Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

Back in 2019, I saw and did a quick review on the BBC crime-drama TV series ‘Campion’, based on the books by Margery Allingham. It stars Peter Davison as Albert Campion. For many, Peter was Tristan Farnon in the original ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ BBC TV series.

He’s also well-known for playing the Fifth Doctor in ‘Doctor Who’. I’m currently revisiting ‘Campion’ on DVD. I’m about three stories into Series 1 and looking forward to revisiting Series 2 soon. I’ve greatly enjoyed revisiting ‘Campion’ lately, as it’s a great drama series.

In revisiting ‘Campion’, I decided to check out ‘Peter Davison Remembers…Campion’ on BBC iPlayer. This is part of the ‘Remembers…’ series where certain celebrities (namely actors) recall certain project they’ve been in in their careers, whether it’s a film or TV production.

Last year, I checked out ‘Christopher Timothy and Peter Davison Remember…All Creatures Great and Small’ along with ‘The Cult of…All Creatures Great and Small’ documentary when I was watching Series 5 of the new ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ TV series.

It was nice to see another ‘Remembers…’ episode in the series where Peter Davison is on his own and recollecting being involved in ‘Campion’. He’s clearly very fond of the series and it was lovely to hear from him that he would have liked to have done more than two seasons.

Peter recalls being in ‘A Very Peculiar Practice’ before becoming involved in ‘Campion’. Apparently, Ken Riddlington, who was the producer of Series 1 of ‘Campion’, previously produced ‘A Very Peculiar Practice’, which is presumably how Peter Davison became Campion.

I enjoyed Peter sharing his thoughts on the character of Albert Campion and how he tried to make the character interesting whilst he seemed to be bland. It was also intriguing to hear him from how he found Campion’s character mysterious when he began in the show.

It was very fascinating to hear from Peter how he preferred Margery Allingham’s style of murder mystery compared to Agatha Christie. Peter, of course, has done Agatha Christie tales, including ‘A Pocketful of Rye’ in the BBC ‘Miss Marple’ TV series with Joan Hickson.

According to Peter, Margery Allingham’s style of murder mystery tended to be more complex than Agatha Christie’s. He also established the issue of keeping audiences interested when the two episodes of a two-parter were being told one week after another.

So far, my parents and I have treated the first three stories of ‘Campion’, including ‘Look to the Lady’, ‘Police at the Funeral’ and ‘The Case of the Late Pig’ as 2-hour movies with an intermission in-between the two-parts. It helped us to break up our viewing experience.

Whilst I would have preferred the ‘Sherlock’ episodes as multi-part stories instead of being 2-hour movies, I find ‘Campion’ easier to follow compared to ‘Sherlock’, and it’s highlighted by Peter saying ‘Campion’ was made at a leisurely pace, as it wasn’t rushed.

I enjoyed Peter sharing his memories of working with Brian Glover as Magersfontein Lugg, Campion’s manservant. It was fun to hear Peter’s first impressions of Brian Glover before he shared how he enjoyed working with him and that he was ‘the life and soul of the party’.

It’s a shame Peter didn’t share his memories of working with Andrew Burt as Stanislaus Oates, Campion’s policeman friend, but I suppose he recalls working with Brian Glover more. It was nice to hear Peter share his love of cars when remembering being in ‘Campion’.

That was when Campion’s car was mentioned, and it happened to be an Aston Martin Lagonda bought by the BBC for the TV series. This connects to Peter sharing his love for cars in the ‘Great British Car Journeys’ TV show, which he did with Christopher Timothy.

It’s been great to see the ‘Peter Davison Remembers…Campion’ episode in the ‘Remembers…’ series on BBC iPlayer, especially with revisiting ‘Campion’ on DVD lately. I enjoyed Peter sharing his memories of being in the series, as he clearly enjoyed doing it.

If you’re able to see it, ‘Peter Davison Remembers…Campion’ is still available on BBC iPlayer to check out. Check out the following link for more information.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂