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Welcome
Introduction & Biography
Title Listings
Adaptations of 'Campion' (BBC TV)
Bibliography & Links
the Margery Allingham Society
Credits, Thanks & Mail
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INTRODUCTORY NOTES
Campion: the television adaptations
The first BBC series of 'Campion', screened in 1988, followed
on the trail of other successful and popular adaptations of various
well-known mystery and suspense authors during the 1980s,  including
those of Josephine Tey ('Brat Farrar'), Agatha Christie ('Poirot',
'Miss Marple', 'Partners in Crime') and Dorothy L. Sayers (the
excellent adaptations of three novels
featuring Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane - if only they would
have done Busman's Honeymoon...). Starring Peter Davison
(of 'All Creatures Great and Small', 'Doctor Who', 'A Very Peculiar
Practise' and many more programmes) as Albert Campion, and Brian
Glover (who very sadly died in 1997; he was more recently featured
in the 'Anna Lee' detective stories, with Imogen Stubbs, and
'Alien 3', among others) as the indescribable Maggersfontein
Lugg. This first series presented adaptations of four novels,
with promise of more to come. The second series (1989) fulfilled
that promise with a second set of four adaptations, including
one of my personal favourites, Sweet Danger, with Lysette
Anthony taking the role of Amanda Fitton. As of a July 1995 interview
with Peter Davison (in BBC Worldwide magazine), no further adaptations
are planned, and the now-defunct Dark Ride archive would appear
to have confirmed this.
However, good news is to be had about video releases of the
stories: the first series has been released on video in the UK,
and is scheduled for DVD and VHS release in the US. Follow the
LINK!
By the bye, I should at this point make my position clear:
I have a deep fondness for all of these adaptations, and can
find little bad to say of them. If you seek really objective
criticism, I am afraid that it will not be found here.
-- William Nedblake
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