Judge's short stories optioned for TV

A former judge's collection of satirical short stories, entitled Walden of Bermondsey, has been optioned for television by Revelation Content and Media Limited.

The collection, told through the lens of a Crown Court judge, based in part on author Peter Murphy's experiences having only recently retired as a judge himself, was published in November by independent No Exit Press. It has been hailed "a worthy successor to John Mortimer’s Rumpole stories", and a second volume, Judge Walden: Back in Session, is due to be published in May 2018.

Revelation’s development of the Walden of Bermondsey television project will be managed by media financier and film and TV executive Alistair Maclean-Clark, who has previously worked as a producer at Andrew Lloyd’s Really Useful Group, and was formerly director of TV Production and Programming at the Walt Disney Company in Europe.

Maclean-Clark commented: "The first time I read Walden of Bermondsey it immediately made me think of a modern day Rumpole who had been elevated to the bench, with a very contemporary sensibility. The book and the characters give access to the hidden world behind the court which an audience always finds fascinating. I am delighted to be working with Peter Murphy and the team at No Exit to develop it into a TV series."

Murphy, the book's author, has also written two political thrillers about the US presidency and five legal thrillers in the Ben Schroeder series about a London barrister in the 1960s and 1970s.

He said: "As a long-standing fan of Horace Rumpole I have often tried to imagine what he would have been like as a judge - not that he would ever considered such a thing - but it’s still fun to imagine, and I actually think that he would have been a model of robust fairness, which is just how I see Charlie Walden. I’m delighted to be working with Alistair Maclean-Clark towards bringing Walden to the small screen. With his experience and flair, I believe that we can create something very special. My most sincere thanks to my agent, Guy Rose, for bringing Alistair and myself together.”