Rumpole of the Bailey Other Staff at 3 Equity Court, London: Frequent courtroom allies and adversaries: Others in Rumpole's life: The origins of "Rumpole of the Bailey" lie in "Infidelity Took Place", a one-off filmed television play for the BBC's 1960s television anthology drama series, "The Wednesday Play" that was written by John Mortimer and broadcast by BBC TV on 18 May 1968. This satirical play – a comment on newly enacted English divorce laws – told the story of a happily married couple who decide to get divorced to take advantage of the more beneficial tax situation they would enjoy were they legally
Rumpole of the Bailey an age of around 70 years, and past events in his life have been retconned to fit each story's time frame. Thus, in the books published in 1996 and before, he proposed to Hilda in 1938, and in books published in 2003 and after, it appears that he neither became a barrister nor met Hilda until after World War II ended in 1945. "Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders", containing his first unled case and his engagement to Hilda, takes place in the early 1950s, entirely inconsistent with the early stories. Since 1988, when Phyllida Erskine-Brown became a QC and