Action TV - Leave It To Todhunter episode guide

Leave It To Todhunter
BBC 1958

To use the word "Pioneer" to describe Francis Durbridge does not fall short of the mark when considering his contribution to British Television and, in particular, BBC Television. When he scripted the serial The Broken Horseshoe in 1953, he established a genre which would prove readily sustainable and of potent export value to the network - the thriller.

Durbridge's ability to produce tautly-scripted half-hour episodes, maximising the potential of cliffhanger endings and keeping viewers on the edge of their seats paved the way for a variety of similarly-produced serials which would provide a lifeblood for BBC 1 and, later, the fledging BBC 2 throughout the 1960s, under the production stewardship of the prolific Alan Bromly. Whilst the genre would firmly find its footing during the 1960s and become relatively straightforward fare, during the late 1950s the network indulged in a variety of comedy-thrillers to varying degrees of success, and whilst these serials were somewhat overshadowed by their more powerful counterparts a decade later, many of those original serials provided writers with a platform to inject wonderful variations on an established theme into their productions without resorting to the tried-and-tested fields of espionage, secretive organisations and the like.

Leave It To Todhunter perfectly exemplified this point, and provided six weeks of entertainment adapted by Patrick Campbell from the novel Trial And Error by Anthony Berkeley. Set in a contemporary 1958 London and its surrounds, the programme took as its premise the relatively simple proposition that, having been diagnosed with a terminal illness, with no chance of a cure and only a short time to live, who would a person choose to kill if they knew that they would not face a trial or any manner of punishment for the crime? Lawrence Todhunter (Mervyn Johns) discusses this hypothetical conundrum over dinner with some friends, and reveals proudly that he intends to commit a murder to prove a case in point that, not only will he execute the crime without being caught, but he will remain blameless until his imminent death.

Carefully considering potential victims, he eventually decides upon Marcia Loraine (Helen Cherry), a glamorous actress whom he has never particularly favoured and believes the world will be better off without. Remarkably his murderous deed runs without a hitch. However, he is soon perplexed to learn that another man has been arrested for the crime he succeeded in committing, and he determines that, rather than allowing an innocent man to suffer for his deeds, he confesses to the police that he was the party responsible for Ms Loraine's death. The only problem is that the authorities do not believe his confession, and he soon realises that, having successfully executed the perfect crime, he must now prove his guilt. More a how-to-get-out-of-it then a whodunnit, the serial then followed Todhunter's desperate efforts in conjunction with his acquaintance Sir Ernest Prettiboy QC (Campbell Cotts) to extricate the poor unfortunate from the hangman's noose and confirm his own guilt.

In what became a farcical bureaucratic nightmare, Todhunter was exposed to the inner workings of the legal system in which conversations over guilt and innocence took place of genteel tea services and he found it increasingly difficult to convince anyone (including the media) that he was the man who did the deed. A delightful serial which provided much comic commentary on contemporary society with brief lashings of thriller content thrown in for good measure. The programme was produced and directed by Andrew Osborn (who would later rise meteorically through the BBC hierarchy) and featured notable supporting performances from the likes of Arthur Lowe (in a pre-Dad's Army performance), Margaret Anderson, Olaf Pooley, Ballard Berkeley, Lockwood West and Kynaston Reeves. The series was regrettably never exported nor commercially released, and fell victim to BBC Television's junking policy during the 1960s and 1970s.

Characters	Portrayed By
Lawrence Todhunter	Mervyn Johns
Marcia Loraine	Helen Cherry
Doctor Kelsey	Joe Ray
Lionel Ferrers	Michael Logan
Arthur Furse MP	Hugh Morton
Ambrose Chitterwick	Kynaston Reeves
The Auctioneer	Ralph Tovey
Nicholas Farroway	Richard Caldicot
Vincent Palmer	Michael Scott
Violet Palmer	Margaret Anderson
Helen	Shirley Cooklin
Clud Stewart	Horace Sequeira
Mr Budd	Lockwood West
Mrs Farroway	Gladys Boot
Felicity Farroway	Ann Firbank
Gunsmith	Arthur Lowe
Viola Palmer	Margaret Anderson
Chief Detective Inspector Moresby	Ballard Berkeley
Detective Sergeant Williams	Peter Bryant
The Ship's Officer	John Rudling
Sir Ernest Prettiboy	Campbell Cotts
Street Urchin	Jack Chissick
Digby Powell-Hancock MP	Olaf Pooley
Newspaper Reporter	David Ludman
Mrs Greenhill	Beatrice Rowe
Mr Jamieson	John Miller
Mr Justice Harcourt	Robert Young
Clerk Of The Court	Robert Hartley
Mr Wilbraham	Robert Chetwyn
Mr Bairns	Jack Melford
Prison Officer	Richard Sullivan
Prison Governor	Geoffrey Staines
The Hangman	Christopher Hodge