Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only €10,99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Rumpole's The Old, Old Story
    Rumpole's The Old, Old Story
    Rumpole's The Old, Old Story
    Audiobook (abridged)1 hour

    Rumpole's The Old, Old Story

    Written by John Mortimer

    Narrated by Leo McKern

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    After a fight with his wife Hilda, Rumpole is forced to stay with the Erskine-Browns but as always, Rumpole wears out his welcome. At the same time Rumpole must defend Hugo Lutterworth who is charged with the attempted murder of his business partner. His claims of innocence are quite compromised by the fact that he was having an affair with his business partner's wife.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAudio Holdings
    Release dateJan 1, 2009
    ISBN9781601361578
    Rumpole's The Old, Old Story
    Author

    John Mortimer

    Sir John Clifford Mortimer, CBE was born in April 1923. After studying at Oxford he was called to the bar at the age of 25, later becoming a QC. He is a celebrated dramatist, screenwriter and author; his most famous creation, Horace Rumpole, appeared in Rumpole of the Bailey, a television series which was later complemented by short stories, novels and radio programmes. Mortimer died in January 2009.

    More audiobooks from John Mortimer

    Related to Rumpole's The Old, Old Story

    Related audiobooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Fizzing With Delight

      Feb 14, 2021

      Fizzing With Delight
      2 min read

    • Article

      Readers' Letters

      Dec 10, 2024

      Readers' Letters
      4 min read

    • Article

      Last Orders

      Jul 28, 2021

      Last Orders
      5 min read

    • Article

      My Hollywood women

      Jan 12, 2022

      Until now I have never spoken of my dalliance with Audrey Hepburn. At the time I was married to my present wife and, in disclosing the following account of that far-off episode to the prurient perusers of this popular periodical, I have sought her re

      6 min read

    • Article

      Hello, Grim Reaper

      Dec 15, 2021

      She was a babe. A fully paid-up, card-carrying babe. There was absolutely no doubt about it, and she was heading straight for me. She was almost sprinting towards me across the recently reimagined lobby of Claridge’s. She looked up, her scarlet-anoin

      3 min read

    • Article

      Four Of A Kind

      May 3, 2023

      Four Of A Kind
      4 min read

    • Article

      When Lizzie met Maggie

      Dec 13, 2023

      The Grim Reaper has been having a high old time of late. I've barely had a moment to keep up with my diary, I have been so busy writing letters of condolence, attending funerals and giving addresses at memorial services. I was especially saddened by

      3 min read

    • Article

      I Love Liz Hurley, Topless Or Not

      Jun 2, 2021

      Catching sight of Elizabeth Hurley’s breasts on page 87 of the Spring issue of The Oldie reminded me of several things, as you might imagine. Chief among them, beyond the fact that this magazine never ceases to surprise me, was a sudden vivid recolle

      3 min read

    • Article

      Don Quixote Of The Highlands

      Sep 6, 2023

      MY wife has been painting a series of portraits called ‘Secret Lives’. The premise is to render each subject as the historic or contemporary character they would like to have been in another life. The process has been instructive as to exactly how vi

      2 min read

    • Article

      Plenty Of Room At This Inn

      Dec 13, 2023

      Plenty Of Room At This Inn
      4 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Sep 18, 2024

      The Oldie, 23-31 Great Titchfield Street, London, W1W 7PA letters@theoldie.co.uk To sign up for our e-newsletter, go to www.theoldie.co.uk SIR: AN Wilson (Oldie Man of Letters, September issue) rightly praises Titian, Verdi and (subject of his latest

      4 min read

    • Article

      My Brief Encounter With Celia Johnson

      Nov 15, 2023

      I am writing this on a train. Another train. I am on tour. In fact, I am on two tours. Simultaneously. With one tour, I am taking my one-man show (Gyles Brandreth Can't Stop Talking) across the land, from Edinburgh to Eastbourne. There's no rhyme nor

      3 min read

    • Article

      Bird’s Words

      Sep 26, 2022

      I listened to the funeral on the radio in my garden. As I sat I pictured the route, knowing every corner, every old building from my decades of working, drinking, loitering, even sleeping rough within its crevices and crevasses. I much preferred the

      3 min read

    • Article

      Restaurants James Pembroke

      Nov 17, 2021

      DICKENSIAN DINING ‘If the law supposes that, then the law is an ass, an idiot! If that’s the eye of the law, then the law is a bachelor.’ So replied Mr Bumble the beadle, in Oliver Twist, to kindly Mr Brownlow’s suggestion that ‘your wife acts under

      2 min read

    • Article

      Man About Town

      Aug 26, 2021

      WE LIVE IN A STRANGE half-liberated, half-imprisoned world right now. It’s not unlike being at Gordonstoun in the late Eighties, or so I imagine, with less cross-country running. But I have been making the most of my afternoons. I have taken libation

      4 min read

    • Article

      What's The Point?

      Mar 6, 2024

      As Sir Les Patterson might have phrased it, my boredom threshold is so low, it could parachute out of a snake's bottom and still freefall. I have given up on more books than I have finished – and I can't stand literary novels or most poetry. I stoppe

      3 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Jun 28, 2023

      Readers’ Letters
      6 min read

    • Article

      End Of My Purple Reign

      Oct 16, 2024

      Now comes the big life change: goodbye to being a punk grandma. For some years, I have dyed my hair purple, following some urge to capture an old-hippy look. But I suddenly grew tired of doing so, and decided to let the colour grow out. The change wa

      3 min read

    • Article

      Restaurants

      Dec 13, 2023

      I've won an argument. At last. The only way to travel into the West End of an evening is by tube. For years, I've been losing this argument while watching angry high heels clatter down the escalator as if entering purgatory, while ranting that ‘It's

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Right Royal Party For Shakespeare

      Mar 6, 2024

      Where was Leslie Caron? Was she there? On 14th February, I hosted a Valentine's Day party at the Grosvenor House Hotel on London's Park Lane. Walt Disney stayed at Grosvenor House on his honeymoon. As girls, the future Elizabeth II and her sister, Pr

      3 min read

    • Article

      ‘Expect The Unexpected’

      Dec 5, 2024

      ‘Expect The Unexpected’
      6 min read

    • Article

      Happy And Glorious

      Jun 1, 2022

      ICAN’T remember when I last used my 12 Fabergé after-dinner coffee cups. Americans call these little cups ‘demitasse’, which is about as bi-lingual as we get. Mine come in five colours and I treasure them, although I’ve reached the age where my guest

      4 min read

    • Article

      Carry On Laughing

      Jun 29, 2022

      Carry On Laughing
      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Oct 8, 2020

      Thank you for making my life more joyful month after month. I can’t tell you how important to me the Fortean Times is. Kevin Hope By email Regarding Matt Salusbury’s Forum article on sunken bells [FT396:54-55], there is more to the bells of Aberdyfi

      14 min read

    • Article

      Wales, Land Of My Fathers

      Feb 8, 2023

      Wales, Land Of My Fathers
      5 min read

    • Article

      Fairest Of Them All

      Nov 13, 2024

      Fairest Of Them All
      4 min read

    • Article

      From Hell To The Heavens

      Oct 12, 2021

      From Hell To The Heavens
      8 min read

    • Article

      Life In The past Lane

      Aug 27, 2021

      Life In The past Lane
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Rumpole's The Old, Old Story

    4.5/5

    100 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Horace Rumpole presents himself as just an Old Bailey hack doing run-of-the-mill burglary defenses and the odd car-heist case. In reality he defends the best in the Anglo-American legal traditions against modern forces (for example, the presumption of innocence) - and this was written 20+ years ago! Rumpole is the lovable defender of the average man and foe to all stick-in-the-muds. His motto "Never plead guilty." It could just as well be comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Hilarious, warm, human, touching, self-effacing and ever-ready to pierce the pompous gasbag - that's Rumpole of the Bailey. Start with the First Rumpole Omnibus and work your way through the rest. Guaranteed to tickle your funny bone and warm your heart
    • 3/5
      Some of these are a bit disappointing as before, and they introduce a flagrantly Christian character so Rumpole can score off him. However, there are a few where he is truly triumphant and cross-examines as brilliantly as Perry Mason, notably "Rumpole and the Sporting LIfe."
    • 4/5
      Rumpole - a classic and hilarious view of the English criminal legal system through the eyes of one of its practitioners, the fictional Rumpole, and as written by a barrister, John Mortimer. I think even those unfamiliar with the system would find these entertaining.
    • 5/5
      I just adore Horace and Hilda I feel like a fly on the wall when I read Rumpole Its a shame there will be no more, rest in peace John Mortimer.
    • 4/5
      This collection of seven stories offers further insights into the trials and tribulations of Rumpole’s life as an aging yet still ‘junior’ barrister, and the vagaries of the English criminal justice system.

      Horace Rumpole is a glorious creation. Always pompous, and frequently quite objectionable, he is also, however, endearing and a permanent spokesman for the downtrodden and disenfranchised. His fellow barristers and occupants of 4 Equity Court are also finely drawn, and act as perfect foils for Rumpole’s chaotic and anarchic approach to life.

      First and foremost, these are very humorous stories, although they also offer an engaging insight into life in Britain in the 1980s. I am always struck by the marked contrast between Rumpole’s career and that of John Mortimer himself. Now known primarily as a writer, and one who seemed to excel in so many different formats (novels, plays, short stories, memoirs, television screenplays …), he was for the greater part of his working life a successful barrister, being elevated to Queen’s Counsel and subsequently sitting as a Recorder (one of the numerous gradations of judge within the English legal system). Indeed, one can imagine Rumpole being far from impressed with John Mortimer QC, probably seeing him as a paragon of that unassailable rectitude that he fought so hard to avoid for himself.

      As ever, these stories are marvellously written, and a constant source of joy to read.
    • 5/5
      Horace Rumpole is a curmudgeonly barrister in London who has defended criminals in Old Bailey for almost 50 years. This book is a collection of 7 short stories. Despite the title, Rumpole is still starring in books today.
    • 5/5
      Oh, Rumpole, I will never tire of your antics. Your efforts to avoid the tempers of She Who Must Be Obeyed, your willingness to antagonize the Mad Bull, even though you know better, your efforts to acquire enough briefs to keep in Pommeroy's plonk. This volume is full of the usual Rumpole antics. He defends some Timsons. He tries to avoid Dodo Mackintosh. Quite possibly my favorite of the stories involved a winter holiday in Spain and a rather unexpected conclusion. Rumpole mixes so many delightful and quintessentially British traditions: British justice, British eccentricity, British playfulness with language, and a very British sense that one's spouse is hopeless. I am not quite sure what I shall do when I run out of Rumpole books.
    • 4/5
      This is comfort reading complete with red wine.