Dancers In Mourning and Death Of A Ghost comprised two seasons of six thirty-minute adaptations of novels featuring Margery Allingham's fictional private-detective-turned-spy, which for the purposes of uniformity have been grouped together under the banner title of Campion so as to outline the two serials, transmitted in 1959 and 1960 on BBC Television.

Both featured the same actors in the leading roles of Campion (Bernard Horsfall) and his travelling companion, Magersfontein Lugg (Wally Patch). The first serial, transmitted in August 1959, concerned Campion's involvement in the mysterious case of Jimmy Sutane (Denis Quilley), a popular star of musical comedy who has become the unfortunate victim of rather unsavoury practical jokes. The manager of the company and the new play, The Buffer, William Faraday (Noel Howlett) - otherwise known as Uncle William - invites Campion to investigate the matter, but before he can arrive on the scene Sutane (who believes one of his repertory colleagues is responsible for the pranks) invites the company at London's Argosy Theatre to his country estate, where he intends to unmask the prankster.

However, when he falls victim to another practical joke, he storms from the house and returns later that evening, driving up to the company is a panicked state and revealing that he has just killed Chloe Pye (Vanda Godsell) - one of the more unpopular members of the crew - in a terrible road accident. When Campion and Superintendent Oates (John Ruddock) arrive on the scene, it soon transpires that Ms Pye may have been murdered by means most foul, but not from the impact of Sutane's car … and Campion is soon on the trail of the real culprit.



The second serial, transmitted in the Summer of 1960, concerned the dying wish of artist John Sebastian Lafcadio that many of his paintings should be exhibited by his wife, Belle (Mary Merrall), periodically after his death. Some eighteen years later, Belle holds an illustrious "by-invitation-only" gala exhibition of his final artwork at a social function in her home. Campion attends the occasion, but is soon embroiled in a murderous plot when the lights go out and a young man is stabbed to death before illumination resumes. Soon Campion and Superintendent Oates (this time portrayed by Arthur Brough, who would later famously play Ernest Grainger in Are You Being Served?) are pursuing leads which connect the unfortunate man's death to a murderous plot involving art fraud and blackmail …

Entirely entertaining additions to what would become BBC Television's impressive array of thriller serials, these adaptations remained fondly regarded and pratically the "perfect" Allingham adaptations, for at least thirty years (albeit apart from a brief appearance in the Detective anthology series in the late 1960s), when Peter Davison would famously don the detective's spectacles for two lavish-produced series of adventures.

Both serials were adapted by the ever-reliable John Hopkins (who would later famously produce the mould-breaking Talking To A Stranger for BBC Television), were produced and directed by John Harrison (who contributed lyrics to the musical on-stage performances featured in Dancers In Mourning), and the accompanying musical score for the first series was composed and conducted by Christopher Whelan.

The programmes enjoyed global exportation, but the limit of their commercial realisation remained in Allingham's novels upon which these programmes were based. The series has never been made avialbale on either VHS or DVD.

Text © Matthew Lee, 2004.