Paradise Postponed Paradise Postponed Paradise Postponed (1986) is a British 11-episode TV serial based on a novel by writer John Mortimer. He had adapted "Brideshead Revisited" as a film and wrote "Rumpole of the Bailey." The series covered a span of 30 years of postwar British history, set in a small village. The series explores the mystery of why Reverend Simeon Simcox, a "wealthy Socialist rector", bequeathed the millions of the Simcox brewery estate to Leslie Titmuss, a city developer and Conservative cabinet minister. Simeon's sons Fred, a jazz-drumming country doctor and Henry, once Britain's brightest and angriest writer who now works
Rumpole of the Bailey Rumpole's son Nick) was the only cast member from the BBC "Play For Today" who also became a regular in the series. Rob Page's title sequence, featuring amusing caricatures of Rumpole, was inspired by the nineteenth-century cartoonist George Cruikshank, who had illustrated the works of Charles Dickens. The music was composed by Joseph Horovitz, whose extensive use of the bassoon for Rumpole's theme complemented Leo McKern's portly stature and sonorous voice. Mortimer continued to work as a barrister while writing the series, rising at 5:30am to write scripts before going to work at the Old Bailey. The series was critically