Product Description
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All 27 episodes from the five seasons of the television drama
starring John Thaw as Kavanagh QC, one of the country's leading
criminal advocates in London, who has worked his way up from a
northern working class background. In 'Nothing But the Truth',
Kavanagh's wife, feeling neglected because his work keeps him
away from the family, begins an affair with another barrister. In
'Heartland', Kavanagh is asked to prosecute an ex-man who
hospitalised a young tearaway. In 'A Family Affair', Kavanagh
decides to take on a family case - of which he usually steers
well clear - involving a wealthy businessman who takes the law
into his own hands by snatching his young son from school. In
'The Sweetest Thing', Kavanagh defends a prostitute accused of
murdering a wealthy client. 'True Commitment' sees a right-wing
skinhead stabbed during a clash between radical left-wingers and
a group of Neo-Nazis. In 'Men of Substance', Kavanagh takes on
the prosecution of two men charged with smuggling heroin into the
country. In 'The Burning Deck', Kavanagh and his friend and
colleague Eleanor Harker (Geraldine James) are both in Portsmouth
defending clients on charges of arson at their naval court
martial. In 'A Sense of Loss', Kavanagh finds himself defending
an 18-year-old who is charged with the murder of a woman
while breaking and entering a newsagents. 'A Stranger in the
Family' sees Kavanagh working on the case of student who has
sustained spinal injuries and brain damage in an accident at the
Thameside recycling centre where he had his holiday job. In 'Job
Satisfaction', Kavanagh, defending a woman accused of conspiring
with her brother to murder her her and stepmother, finds his
concentration slipping in court when he receives some bad family
news. In 'Mute of Malice', Kavanagh has problems defending a
client who is either unable or unwilling to speak. In 'Blood
Money', surgeon Hilary Jameson (Josette Simon) finds herself
being prosecuted by Kavanagh for negligence when a computer
tycoon she has operated on dies after surgery. In 'Ancient
History', Kavanagh begins to question the truth when he defends
family doctor Alexander Beck (Frederick Treves) against charges
of having carried out war crimes. In 'Diplomatic Baggage',
Kavanagh experiences dark wranglings in the corridors of power
when he defends British ambassador Sir Alan Jackson's (Michael
Feast) daughter, Natasha (Lena Headey), on a charge of murdering
a journalist. In 'The Ties That Bind', Kavanagh is approached by
his old friend Paddy Spence (Frank Grimes) to take on a private
prosecution for murder. 'In God We Trust' sees Kavanagh agreeing
to help out when his former colleague Julia Piper, now married
and living in America, asks him to assist with the appeal of
convicted murderer William Dupree (Leon ert). In 'Memento
Mori', Kavanagh, now back at work following his wife's death,
agrees to defend family GP Dr Felix Crawley (Tom Courtenay) when
he is accused of murdering his wife. In 'Care in the Community',
Kavanagh travels to his home town of Bolton to defend a young
couple charged with murdering their baby daughter. In 'Briefs
Trooping Gaily', Kavanagh faces a challenge when one of his
clients openly confesses in court to killing her husband. In
'Bearing Witness', Kavanagh represents a Jehovah's Witness who
refuses to give her son a life-saving blood transfusion. In
'Innocency of Life', Kavanagh defends a vicar when one of his
female parishioners accuses him of sexual harrassment. In 'Dead
Reckoning', Kavanagh prosecutes the entrepreneurial owner of a
trawler lost at sea with all its men missing. In 'Previous
Convictions', a jet ces into a moto-cross course after the
RAF mechanic who serviced it was distracted by his wife's affair
with another man. In 'The More Loving One' an explosion leads to
a young man being charged with the murder of his girlfriend, who
it later turns out was carrying their child. In 'Time of Need', a
female junior minister at the Home Office is charged with
indecent assault on a juvenile. In 'End Games', Kavanagh
represents a man who was wrongly jailed for armed robbery as a
result of the negligence of his lawyer, the late Sir Ronald
Tibbit QC - Kavanagh's former employer. Finally, the two-hour
special 'The End of Law' sees Kavanagh representing a businessman
charged the murder of a beautiful young Hungarian computer
science graduate after her body is discovered in his hotel room.
.co.uk Review
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Series 1
The fact that John Thaw was able to make his eponymous character
in Kavanagh QC stand out as a unique personality distinct from
the superficially similar Inspector Morse says much about his
understated skills as an actor. Thaw brought his trademark
mixture of curmudgeonly belligerence and gruff sensitivity to
Kavanagh, but the barrister--who first appeared on our screens in
1995 while the Oxford detective was still alive and kicking--is
no polished-up Morse. He is far worldlier, is married and has a
family. And although he is often troubled by his cases, he is
never afraid to play the system. He knows that there are devious,
even superficial lawyers, some of them in his own chambers, who
he must face across the courtroom, but he acknowledges them as an
unavoidable aspect of the world in which he works. The plots are
often convoluted, but Kavanagh's wielding of the trusty of
truth is always irresistible, particularly when the case involves
some kind of high-level government aberration. "The End of Law"
is a case in point; a particularly nasty tale about an
unexceptional businessman framed for a murder which covers up an
unpleasant security scandal. It's dark and dirty and full of
troubling compromises. In the end, as with most of his cases,
Kavanagh's craggy features convey a subtle hint of the sourness
which comes with his chosen territory. --Piers Ford