumpole, this reviewer was doubtful that another narrator could do justice to the character. Yet Patrick Tull, an outstanding reader, not only reads these stories with all the gusto they merit but could probably be cast as Rumpole in the next series of films. Tull rumbles, wheedles, roars, and comes up with a fine ``RrrrumPOLE,'' as wife Hilda (She Who Must Be Obeyed) addresses our hero. This fine presentation complements other recordings of Mortimer's series (e.g., Rumpole à la Carte, Audio Reviews, LJ 1/93).-Nann Blaine Hilyard, Fargo P.L., N.D.
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