Stephen Fry was the reason I thought I would watch his 2007 tv series Kingdom. They had all three series at the library and not one person was asking for them but me. I found some of them on YouTube. I like these short British seasons with their 6-8 episodes. Kingdom ran three 6 episode series. It wasn't renewed in 2009 because it was costly to make and ITV was having budget cuts. I could see they spent some money on the show. It's all shot on location in Norfolk with four small towns filling in for the imaginary town of Market Shipborough. It's a nice looking countryside and there are plenty of interesting houses to look at. It's more a drama than I might want to watch but there's a good bit of comedy and some odd characters to make it more palatable.
Stephen Fry is Peter Kingdom, a lawyer who lives and practices in Norfolk. The lady to the left is Peter's receptionist Gloria, who's played by Celia Imrie. The young man next to Stephen is Lyle, who's played by Karl Davies. He's a trainee solicitor at Peter's law office. He didn't go to a big name college and he was at the bottom of his class but Peter thinks he might have some potential. He does. The lady on the far right is Peter's sister Beatrice, who's played by Hermione Norris. She checks herself out of a mental hospital in the first episode and then moves herself right into Peter's house which also serves as his office. Beatrice is a big pain in the ass. Peter's brother Simon disappeared into the sea 6 months before, leaving behind a gambling debt which causes Peter some problems.
There's a variety of cases for Peter and Lyle to work on. A lady dies and her sons gets some big surprises. A fishing boat goes down and the insurance company won't pay off because the owner had some trouble years ago. A helicopter mom, at full rev, wants Peter to sue Oxford for not accepting her daughter. Another woman wants a divorce because her husband has suddenly become a transvestite. There's a running gag with an old lady Peter wants to avoid. It's a little melodramatic but it's balanced by some nice people doing the right things. I have the other two series to watch and will get to those this weekend. there's alink up at the top of the post to the first episode of the 1st series.
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