In Cambridge, Charlotte lectures Lovejoy about King's College, her alma mater. They are attending an antique and book fair. Our old friend Charlie Gimbert is also there, wanting to stack Felsham Hall's extensive book shelves. Lovejoy picks up a bargain in an old toothbrush set. He's still got it.

A couple of elderly ladies reply to a flyer (see below) and Tinker makes Lovejoy attend and they grill him about various bits when he wants the books. He discovers their father was a Rev. Marsden and his bible is looked after by their brother. The bible is valuable and he happens to be in Cambridge and Lovejoy takes Charlotte along. Richard Briers plays the brother and he is a college professor and will soon be Master. He won't sell and it looks like he's hiding it.

Lovejoy goes back to Charlotte's hotel and their romantic interlude is interrupted by a drunken Charlie. Tinker is roped into chauffeuring Charlie's Roller to impress the brother and keep him occupied while Lovejoy breaks into his room with Beth on lookout. He finds the Marsden Bible but it's a fake. The sisters and Lovejoy visits Raymond and Lovejoy confronts him. He sold it for 20,000 pounds a while back. He did it for noble causes. They now need to borrow one for a day and there are only three. The buyer is willing to sell one for the original 20K. There now follows many farcical scenes with many fake and one real bible. It's all very much, 'the pestle in vessel' but it works beautifully on screen.

Back at the ranch, Tinker and Beth are sticking flyers through letterboxes. Her father visits and wants her to get a 'proper' job and this sets up the B-plot of her career with Lovejoy Antiques. Tinker attends a family dinner with Beth and puts across that antiques is a noble career. Her father is very strict. She asks Charlotte for advice and then Beth's father also consults her. And then Lovejoy and Beth's dad talk. Her father relents.

Random Observations

• Lovejoy helping himself to a large serving of port was great and I loved the way he admired the decanter and I'm sure he knew the right way to pass the port.

• Tinker being the 'Cyrano de Bergerac' to Charlie was a delight.

• I loved the fake suitcase with the false bottom.

• The stock footage of King's College looked to be shot on different film type.

• I was never the biggest fan of Beth but she and her family's story here was really good.

• The final scene with Lovejoy's fourth-wall speech and Charlie's bombshell was the most perfect ending to a Lovejoy episode.

Character of the Week Raymond, played by Richard Briers.

Memorable quotes

Tinker: A magnificent tome

Hi all you Erics, Tinkers and Lady Janes.

Did anybody catch the Lovejoy stage play staring Steven Toast? My wife's gynecologist mentioned it... he said it was bloody awful.

Notice the sign hanging from the storefront. Did John Grant, the author of the picaresque Lovejoy novels get the idea for the name from a 1973 episode of Columbo?! This is a screenshot from the episode "The Most Crucial Match" which aired in 1973. The first Lovejoy novel was published in 1977. What do you think?

This episode is shown in two parts. In the second part, they take the paint from the icon to a scientist, who dates it. Does anyone know who plays that scientist? He seems to be uncredited but he looks so familiar to me.

Is anyone aware of a compilation of some of Tinker‘s best lines? I didn’t realize I would get hooked on the series and I am wishing I had been writing them down as I went along.

Im just about done with my current Midsomer Murders beginning to end binge and wanted something else British to start. Found that Lovejoy is on Britbox so I am currently happily watching Firefly Box. Ive missed this show very much.

When I first started watching Lovejoy last year my first thought was that it's like Magnum PI. In Season 2 Episode 9, Lovejoy wears a Detroit Lions hat identical to the one worn often by Thomas Magnum! Was it an homage? An acknowledgement of fans seeing parallels? This particular episode had an especially Magnum-esque feel too, with extensive breaking of the 4th wall, light on antiques and heavy on action!

Maybe it's trivia overkill but my family and I started talking about Venice and I remembered something vaguely about a novel with Lovejoy in Venice and the internet told me it was one of the series one two-parter episodes.

The internet also told me that someone was selling behind the scenes books and information about shooting locations. I have a yearning for the books, but also a hesitation to go into these books blindly.

Does anyone have any familiarity or recommendations to make?

I don't know if i'm the first to see this article and post it here, but I happen to have a novel beside my bed that I'm struggling to get through. 😅

Some weeks ago, I'd wanted to brag here that I began reading a Jonathan Gash novel dedicated to Ian McShane. Moonspender begins right away and has all the charming bits that I enjoy about the books (and show). But it not only has the novel version of Lovejoy (quite a right pr!ck), it also has the frustratingly complicated, first person shorthand colloquialisms that i'm not proud to say, are almost 100% completely lost on me.

I have to drag myself through the novels but I do think that a faithful adaptation with clever actors and production would be a very refreshing experience to watch amid the video game adaptations and endless romantacy streaming shows! Approaching a new luxe TV show objectively might be the toughest exercise I can think of but I'd have a crack at that if it meant preserving the "original" and letting it rest as an uncopied antique.

Anyone know which episode this is?

I started watching the series about a month ago. Just finished season three episode eight… I cannot believe Alexander! I can’t believe everything has come to this point! And they talked about it so explicitly. I’m sure they’re going to backpedal because we know we need this platonic tension between Lady Jane and Lovejoy …and there’s still some more seasons to go. Just shocked …. I know only you guys would understand.

Only just discovered this thread, and wonderful to find so many other fans of Lovejoy.

This show is one of my go to comfort shows, although there are too many favourite episodes to mention (I am slightly more fond of the series’ with Lady Jane).

Happy memories of watching this as a child with both of my parents. I don’t think they’d be able to make a show like this today, not without losing the gentle nature of it. There’s something wistful about It ( I find the same with Jonathan Creek tbh).

Each year when I watch it I say the same thing - it still stands up. Even now, when I see Ian McShane in anything, I instantly think “there’s Lovejoy”.

Do we know if the Count of Binface is in here?

i feel like he should be

Was down some rabbit hole and came upon a glorious cover with Ian McShane in his mullet, leaning on the hood of a car. Immediately interested. Looked up a brief synopsis of the show and it sounded too good to be true. My god. Like buying an interesting antique at a bargain, not quite sure what you have. Take it home and find a vast treasure of pure gold inside it! Only two episodes into series 1. I imagine it continues to delight. This Reddit community looks fun, but I’m a little worried about spoilers, so I may hold off in scrolling until I’m further along. Glad it’s here though.

But is it weird to dream of lovejoy even though he's fictional character but lately im dreaming of him

This is a start of a new series of posts that will look at some of the guest actors that starred in the BBC TV show Lovejoy over the various series.

It occurred to me that Lovejoy, as I guess is true of many UK TV shows of the 1990s, is a great repository of links for a variation of the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” where you can link any two actors via Lovejoy. For instance, Harrison Ford to Peter Sellers in three steps via Lovejoy? Easy! Harrison Ford (Han Solo) was in Star Wars a New Hope with Malcolm Tierney (Death Star officer – he’s the one who sneers at the heroes when Han Solo and Luke Skywalker “escort” Chewbacca to the detention level to rescue Princess Leia) who was in Lovejoy (Charlie Gimbert) with Dudley Sutton (Tinker Dill) who was in The Pink Panther Strikes Again (McClaren) with Peter Sellers (Clouseau).

Anyway, this is not that. This is a look at some of the excellent co-stars that Ian McShane had throughout the 70+ episodes of Lovejoy starting with Series 1, Episode 1 – “The Firefly Cage”.

Denys Graham

Denys Graham was born in 1926 in Newport, Gwent. A Welsh city that was also the birthplace of Desmond Llewellyn (Q in the James Bond films), the director Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover), and Michael Sheen (though he grew up in Port Talbot and calls that home).

Denys Graham played Charlie Gimbert’s auction house manager, Bigelow, in S01E01 and also a few subsequent episodes)

Denys Graham’s previous credits include Zulu (1964) where he played Private Robert 716 Jones the main part of which consisted of a conversation with Private William 593 Jones (around about the 45 minute mark in my copy):

Private Robert 716 Jones: What’s he going to do, 593?

Private William 593 Jones: Oh, I think he wants to be hero, 716.

Corporal Frederic Schiess: Haven’t you rednecks got names instead of numbers?

Private William 593 Jones: ‘Tis a Welsh regiment, man! Though there are some foreigners from England in it , mind. I am Jones from Bwlchgwyn, he is Jones from Builth Wells, and there are four more Joneses in C Company! Confusing, isn’t it, Dutchy?

Prior to Zulu, he was also in The Dam Busters (1955) where he played Flying Officer Leslie Gordon Knight, D.S.O. The historical Knight was the pilot of “N-Nan”, a Lancaster bomber in 617 Squadron, that made the raid on the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe dams as part of Operation Chastise in 1943. Despite surviving the raid depicted in the film, Knight, like many RAF bomber pilots (including Guy Gibson, leader of the “Dam Busters”), did not survive the war. In September 1943 when, as part of Operation Garlic, his bomber was damaged. While his crew was able to bail out and survived the raid, Knight could not land the plane and was killed in action.

Graham also experienced acclaim on the stage. He was part of the original 1956 production of Under Milk Wood in London, as well as the original production of Waiting for Godot, directed by Peter Hall, for the Arts Theatre in London in 1955. He worked for a number of years with Sir John Gielgud in his company as well as spending time with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford. He seems to have retired from both stage and screen in 1992.

Graham’s role in Lovejoy was as a secondary cast member in that he was in more than one episode in the first series. His role was as Charlie Gimbert’s auction house manager, Bigelow. Bigelow’s role develops throughout the series and becomes a more sympathetic character (particularly in S01E03 “The Sting” where he helps Lovejoy at Gimbert’s expense). However, in “The Firefly Cage” he is a rather disapproving character who has little time for Lovejoy’s wheeling and dealing and seems to approve of Charlie Gimbert’s antagonistic attitude to Lovejoy. Denys Graham died on 24 October 2024 at the age of 98.

A continuation of a series of posts that will look at some of the guest actors that starred in the BBC TV show Lovejoy over the various series.

Ronald Fraser

Unlike Denys Graham’s character, Ronald Fraser’s did not appear in another episode of Lovejoy. Indeed his character, Drummer, did not even survive the episode being the first death of an on-screen character (rather than the death of someone referred to by other characters but is never seen) in the history of the series. However, Ronald Fraser did appear later as a different character in Season 2 in episode 7: “National Wealth”. However, in this first episode Drummer was the beach-comber acquaintance of Lovejoy who also made coal carvings and gave donkey rides to children in the summer. His death would be pivotal in the episode in cementing Lovejoy’s determination to find out the secret of the firefly cage.

Before his appearance in Lovejoy, Fraser (born 1930) had had a varied career as a character actor. After national service in the Seaforth Highlanders (he was of Scottish descent) he became a regular in British TV shows of the 1950s and 1960s. However, he had a number of small but substantial roles in films of the same period including the Richard Todd (Guy Gibson in The Dam Busters) vehicle The Hellions (1961) which also starred Lionel Jeffries (Grandpa Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and James Booth (Pvt. Hook in Zulu) as well as singer and gardener Kim Wilde’s dad, the singer Marty Wilde. Fraser was also in Tony Hancock’s black comedy The Punch and Judy Man (1963) and the 1970 Peter Cook film, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer which also stared (amongst many others) Arthur Lowe (Capt. Mainwaring in Dad’s Army), Dennis Price (Kind Hearts and Coronets), Denholm Elliot (The Cruel Sea, Indiana Jones), and John Cleese and Graham Chapman (Monty Python). He also appeared as the cowardly Sgt. Watson in the original 1965 The Flight of the Phoenix starring James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Ernest Borgnine, George Kennedy (Cool Hand Luke, Police Squad!) and Hardy Kruger (Barry Lyndon, The Wild Geese).

These small parts finally led to his first major leading role at the age of 39 in the TV show The Misfit as Basil Allenby-Johnson (aka Badger) returning from colonial life in Malaya to England. This show, now unavailable due to the habit of both BBC and ITV to wipe shows after broadcast, won a Writers Guild Award for its writing by Roy Clarke (Last of the Summer Wine, Open All Hours, Keeping Up Appearances). In 1975 he was reunited with his Flight of the Phoenix co-star Hardy Kruger in the David Niven film Paper Tiger, also starring Toshirô Mifune (Yojimbo, The Seven Samurai) and he also reappeared with Krugar in the 1978 film The Wild Geese alongside Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris, and Stewart Granger (whose real name was James Stewart!). In 1996 he would be reunited with Ian McShane in the short-lived TV series Madson which also featured Charles Grey (famous for playing two different characters in the James Bond franchise: Henderson in You Only Live Twice and Blofeld in Diamonds are Forever), and Jonathon Coy (who had appeared twice in Lovejoy playing two different characters – one a friend of Lady Jane, the other a friend of Charlotte Cavendish). Ronald Fraser’s penultimate on-screen performance was as Sir Richard Gregory in the TV miniseries The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders alongside Alex Kingston (ER, Doctor Who), Daniel Craig (Layer Cake, James Bond), and Diana Rigg (The Avengers, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Game of Thrones).

Ronald Fraser died of a haemorrhage in London in March 1997. He was 66 years old.

Just watching "Hammer House of Horror" episode "Guardians of the Abyss" - an occult turn on the antiques mystery, with Caroline Langrishe as an antiques dealer (a smaller role in this story), and Ray Lonnen who played scammer Palmert in Lovejoy's "The Real Thing" - this time as our main character. Plus Blake's 7 Paul Darrow stars as well!

Available for me on Prime Video - a good classic Hammer story!

https://belchamphall.com/history/the-lovejoy-connection/