P. D. James: Death in Holy Orders

Based on P.D. James's best-selling novel, Death in Holy Orders is a masterly exploration of an isolated and beleaguered community coping with the evil and disruption of murder. The story is set in St. Anselm's, an Anglican theological college on a desolate stretch of the British coastline. When the body of one of the students is found on the shore smothered by a fall of sand, his wealthy father demands that Scotland Yard should re-examine the verdict of accidental death. Commander Dalgliesh (Martin Shaw) spent time at St. Anselm's as a boy and so agrees to pay a visit. Instead of a nostalgic return to old haunts and straightforward examination of the evidence given at the inquest, he finds himself embroiled in one of the most horrific and puzzling cases of his career. Other visitors come to the college on the weekend of his arrival. Among these is Emma Lavenham, a visiting lecturer from Cambridge University who stirs emotions he thought he had shut away. Before the weekend is over, one of these visitors will be dead.

Episode One - St Anselm's is a select High Anglican ecclesiastical college and retreat situated on a remote part of the Suffolk coast. When theology student Ronald Treeves is found smothered under a pile of earth and sand on the beach nearby, it appears that he was the victim of a cliff fall. However, his father – wealthy industrialist father, Sir Alfred Treeves – is convinced that the college authorities have glossed over the truth to avoid a scandal. He demands that Scotland Yard re-examine the verdict of accidental death.
Commander Adam Dalgliesh knew St Anselm's as a boy. He anticipates nothing more than a nostalgic return to old haunts and a straightforward examination of the evidence. But no sooner has he scratched the surface than there is another death: Margaret Munroe, the laundry woman. Heart failure is blamed, but lately she remembered an event 12 years ago that could have some bearing on the case.
Worse is to come. St Anselm’s is a community under threat. Archdeacon Matthew Crampton is among several outsiders visiting St Anselm’s, and he is intent on closing the college and selling off its assets – news which is met with anger and fear by the tutors, staff and ordinands. On the morning after his arrival, his body is found, savagely beaten, in the chapel before one of the church's treasures, a painting of the Last Judgement which someone has vandalised. Dalgliesh now has a major murder inquiry on his hands.The death count is rising and the truth seems further away than ever.

Episode Two - From the senior student to the handyman's helper to a researcher on the domestic lives of the Tractarians, Dalgliesh uncovers a wealth of suspects for the Crampton murder.Almost everyone, resident and visiting St Anselm’s, had a motive.
Father Sebastian, the college warden, bitterly opposed his plans to close the college. The rest of the staff – Father Martin, Father Peregrine, Father John, and lay tutors Emma, and George Gregory – also stood to lose their homes and their livelihood. Father John had an added reason to hate Crampton; he had been instrumental in sending him to prison for child-molesting. Then there’s a visiting police inspector, convinced Crampton murdered his first wife, and odd-job man Eric Surtees – did Crampton know of his incestuous relationship with his half-sister?
Glamorous tutor Emma Lavenham, one of the few women at the retreat, also arouses Dalgliesh’s attention, and not just as a potential murder suspect.
In the closed and claustrophobic atmosphere of the college, Dalgliesh slowly unravels his most complicated case to date, discovering an unholy litany of incest and illegitimacy, academic plagiarism, a will that might have benefited the four old priests to the tune of £10million, the marriage of a woman on the point of death in a hospice to an unknown bridegroom, the disposal of an Old Master altarpiece, and, finally, the existence of a papyrus allegedly containing an instruction by Pontius Pilate to his guard to dispose of the body of Jesus Christ – a bombshell that could fatally undermine the story of the Resurrection.

Raphael Arbuthnot	---	Jesse Spencer
Police Officer	---	Christopher Fox
Father Sebastian Morell	---	Alan Howard
Mark Ayling	---	Alex Avery
Commander Adam Dalgiesh	---	Martin Shaw
Archdeacon Matthew Crampton	---	Clive Wood
Emma Lavenham	---	Janie Dee
Father Peregrine Glover	---	Jeff Rawle
Eric Surtees	---	Tom Goodman-Hill
Karen Surtees	---	Emma Rydal
George Gregory	---	Hugh Fraser
Father John Betterton	---	John Clegg
Clive Stannard	---	Jonathan Coy
Father Martin Petrie	---	Robert Hardy
Ruby Pilbeam	---	Maggie McCarthy
Peter Buckhurst	---	Alex Hassel
Inspector Kate Miskin	---	Victoria Scarborough
Detective Sergeant Tony Rudson	---	Stephen Noonan
Inspector Roger Yarborough	---	Roger Morlidge
Agatha Betterton	---	Freda Dowie
Nobby Clark	---	Richard Cubison
Mildred Fawcett	---	Bridget Turner
Margaret Munroe	---	Julia McKenzie

Written by P.D. James
Screenplay by Robert Jones
Directed by Jonny Campbell
Produced by Margaret Enefer
Executive Produced by Susan Hogg, Simon Lewis
Original Music by Julian Nott
Cinematography by Martin Fuhrer
Film Editing by Melanie Oliver
Costume Design by Les Lansdown

“...the BBC poured good acting like golden syrup over Death in Holy Orders and served it up in two generous helpings. It looked lovely, with great opalescent swathes of sea and sky...”- Guardian

“This is a classy production, with a cast to match ... and it will certainly keep you guessing.” -Daily Mail

“Worth a winter showing – a quality judgment as well as a description of the sort of comfortably engrossing, manylayered thriller that enjoyably adds to the chills of a dark night and the certainty that we are safe from violence, mystery and death ... possibly.”- Financial Times

“A brilliant and engrossing murder-mystery.” -Sunday Express

“Distinguished drama ... beautifully shot, well-paced and with a great cast.” -People

“PD James ... has made a terrible and compelling speciality in finding the devil in religious detail.” -London Evening Standard

“...the narrative pull of PD James' labyrinthine plot is so strong that it really doesn't matter whether you are a Martin Shaw fan or not, or whether you preferred Roy Marsden's performance [as Dalgliesh] or not.You will still be itching to know whodunnit as the corpses pile up and the monks get their habits in a twist.” -Liverpool Post

“Enjoyable ... a weird gothic whodunit.” -Daily Express

“A satisfyingly complex plot ... Director Jonny Campbell perfectly captured the atmosphere of a self-absorbed and isolated outpost of the C of E, oblivious to the realities of the Church in the outside world.” Daily Mail “A proudly conventional whodunit, complete with old-fashioned clues and a plausible list of suspects.” -Daily Telegraph

“The story has everything you would expect from a complicated murder mystery...”- London Evening Standard

“Shaw has brought the detective right up to date, with cropped grey hair, the latest in fashion specs, and smart-butcasual dress code.” -Daily Mail

“Martin Shaw ... lends his customary weight to the lead role.”- Independent

“Robert Hardy gives a vibrant performance as Dalgleish's friend and childhood mentor Father Martin.” -Liverpool Post

Baroness James admits to being thrilled that Martin Shaw has taken on the role of Adam Dalgliesh— not only because he's an intelligent actor, but because "one likes one's characters to be attractive."