Irene Shubik plays Shubik had produced for "Play for Today" was John Mortimer’s “Rumpole of the Bailey” (broadcast 17 December 1975), starring Leo McKern as the eponymous barrister. McKern had greatly enjoyed playing the role and had indicated it was a part he would be interested in returning to. Shubik commissioned six new "Rumpole" scripts from John Mortimer with a view to making a series but a change of senior personnel in the BBC led to the project being put on hold. In late 1976, Shubik departed the BBC for Thames Television and brought the "Rumpole" scripts with her. Shubik produced the
Rumpole of the Bailey proud of her daddy (as she calls him), C.H. Wystan, Q.C. who was Rumpole's Head of Chambers, and she frequently advocates for Rumpole to seek a higher position in the legal world such as Head of Chambers or Queen's Counsel or a judgeship. The Rumpoles reside in a cavernous, underheated mansion flat at 25B Froxbury Mansions (sometimes called Froxbury Court), Gloucester Road, London. Rumpole raises tensions with his American daughter-in-law Erica (Deborah Fallender) because of their differing views (such as her disapproval of his cross-examining a rape victim he believed to be lying). His associates' dynamic social positions contrast with