Kavanagh

This series is adult British drama at its best. Kavanagh is a lawyer magnificently portrayed by John Thaw and surrounded by a multitude of interesting characters. It never ceases to amaze me that this type of program is able to attract perfect believable actors for even the smallest roles. Many of the cases are thought provoking and the only one I didn't like was the American set "In God We Trust" which came across as well as US programs do when they portray UK situations! The only negative is that some of the video work when light is poor looks rather grainy. This might look good in some situations, but not in the court-rooms. This is a minor criticism. I thoroughly commend the series.

I thoroughly enjoyed this series. There were occasional mild hiccups to that enjoyment, but I found myself wishing there were more seasons throughout the series.

Kavanagh Q C gives us a glimpse of Inspector Morse, if he had become a barrister rather than a Chief Inspector,found love rather than solitude,and had hailed from Sargent Lewis's neck of the woods rather than Cambridge. This sort of television should be the norm, not a rare exception.

The writing and the acting are sublime. We must also credit the editing, which keeps things moving smartly along.

The courtroom scenes are meticulously wrought. As a longtime trial lawyer I can say they are not only realistic, but made riveting by their very realism, rather than by contrived histrionics. There is often a surprising twist.

Each episode has multiple subplots surrounding the central courtroom drama, involving Kavanagh's once-unfaithful but now apparently loving wife, his naive and often disrespectful children, and his flavorful rivals and chamber colleagues.

High literature, this is. Just excellent.

The only reason why I didn't give this a 10, is because I still think that Morse is John Thaw's best role. But I just want to say, he is absolutely magnificent here. Like Morse, Thaw put a bit of himself into the character, which is always very appealing. The episodes aren't complicated, not like Judge John Deed, and there have been a great flow of British actors like Larry Lamb, Ewen McGregor, Tom Courtenay, Stuart Laing and Richard Pasco. ( who was also in the saddest Inspector Morse, dead On time)The music is beautiful, and it also boosted the careers of Shakespearean actress Lisa Harrow, Eastenders'Cliff Parissi and Anna Chancellor, who all brought a brief but pleasing shine to the drama. And a vast majority of the courtroom scenes are just mesmorising, thanks to Thaw and the scripts, which are of exceptional quality. If anything, I wish it lasted longer, but Thaw died before they could do another series. 9/10. Bethany Cox