LISA PARKER considers the series SHADOW OF THE NOOSE

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on April 14th 2024

This week, LISA PARKER, one half of the team behind the ROUND THE ARCHIVES podcast returns to VISION ON SOUND to talk about a series that combines her love of television dramas about Law and Order with her love of period dramas.

The series is SHADOW OF THE NOOSE, an eight part series which was first broadcast on BBC2 in 1989 which does that tricky thing of building a drama series set around the background of true life events, but which also presents fictionalised versions of some of the real people once involved.

In this series we are presented with JONATHAN HYDE playing the celebrated defence lawyer SIR EDWARD MARSHALL HALL, who had a formidable reputation as an orator, and who successfully defended many people accused of murder in many high profile cases that occurred in the late VICTORIAN and EDWARDIAN eras, some of which remain notorious even to this day, and, because of the harsh penalties that were in place during those times, most of such cases did often have, as the series suggests, the shadow of the noose looming over them, at least as far as the defendants were concerned.

Despite being well-regarded at the time, a second series was never commissioned, so, unfortunately, some of the more notorious cases that SIR EDWARD defended were not covered by this ground-breaking legal drama series, but that does not reduce the legacy of the programme, especially in more recent times, as almost any well-known murder case from history seems to still be a source of endless fascination to modern viewers.

It’s always a joy to welcome back LISA, whose research into these shows is always pretty comprehensive, by the way – which always pleases me. Here she presents the case for the defence whilst representing this, perhaps often overlooked, and fascinating case study of a life lived in the legal spotlight in what could possibly nowadays be considered to be a somewhat obscure archive TV drama series.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.