My Favourite Television Detectives:
Jonathan Creek

Introduction:

Jonathan Creek was devised by David Renwick in the mid 1990s. The series is a mixture of comedy and detective drama with a hint of magic! Renwick explains that Jonathan Creek had Sherlockian influences:

"For me Creek was always a naked attempt to do Sherlock Holmes in contemporary form." (CLARK, S.,1999)

In the Jonathan Creek episodes there is not as much action as in other modern day detective dramas, but the series has still proved to be a major hit with viewers, not just in Great Britain but in other places such as the USA.
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Jonathan Creek:

Alan Davies has become Jonathan Creek for many viewers and it is difficult to imagine anybody else in the role. However, originally the Jonathan Creek production team had quite a different actor in mind for the role of the magician-cum-detective. Stars such as Hugh Laurie and Nicholas Lyndhurst were asked to play the role, but both of these actors declined the offer. After a year of searching, Susan Belbin (producer) suggested the actor and comedian Alan Davies, after seeing him rehearse for another show. Luckily, Davies was delighted with the script and fortunately the Jonathan Creek team were impressed with his audition, and soon he was appointed. Today it seems difficult to imagine any actor playing Jonathan Creek, other than Alan Davies! Jonathan Creek lives in a windmill and he designs the magic tricks and illusions for another character called Adam Klaus, to use in his stage show. With some encouragement from Maddy who is a journalist, Jonathan reluctantly gets involved with obscure cases, which the police are puzzled by.
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Maddy Magellan:

Luckily for Renwick's team, the search for the secondary character in the show, was not quite so traumatic. Renwick actually created the part of Maddy Magellan in the hope that Caroline Quentin would accept the offer of the part. Fortunately, after reading the first script, she accecpted the role, even though the hunt was still on for the male lead of the new show. Maddy Magellan is a journalist who often uses devious methods in order to get Jonathan to the scene of the mystery and use his lateral thinking to solve the case. There is a certain chemistry between Jonathan and Maddy, although we mostly see her annoyed at Jonathan, often for not sharing the solutions to the case they are investigating. Maddy does not seem to have much luck with men, and becomes jealous of any other woman whom Jonathan is interested in. The way that she lives is completely different to Jonathan, as she has a flatfull of clutter, whereas Jonathan lives in a very methodical manner, which is shown in the pilot episode.
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Other characters:

There is really only one other character, apart from the two main characters, who appears regularly on the series. This character is an American called Adam Klaus who is a professional stage magician who employs Jonathan to create tricks for his show. In the pilot episode, Anthony Head played the character but when filming began for the other episodes he was unavailable and so Stuart Milligan took over the role. The character does not appear in every episode, but when he does there is always a beautiful woman nearby! However, not all of his relationships run smoothly and often Jonathan has to intervene and sort the problem out!
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Favourite episodes:

"Black Canary"

This was a 1998 Christmas Special, guest starring Rik Mayall as DI Gideon Pryke and Hannah Gordon as Marella Carney. The story revolves around the mysterious death of a woman who seems to have shot herself with a rifle. However, the way in which she was shot seems to show that she was killed by somebody else, although the woman's husband saw her kill herself. This case baffles Jonathan and he is slightly annoyed at working with a police officer who also seems to have a lateral way of thinking. One of the more comic moments is when Jonathan is waiting in the car for Maddy in a car park, and when a large, fearsome looking man walks towards the adjacent car. Jonathan quietly locks his door, but unfortunately the man saw him do it, and he reacts by smashing in the passenger door window! Just at that moment, DI Pryke walks past and prevents any further damage by pinning the man down on the bonnet of his car and showing him his police ID.

"The Scented Room"

This was screened in 1998 and guest starred Bob Monkhouse. This involves a valuable painting which suddenly goes missing right under the nose of the caretaker and a gallery tour guide whilst showing a group of schoolgirls around the gallery. There is no sign of any break in through the glass roof in the room where the painting is kept, and the time between last seeing the famous painting and it disappearing is only a few seconds. Jonathan discovers that there are several clues which have been planted by the owners, Lady Theresa Cutler and her husband Sylvester Le Fley, in order to make it seem as though there was a burglary and therefore be able to claim insurance money. The police are at a loss to know what happened and eventually (with the help of Maddy and her devious methods!) Jonathan is invited to unravel the mystery. He discovers that the painting was in the room the whole time and it was a simple trick played on the couple by a former nanny, in order to punish them for not spending more time with their son.
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Sound files:

Click on the links below to hear the theme music and an extract from the series, taken from

Jonathan Creek Theme music (301kb, WAVE file)

"Well, how did I deceive you?..."(65.3kb, WAVE file)

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Links:

Please click on the link below to view links to my favourite Jonathan Creek websites:

Jonathan Creek Links

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1. CLARK, S. 1999,The World Of Jonathan Creek London: BBC Worldwide Limited, p.6 Back to Introduction

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