The Ruth Rendell Mysteries | |
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Also known as | 'The Inspector Wexford Mysteries' |
Genre | Crime drama |
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Composer(s) | Brian Bennett |
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No. of seasons | 12 |
No. of episodes | 84 (list of episodes) |
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Running time | 60 minutes |
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Picture format | 4:3 • 16:9 |
Audio format | Mono • Stereo |
Original release | 2 August 1987 | – 11 October 2000
The Ruth Rendell Mysteries is a British television crime drama series, produced by TVS and Meridian Broadcasting, in association with Blue Heaven productions, for broadcast on ITV. Twelve series were broadcast between 2 August 1987, and 11 October 2000. Created by renowned author Ruth Rendell, the first six series focused entirely on Rendell's main literary character Inspector Reg Wexford, played by George Baker. Repeat airings of these series change the programme's title to The Inspector Wexford Mysteries. However, later series shifted focus onto other short stories previously written by Rendell, with Wexford only featuring in three further stories, in 1996, 1998 and 2000 respectively. When broadcast, these three stories were broadcast under the title Inspector Wexford.
In some cases, stories were expanded from Rendell's original material or elements from a number of stories were woven together into one episode. A smaller number of episodes were based on Rendell's full-length novels, such as The Strawberry Tree starring Simon Ward, Going Wrong starring James Callis, A Case of Coincidence starring Keith Barron and Ronald Pickup, Front Seat starring Janet Suzman and The Lake of Darkness starring Jerome Flynn. An overall total of fifty-five episodes featured Inspector Wexford, alongside his wife Dora (Louie Ramsay) and sidekick D.I. Mike Burden (Christopher Ravenscroft). A total of twenty-nine episodes focused on other characters.
The first six series were released on VHS, but have never been released on DVD due to an issue with Television South's licensing rights, which affects most of their back catalogue of programming. Series seven to twelve have since been released on DVD as a Best Of box set, omitting four episodes.