Play for Today (TV Series)

Rumpole of the Bailey (1975)

Leo McKern: Horace Rumpole

Quotes 

• Horace Rumpole : I could win most of my cases if it weren't for the clients. Clients have no tact, poor old darlings, no bloody sensitivity. They *will* waltz into the witness box and blurt out things that are far better left... unblurted.

• Horace Rumpole : My brilliant client. They're absolutely brilliant, clients, aren't they, George? I mean, he takes an antique dagger and he stabs a young man in the bus queue, outside Lords, at four o'clock in the afternoon. I ask you. Well, I mean, if you *must* go in for that sort of thing, at least do it during the hours of darkness, and if possible, not in the St John's Wood Road.

  George : Who did he stab?

  Horace Rumpole : Oh, a complete stranger. Someone he just felt like stabbing. Absolutely brilliant.

  George : My man decided to rob a dance hall on the night of the Police Ball.

  Horace Rumpole : Hahaha. We only get the stupid villains, George.

  George : Why is that?

  Horace Rumpole : Well, the bright ones are all on holiday in Majorca.

• Mr. Winter : Well, you'll have a bit of fun with this one, Mr. Rumpole.

  Horace Rumpole : "Fun", Mr. Winter? Do you call standing on your hind legs and pleading guilty for a Jamaican teenager who shoves a knife into the first person who crosses his path "fun"? Now what do I say to the judge? "Oh, do understand, Your Honour. He'd just seen the West Indies drop a catch. Can I have a ten-bob fine and time to pay?"

• [describing the judge who is trying Ossie's case] 

  Horace Rumpole : [voiceover]  There he is. Giving me a look of vague disgust. Like Queen Victoria with a bad period.

• Horace Rumpole : [to Hilda]  They say that crime doesn't pay, but it's a living, you know. Oh, yes, it's a living.

• Horace Rumpole : If it wasn't for crime, the democratic process would grind to a halt.

• Horace Rumpole : [to Nick]  You can't get born or die in a dignified position... now how can you live in one, Old Dear?