''The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries'' is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English ...

detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads t ...

television series, broadcast on

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins ...

, which was adapted from nine of the novels by Dame Ngaio Marsh, featuring the character Chief Inspector

Roderick Alleyn Roderick Alleyn (pronounced "Allen") is a fictional character who first appeared in 1934. He is the policeman hero of the 32 detective novels of Ngaio Marsh. Marsh and her gentleman detective belong firmly in the Golden Age of Detective Fictio ...

. The pilot episode was shown in 1990, with Simon Williams playing the part of Alleyn. Two series followed in 1993 and 1994, with

Patrick Malahide Patrick Gerald Duggan (born 24 March 1945), known professionally as Patrick Malahide, is a veteran British film, television and theatre actor, author and producer, known, amongst other things, for his roles as Inspector Alleyn in '' The Inspec ...

replacing Williams in the title role.

Premise

In the pilot episode, the character of Alleyn was played by Simon Williams.

William Simons Clifford William Cumberbatch Simons (17 November 1940 – 21 June 2019) was a Welsh-born actor best known for his role as PC Alf Ventress in ''Heartbeat'', a role he played for 18 years, from 1992 to 2010. Early life Simons was born on 17 Novemb ...

was cast as Alleyn's right-hand man and "

Dr Watson John H. Watson, known as Dr. Watson, is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Along with Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson first appeared in the novel ''A Study in Scarlet'' (1887). The last work by Doyle f ...

", Detective Inspector Fox, and Belinda Lang starred as painter Agatha Troy, Alleyn's love interest. When a full series finally came to screen three years later, Simon Williams was unavailable, and the role of Alleyn was filled by

, while Simons and Lang reprised their roles. Over the course of two series, eight episodes were broadcast, each focusing on a separate novel in the series. Both Malahide series were released on DVD in 2007, via Acorn Media. In 2011, Acorn acquired the rights to the pilot, and in 2012, issued a repackaged version of the set containing the Williams pilot. This set was also released in Australia. Unlike the original novels, whose first story takes place as early as 1934, after World War I, the pilot and thus all subsequent episodes take place after World War II, with "Artists in Crime" being set in late 1948.

Cast

* Simon Williams as Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn (pilot only) *

as Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn *

as Inspector Fox * Belinda Lang as Agatha Troy *

Tim Dutton Tim Dutton (born 1967) is a British stage, film, and television actor. Dutton's films include '' Darkness Falls'' (1999), '' The Bourne Identity'' (2002), The Infiltrator (2016) and ''The Detonator''. He starred in the Academy Award and BAFTA n ...

as D.S. Bailey * Sandy Welch as D.C. Robinson *

Leslie Schofield Leslie Schofield (born 12 December 1938) is an English actor who is most famous in the UK for his role as Jeff Healy in the soap opera '' EastEnders'', whom he played from 1997 to 2000. His character was famous for unsuccessfully proposing to ...

as A.C.C. Connors * Mark Penfold as Doctor Curtis

Episodes

Pilot (1990)

Series 1 (1993)

Series 2 (1994)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Inspector Alleyn Mysteries, The 1990 British television series debuts 1994 British television series endings 1990s British drama television series Television shows based on British novels British detective television series 1990s British crime television series BBC mystery television shows English-language television shows 1990s British mystery television series