A Voyage Round My Father A Voyage Round My Father A Voyage Round My Father is an autobiographical play by John Mortimer, later adapted for television. The first version of the play appeared as a series of three half-hour sketches for BBC radio in 1963. It then became a television play with Ian Richardson playing Mortimer, Tim Good as the young Mortimer while Mark Dignam played his blind barrister father. Mortimer then adapted it for the stage and Alec Guinness was the father and Jeremy Brett the son at the Haymarket Theatre in 1971. Mortimer later (1982) turned the play back into a film for
Rumpole of the Bailey trailing down his waistcoat and faded barrister's wig, "bought second hand from a former Chief Justice of Tonga" (or the Windward Islands: Rumpole is occasionally an unreliable narrator). Despite his affection for the criminal classes, Rumpole's character is marked by a firm set of ethics. He is a staunch believer in the presumption of innocence, the "Golden Thread of British Justice". He often reinforces this by proclaiming that it is better for 10 guilty men to go free than for one innocent to be convicted (basically Blackstone's formulation). Accordingly, Rumpole's credo is "I never plead guilty", although he has qualified