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 is mentioned that Rumpole was born sometime before the outbreak of World War I. These last two pieces of information would indicate a birth year of 1911, but later books contradict this. "Rumpole and the Primrose Path", for instance, appeared in 2003 and was set in the present day, but Rumpole was in his seventies, not 92. Nonetheless, when in "Rumpole and the Primrose Path" Erskine-Brown asks Rumpole what he sings to himself when he is alone, Rumpole replies, "A ballad of the war years." In general, in the book series, it would seem that Rumpole has been frozen at