Rumpole of the Bailey originated from a one-off 1968 BBC play called 'Infidelity Took Place', part of The Wednesday Play anthology, which featured a divorce lawyer character seen as an early prototype of Rumpole.
Mortimer also drew on his 1957 radio play 'The Dock Brief', featuring an elderly, unsuccessful barrister named Morganhall, as a precursor influence for the Rumpole character.
The character was originally conceived as 'Horace Rumbold' in a pitch titled 'My Darling Prince Peter Kropotkin', focused on a barrister obsessed with 19th-century anarchists, but the name was changed to Rumpole after it was discovered a real barrister named Horace Rumbold existed.
Before settling on 'Rumpole of the Bailey', the play's title was briefly changed to 'Jolly Old Jean Jacques Rousseau'.
John Mortimer's 2009 obituary in The Daily Telegraph revealed that Rumpole was partly inspired by barrister James Burge QC, who once told Mortimer during a case involving football hooligans that he was 'really an anarchist at heart' but didn't think even his hero Prince Peter Kropotkin would approve of their clients.
John Mortimer originally wanted Michael Hordern to play Rumpole, but when Hordern was unavailable, the role went to Australian-born actor Leo McKern; Mortimer was initially unenthusiastic about McKern's casting but changed his mind after seeing him rehearse.
The role of Hilda Rumpole was recast several times throughout the show's run, played first by Joyce Heron in the pilot, then Peggy Thorpe-Bates for the first three series, and finally Marion Mathie from series four onward after Thorpe-Bates retired due to poor health.
Actress Abigail McKern, who played Liz Probert in series 5–7, is the real-life daughter of Leo McKern, who starred as Rumpole.
Author John Mortimer continued working as a practicing barrister while writing the series, rising at 5:30am to write scripts before heading to work at the Old Bailey.
John Mortimer occasionally appeared as an extra in the series he created.
The show's theme music was composed by Joseph Horovitz, who made extensive use of the bassoon to musically complement Leo McKern's portly stature and sonorous voice.
The title sequence, created by Rob Page and featuring caricatures of Rumpole, was inspired by 19th-century cartoonist George Cruikshank, famous for illustrating the works of Charles Dickens.
Rumpole's private nickname for his wife Hilda, 'She Who Must Be Obeyed', is a reference to the fearsome queen in H. Rider Haggard's adventure novel 'She'.
Rumpole's nickname for colleague Samuel Ballard, 'Soapy Sam', is an allusion to a much-parodied 19th-century Bishop of Oxford.
After the BBC's new Head of Plays showed no interest in continuing Rumpole as a series, producer Irene Shubik brought the concept to Thames Television's Head of Drama Verity Lambert, leading Mortimer and the production to move from the BBC to Thames Television in late 1976.
The series received strong critical acclaim upon its Thames Television debut, with The Times calling it 'not to be missed' and Nancy Banks-Smith of The Guardian joking that the BBC had 'mislaid a tasty box of kippers' by losing the show to Thames.
Producer Irene Shubik left Thames Television during production of the second series after her pay was reduced while Leo McKern and John Mortimer received raises, souring her relationship with Verity Lambert.
Five different actors have portrayed Horace Rumpole across various BBC radio productions since 1980: Leo McKern, Maurice Denham, Timothy West, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Julian Rhind-Tutt.
