Really Surprised!

Powerful

I wanted to but couldn't!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Peter Davison is perfect as "Campion" in these mysteries from 1989-1990.If I were to compare this series to Inspector Alleyn, the difference is in the personality of the detectives. The Campion episodes are more lively, as Campion rubs elbows with both the low and the high classes with ease. He also is very whimsical.I believe this is a take-off on Lord Peter Wimsey, more of one than the Inspector Alleyn mysteries. Campion has his manservant, Lugg, who is devoted to him and obviously from the streets. Brian Glover is great in the role.Campion always looks very dapper and wears wonderful horn-rimmed glasses. The episodes are brighter in look than the Alleyn mysteries, and, like the Alleyn mysteries, they have high production values. Campion's background is a mystery. He's obviously well-educated. In the books he's supposedly related to royalty and cut off from his family, and he's not using his real name.High quality mysteries, very well acted, with a lovely song which Peter Davison sings at the beginning which sets up the series perfectly: lyrical, tuneful, and bright.

I think the other reviews cover the lion's share of what there is to say, but just a few comments: As of this writing, "Campion" is available on streaming Netflix, unabridged and with no commercials.I love the opening and closing theme music, especially from the first season. I am not sure why they changed it up for the second season."Sweet Danger" is my favorite episode of the bunch, without a doubt.Peter Davison did a fabulous job in all the episodes and he is dressed to the nine's. No one else but Brian Glover could have been Lugg. The production values are quite high.I have not read the books but plan to start sometime this summer.

This BBC production is light, engaging fun beautifully filmed. Its main strengths are the performances of Peter Davison and Brian Glover along with the impeccable art direction of Steve Keogh. The repartee between Campion and Lugg from the novels is translated well. In the series, both characters are composites of their literary counterparts who evolved considerably over the course of the nine novels published in the 1930s (the first one, "Crime at Black Dudley" was not filmed). If you don't have the time or inclination to read Ms. Allingham's early novels, watching this series is the second best thing. The screenplays are generally faithful to the novels given the expected amount of condensation required to fit each into a hundred minute film, and the episode casts feature numerous fine performances by supporting characters. Overall, a good example of how to bring novels to the screen. In summary, if you like the classic, British country-house murder mystery, this is a fine example of that genre you shouldn't miss.

Peter Davison is an excellent Campion and Brian Glover perfect as the lugubrious Lugg. I've just watched Look to the Lady. The adaptors had the sense to stick to the book with all its weirdness and ghosts that aren't - or are they? Additional dialogue by Alan Plater might have been improvised by Campion himself (I love the bit about not being about to find eye of newt at Fortnum's or Harrods). All the actors are good, and the stately home plus ruined monastery is perfect. My only gripes: poor Beth is forced to wear some of the dowdiest outfits I've ever seen on an actress. All in shades of mud, lacking any shape and with awful additional frills, capes etc. And Professor Carey's last line is changed to the cliché'd quotation "There are more things in heaven and earth..." I think in the book he says "My very dear young man, it doesn't do to think too much about these things." Barbara Jefford is good as Mrs Dick, but some of her dialogue revealing her true horribleness is cut. Read the book - it'll send shivers down your spine. It's one of Margery Allingham's best.