BBC Week: Mystery!: Campion

Greetings and a warm welcome to all you little, enthusiastic readers.   Well we have seen a bit of space oddities and a loopy duo sketch comedy but what do you say to a little murder?   Oh not yours of course… (for now) but a poor miscreant that knew not where to turn.   So grab your meerschaum pipe, observe all and interrogate everyone.  This is Campion

 

A Doctor? Well I was once.

Albert Campion: Albert Campion- born May the 20^th 1900. Name known to be a spoiler. Education: priviledged.  Embarked on an adventurous career, 1929. Justice neatly executed, nothing sordid, deserving cases preferred. Police no object. Business address: 17 Bottle Street, Piccadily, London W1. Specialist in fairy stories.

A posh gentleman of well to do decides to use his cunning intellect to benefit people well deserving of some Justice, our Albert Campion (Peter Davison of Doctor Who, All Creatures Great and Small, The Nearly Complete and Utter History of Everything, Mrs. Bradley Mysteries, At Home with the Braithwaites and Law and Order:UK) is a believer in his clients and will stand by them until the truth is unveiled.  Oh he has come to expect his clients to tell the odd fib or the blatant lie but with his companion of ill repute Magersfontein Lugg (Brian Glover of An American Werewolf in London, Doctor Who, Lost Empires, To Kill a Priest, Kafka and Alien 3), a man of many talents and friends in low places the two seek out to prove who done it, how they did it and why. 

Commonly Campion deals in the unusual cases or be it the unorthodox.   Many is the time his deductive reasoning is called into play when a murder has occurred and he does his level best to remain objective.  That being said the dear fellow does have a wandering eye for the most unavailable lady but steadies himself to not pursue such endeavors in spite of his manservant Lugg’s teasings.

When utterly baffled Campion’s police friend Stanislaus Oates (Andrew Burt of Emmerdale, The Bill, Oscar Charlie, I’m Alan Partridge and MI-5) does come around for the advice on a case if not a hire for that same case.

Whut you lookin' at? Clear off!

And now I have a few tidbits about the creation of itself.  This show is set in the 1930’s as a nod to its phenomononal writer Margery Allingham. Campion was nothing more than a minor character in The Crime at Black Dudley but came back strong in Mystery Mile.  After a less than stellar response to her occult in mystery series, Campion seemed to be a winner with three novels under her belt and she even wrote short stories and some journalism for The Strand Magazine.  Campion was such the success that she went on to create 17 more novels and over 20 short stories of the fellow.  Campion has ties in nobility and government as well as known to get around the more dubious in the criminal underworld allowing his ear to always be able to catch a thing or two.  Rather than the obsessive nature of Sherlock Holmes, Campion’s series is a bit more lighthearted and jovial even in the face of danger.

And that is my badger impersonation. Nifty, huh?