Rumpole: The Sleeping Partners & Other Stories Audiobook By John Mortimer cover art

Rumpole: The Sleeping Partners & Other Stories

Three BBC Radio 4 Dramatisations

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Rumpole: The Sleeping Partners & Other Stories

By: John Mortimer
Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch, Jasmine Hyde, Timothy West, full cast
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Benedict Cumberbatch plays the young, feisty, devastatingly acute Horace Rumpole in this collection of cracking cases, also starring Timothy West as the older Rumpole.

Rumpole and the Old Boy Net: With the help of his new pupil, Miss Phillida Trant, Rumpole must defend Mr Napier Lee, who is charged with blackmail. But the alleged victim of the blackmail went to public school with Mr Lee, and so Mr Lee won't sneak on his old school chum....

Rumpole and the Sleeping Partners: After a legal ball in the Savoy Hotel, Rumpole and Hilda argue about Rumpole's drunken behaviour, and Rumpole decides to sleep the night on his sofa in chambers - strictly against the rules. But there he finds his colleague Erskine-Brown with Phillida Trant, 'working late'....

Rumpole and the Portia of Our Chambers: Rumpole comes close to giving up the law when forced to consider the path his life has taken by a combination of his attraction to his pupil Phillida, an unsettling case involving an Irish terrorist, and a visit from an old flame of Hilda's.

©2018 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2018 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd Legal Thriller & Suspense Crime Drama Fiction
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These Benedict Cumberbatch starring dramatizations are much darker than I remember of the books. I suspect they are truer to the books than my memory. The relationship between Rumpole and Hilda is a main theme - hence the darkness. Highly recommend.

Excellent dramatization of Rumpole

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Any relationship to the Rumpole stories is purely coincidental. Horace Rumpole comes across as almost a pedophile, lusting after his pupil Philida Trant, who is characterized as an airhead. Save your money and time for the real thing.

A perversion, not an adaptation

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Not sure what the heck happened, but the story is all out of correct order. I'm requesting a refund.

Out of order recordings!!!

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The performances and production are superb. Putting Rumpole in bed with Miss Trant and conflating the timelines written by Mortimer and presented in the classic series in which Leo McKern portrayed Rumpole is a disaster and a disgrace. Others can and have admirably portrayed Rumpole in audio form. Those versions have preserved Rumpole’s character traits bestowed by the author.
I see there are several more Cumberbatch Rumpole portrayals available. He is superb, but fearing further badly conceived presentations of the Old Bailey hack, I’m afraid I won’t be listening to them.

Better left alone

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