Arguably¹ one of the best TV drama series² of the 90s Jonathan Creek is a BBC detective drama (with a bit of comedy) about a man who spends his life creating illusions who finds himself is dragged into solving impossible crimes.

Characters

Jonathan Creek³ [Alan Davies⁴]

From an early age Jonathan always enjoyed the process of thinking around corners that is involved in creating the impossible. He became an avid collector of knickknacks to do with the history of magic, making notes on all the greatest tricks from the past, as well as the more standard variety, and quite soon he started developing tricks of his own. Eventually the creation of magic tricks became his lifes work (much to his parents disapproval) and it has left him with a strong belief in rationalism, he believes there is no such thing as real magic and doesn't believe in anything he can't touch or see.

When Maddy meets Jonathan he is the creative mind behind the tricks of for master magician Adam Klaus (Performing tricks has never really appealed to Jonathan), although he also seems to act as his personal gopher from time to time.

Its a situation which suites him (almost) perfectly and to begin with he objects to Maddy's attempts to drag him into various murder mysteries, but he eventually becomes hooked on solving problems that seem unsolvable and exposing trickery on a grand
scale.

By the time he starts getting involved with Carla he is a well established criminal theorist while still being Adam's creative consultant.

oh and he is often seen as a typical British eccentric as he lives in a windmill and is rarely seen without his trademark duffle coat.

Maddy Magellan [Caroline Quentin⁵]

Maddy Magellan is a crime writer who hasn’t been afraid to manipulate and trick people into giving her information for her sensationalist exposés, although her approach hasn’t exactly earned her many friends, especially amongst the Police, whom she seems to have an almost innate ability to annoy. She is sarcastic, cynical, and has a strong self-serving instinct, although for some reason despite all this she is not an unlikable character.

Carla Borrego [Julia Sawalha⁶]

A pushy theatrical agent. She originally meets Jonathan while organising a guest spot for one of her clients, a famous American escape artist, on Adam Klaus's show. But then when the clients ex-wife is murdered and he insists she gets Jonathan in to solve the case, she ends up helping with the investigation and proving herself to be as resourceful and devious as any top agent in the business.

Following her brush with solving crimes Carla becomes the presenter of true crime series Eyes and Ears which is produced by her new husband. She is quite distressed that her husband keeps involving Jonathan in the programs investigations, as there is a significant spark between her and Jonathan that she seems reluctant to resolve.

Adam Klaus [Stuart Milligan, Anthony Head⁷ in Episode 1]

The well known master magician who performs the tricks Jonathan creates, a showman and a womaniser.

Characters that have appeared more than once

Barry is Maddy's Publisher.

Kenny is a would be magic trick creator who basically ruined his life when Adam replied to a set of his truly awful magic ideas with a compliment in the hope that if he did ever get a good idea he wouldn't bear a grudge.

Unfortunately Kenny has never had a good magic idea, and probably never will, so eventually ends up doing particularly ineffective street magic.

Behind the Scenes

The Writer : David Renwick

Having worked as a contributing writer and co-writer (mainly with Andrew Marshall writer of 2 point 4 children and Strange),
on many well known comedy programs for both radio and television, David Renwicks first entirely solo effort was One Foot in the Grave.

After a cautious reception to the first series One Foot in the Grave went on to become a major success. His next work was a surprising change of direction; people had been expecting another sit-com. So when Jonathan Creek turned up with its complicated puzzles, it's wit and wizardry, people where pleasantly surprised.

The inspiration for Jonathan Creek came from the unusual combination of Sherlock Holmes and Columbo, and indeed David Renwick tries to write titles for the stories that wouldn't look out of place as titles for a Sherlock Holmes adventure.

David Renwick also has a habit of writing characters specifically for people, for example in the case of One Foot in the Grave the part of Victor Meldrew was specifically written with Richard Wilson in mind. In the case of Jonathan Creek, Maddy Magellan was definitely written with Caroline Quentin in mind, but Alan Davies was not the actor envisioned for Creek, it was Nicholas Lyndhurst⁸. However when Nicholas decided it wasn't a part he wanted, after a long search of other actors and comedians, the virtually unknown Davies was given the part that he became famous for.

The Producer : Verity Lambert

Verity has had a long and distinguished career in television, starting as the first producer of Doctor Who in 1963.

Series 1 [1997]

The Wrestler's Tomb

Artist Hedley Shale (Colin Baker) is found dead, shot twice in the chest by a masked intruder. The model he was with (who is apparently his secret lover) is found bound, gagged and blindfolded next to his body by the cleaner.
However if it weren't for the masked intruder his wife would seem to be the obvious guilty party, but she couldn't have left her office without being spotted by her PA.

The police of course jump in and arrest the thief whose MO⁹ was used for the killing, but he protests that he isn't a killer. And so smelling a story of police incompetence that will sell a few books, Maddy Magellan sets out to prove the thief's innocence but to do that she has to find the real killer, with the rather unwilling help of her new acquaintance, Jonathan Creek.

Jack in the Box

Before his death former comedian Jack Holiday (John Bluthal) was living in fear, after the man convicted of his first wife's murder is released by a campaign run by the convicted man's sister and mother (with help from investigative journalist Maddy Magellan).

When jack is found dead in the ultimate locked room questions are raised about who really murdered his wife all those years ago, and if the deaths are linked. Especially seeing as Jack has apparently shot himself with hands so crippled by arthritis he couldn't even peal a banana.

The Reconstituted Corpse

When Zola Zbzewski (Kika Mirylees) writes a book about how she turned her life around, from dowdy single mother to a confident woman with Barbie doll looks through plastic surgery, her surgeon is far from pleased. The book makes him out to be some sort of deranged obsessive who put her through the operations in a quest to create perfection. In fact he is so disgusted he plan's to sue for liable on the grounds that the fanatic behind Zola's transformation was Zola herself.

When the plastic surgeons body is found along with one of Zola's earrings shortly after announcing his plans to her she looks pretty much sunk. However, after Maddy is reluctantly dragged to a meeting with Zola at her home an alibi is found.

This is all well and good until an added complication comes along, in the form of Zola's corpse. Which is discovered in Maddy's new wardrobe which has just been carried up 3 flights of stairs, was never left unattended and was definitely corpsless at the start.

No Trace of Tracy

When 16 year old Tracy Cook(Heather Jones) receives an invitation to see Roy Pilgrim(Ralph Brown) legendary lead singer of her favourite band, the now disbanded Edwin Drood¹⁰, she can't believe her luck. But as she approaches the door to Roy's home Roy is inside handcuffed to the radiator having been attacked.

The trouble really starts when Tracy disappears, and Roy says not only did he not invite her but she never entered the room, even after he is told she was seen by half a dozen school boys. So either Roy is lying or Tracy vanished as she
passed through the door.

The House of Monkeys

When the old Creek family friend Ingrid Strange's (Annette Crosbie) husband, cancer researcher Dr Elliot Strange (Charles Kay) is found impaled on a samurai sword in his own study the Police are baffled. Not only was there no way into or out of the locked study [Even the police had to hack through the window bars to get in], but his dictaphone has recorded the attack and his wife can be heard calling through the door just after. So with the impossibility of entering or leaving the room, and the certainty of the attack the police don't know where to take the case next.

Elliot's wife Ingrid despairing at the lack of progress calls the one person she knows who can explain the impossible. So soon Jonathan and Maddy are embroiled in a complex web involving intrigue, mystery and the families large collection of monkeys.

Series 2 [1998]

Danse Macabre

On Halloween the writer dubbed The Queen of Horror, Emma Lazarus(Meg Davis) is murdered by someone dressed as a skeleton, who rather unfortunately managed to disappear from a locked and surrounded brick garage. Unsure of where to turn her son in law the Reverend Stephen Claithorne (Peter Davison) calls in Maddy to try and figure things out, for the benefit of his and his wife Lorna's (Pippa Haywood) piece of mind. But Maddy ends up being dragged down into a mire of impossibilities and gothic horror. Realising she can't solve this herself she tries to enlist Jonathan, unfortunately for Maddy Jonathan is in dispose trying to sort out Adam's latest love life crisis(he could be gone some time).

So with Jonathan only able to advise Maddy has to work out who killed Emma Lazarus, and then came back to mutilate the corpse.

Time waits for Norman

Norman (Dermot Crowley) is the ultimate temprophobe, the mere idea of time passing, his life ebbing away in an unstoppable march towards the grave, scares him to death. Which unfortunately means his new wife Antonia (Deborah Grant) has had to remove all the hands from her clock collection.

When a man comes around to return his wallet saying he dropped it in a fast food restaurant on the morning he is supposed to be in New York, Norman's wife doesn't know what to think.

She calls in Jonathan and Maddy to try and clear things up but are even more baffled when it turns out that he was in New York, and he was in the burger restaurant.

The Scented Room

The hated and loathed, particularly by Jonathan since a bad review, Theatre critic Sylvester Le Fley (Bob Monkhouse) is mortified when his very expensive painting is stolen without an adequate explanation for the loss adjuster. The only clues they have are a whack on the back of Mr Le Fley's head and some footprints in one of the rooms.

Maddy eventually tricks Jonathan into going. After a brief investigation he proudly announces that it is an easy problem and he knows how it was done, he then childishly adds he won't tell them. So if Maddy wants the answer, and the reward money, she is going to have to work it out herself.

The Problems at Gallows Gate

Adam would really like his sister Kitty (Jennifer Piercey) from Dumfries to stay in Dumfries, unfortunately she occasionally turns up, like now.

After putting a major crimp in his plans to go hell raising with a famous jazz musician, Adam is glad to palm her off on Jonathan, whether her presence along with Maddy's is a total dampener on his night badger watching or not. Unfortunately Kitty sees far more than she expected when she sees a murder through a window of a cottage. Being the only witness she is asked to pick out the culprit, which she does, however it is a case for Jonathan and Maddy when it turns out the person she identified killed himself at Gallows Gate quite a while before.

Mother Redcap

When the judge who is taking part in a major trial of a Chinese gangster has been found murdered while under police protection, Detective Chief Inspector Ken Speed (Brian Murphy) needs answers. But the judge died in a room with barred windows and guards at the door, what’s more he was stabbed through the heart without a struggle, and his wife heard nothing. As impossibilities mount he enlists the somewhat reluctant help of Jonathan Creek in a last attempt to try and see a way through the facts to the answer. But at least this does mean that Jonathan gets to see more of a nice WPC (Nicola Walker) he meets.

Meanwhile Maddy is looking into the history of an east London pub, a gruesome history of death through fear, a real page turner.

But how could the cases possibly be linked?

1998 Christmas Special: Black Canary

When the love of Jonathan's life Charlotte Carney (Kate Isitt) suddenly gets in contact he should have been thrilled, but the reason she has is the death of her mother, who has managed to shoot herself several hours after dieing of an overdose. Her mother was Marella Carney (Hannah Gordon), the lone illusionist known as The Black Canary, although it was known in magic circles that she worked with her twin sister Beryl. She left her career behind 15 years ago after her sisters death while they practiced a new trick. But by all accounts no one can think of a reason for for her to kill herself now.

When they arrive on the scene DI Gideon Pryke (Rik Mayall)¹¹ is well in control of the case, and seems to be as good a theorist as Jonathan much to Maddy's amusement. And it is just as well they have so many theorist as they are in desperate need of a theory. All they have as clues is a limping man who leaves no footprints in deep snow, a lamp lead that no longer reaches, and a suicide note that explains nothing.

Series 3 [1999]

The Eyes of Tiresias

When ruthless Swiss industrialist Andre Masson (Terence Hardiman) is found dead, after apparently being attacked and murdered in his locked study, no one is going to shed many tears. Especially not his wife(Diana Weston) and business partner Craig Downey (James Gaddas). But it does upset one old lady who has no connection to him what so ever, because she dreamed it happen before the event.

When TV location finder Heidi Brayle (Rebecca Front) hears her Aunt Audrey's (Margery Mason) story she doesn't know what to make of it. However the poor fool whose windmill her TV company are filming around might have an answer.

The Curious Tale of Mr Spearfish

When digging in the garden Lenny Spearfish (Andrew Tiernan) digs up the most unlikely thing, a hoard of buried treasure. This causes the young couples life to change drastically after years of just scraping by. There is just one problem, Lenny Spearfish had signed a document purporting to mean he has sold his sole to the devil before the great find, he had thought it ridiculous, a joke, but now he isn't sure.

After this story kills the conversation at the dinner party Maddy has dragged Jonathan to, they are drawn into the problem by Alice Spearfish (Rachel Power) who being strongly Catholic can't deal with her husbands actions and his lack of repentance.

The only way to clear up the whole situation is to explain what is really going on, but new developments complicate things further. After all how can even Jonathan explain how a man can suddenly become impossible to kill?

The Omega Man

In a world more akin to the X files than reality Maddy is tipped off to be at a meeting in an old industrial building late at night. What she sees there is either an elaborate joke or something that gives conspiracy theorists the right of "I told you so". She sees the US military barge in, seize and cart off an alien corpse from Professor Lance Graumann (John Shrapnel), the scientist who called her.

Meanwhile Jonathan is the next thing to be seized by the US military to try an explain where there Alien corpse went.

Ghost's Forge

An old friend of Maddy's (who she just can't stand) Mimi Tranter (Lysette Anthony) has a problem, not only is the man she is currently seeing married with a child, but he talks in his sleep or rather it's what he says that’s the problem. He carries on talking about Ghost's Forge, a place he apparently has never been to or even heard of. However after a bit of digging the problem gets worse as Ghost's Forge turns out to be the scene of the murder of an reclusive author, Ezra Carr, where there is no motive or suspect.

So they set out to find out who the murderer is, but will it solve all Mimi's problems or just create more?

Miracle in Crooked Lane

After a major kiss and tell article is published on the lurid details of the life of Jacqui Jordan (Hetty Baynes), she is suddenly not a very popular person in her village. She starts to reassesses her life as a result of the villagers disgust. However people feel a bit guilty after she is blown up in her own shed.

But when an impeccable witness, a old missionary recovering from a crocodile induced amputation, says she saw Jacqui walking down to church after she was verifiably in a hospital bed in a coma people don't know what to think. But local resident Jeff (Tom Goodman-Hill) thinks he might know who can, his hero Jonathan Creek.

After being gladly dragged away from a Jonathan Creek fan meeting by Jeff, Jonathan and Maddy are roped in to try an explain what happened, and whether it really is a case of murder.

The Three Gamblers

After a night of trying to enjoy illusionist pushing back the form of there art with Adam sniping in the corner, Jonathan is accosted by a young woman with a tale to tell. Her Boyfriend, Floyd, herself and Floyd's business partner went to a meeting with a fixer in the drugs world, Frank Geiger, at an old farm house in the dead of night. The plan was to set themselves up drugs smuggling but the business partner gets greedy and tries to get Geiger's address book, Geiger discovers them there is a fight during which Geiger is eventually killed after six shots to the head. They dump the body in the cellar, bar the door with a dresser, and run away with the book never to return.

They thought they had got away with it but on there first drugs run in the Caribbean the police storm the place and the business partner is killed. While in hiding Floyd gets told stories about voodoo and vengeance beyond the grave. He starts to think more and more about Geiger and his revenge, after all they had always said he didn't seem human.

By this point Jonathan wants to know what it has to do with him and she tells him on there return Floyd had been convinced to talk about what he knew about the drugs running. However, when he shows them to the cellar where they left Geiger his body has moved and is now seemingly clawing at the door. Ever since Floyd has been to scared to talk to the police and the whole case might collapse.

Can a body move after death? and is Floyd right about voodoo? Jonathan thinks it impossible and so sets out with Maddy to prove how it really happened.

2001 Christmas Special: Satan's Chimney

While Maddy is away on a book signing tour in America and enjoying the hospitality of Dallas, Jonathan is trying to get an annoying theatrical agent to not charge for a safety run through with her client the famous escapologist Alan Kalanak.

When he finally gets his way Alan offers him a job, unfortunately for Jonathan before they can discuss it further Alan is called away by the news of his ex-wife’s impossible murder. And even worse he asks Jonathan to work with his agent, Carla Borrego, to work out how his ex-wife was shot through an unbroken pane of glass.

Things get even darker when Alan, after performing his latest escape from an old execution chamber called Satan's chimney, is found dead in a river.

Series 4 [2003]

The Coonskin Cap

After a series of horrific strangling of young women the police are still no closer to catching the culprit. Which isn't really surprising as their only real clue to date is the silhouette of a man in a Davey Crocket hat. So in order to jog peoples memories they stage a reconstruction, only to have it called off due to gunfire, from a gun in a locked room with the only exit a window watched by a dozen police oficers.

In desperation the police call on the help of crime program "Eyes and Ears" to run an appeal for information. It's presenter former theatrical agent Carla Borrego is less than happy when her producer husband bring is Jonathan Creek to help fathom it out.

But things truly get odd when a police officer gets strangled in a locked and inescapable college sports hall.

Angel Hair

When composer Dudley Houseman(Jack Dee), finds himself more interested in the music videos his wife makes than his wife he finds himself in a crisis. And never being one with much ability to sort himself out he finds himself drawn in to an affair with a beautiful woman with, as he describes it, angel hair.

Unfortunately when his wife finds out there is a cat fight during which his wife practically drags the woman up the drive to the gate by her angel hair, which incidentally is nearly coming out at the roots.

Things are complicated further as before his wife’s arrival his assistant says she has found a suspicious package amongst the angel haired woman's things, it looks a bit odd so they hang on to it. When his wife sees it she rips it open and inside is a videotape and a chunk of hair. The video shows the woman being held to ransom and having her hair cut off as proof. He thinks he was very nearly taken for a ride for £100,000, but their is a problem. Her hair was cut so short it couldn't take extensions, a wig would have come off in the catfight, and any cleaver make up would have shown up when they zoomed in on the video. So how had she been able to get all her hair back in the time between the radio times (shown as proof of time during the video) was published two days before and the fight?

The Tailors Dummy

On their way home the two children( and Maureen Lipman) and granddaughter of a legendary fashion designer have to watch him jump from a third floor window of their house onto a stone terrace after a bad review. This doesn't exactly endear them to the reviewer and so the son makes it quite clear she is going to eat her words.

So when the reviewers hotel room is broken in to by a masked intruder and she is forced at gun point to eat her own review it is pretty clear who the likely culprit is. Especially when she gets a sneaky glimpse under the mask during a moment of lapse.

However when the hotel manager calls on her to see if everything is OK, and the masked man hides in the shower it looks like the game is up. Except when the intruder leaves the shower and is unmasked he is not the white middle aged fashion designer, but a youngish black man, with no connection to the reviewer whatsoever, who promptly legs it in the momentary confusion.

So how could he change in the matter of moments between being seen in the mask and emerging from the shower? It appears the production company she is currently doing an in depth piece on might have someone that can answer that, Jonathan Creek.

The Seer of the Sands

A famous debunker of psychics and mediums dies in mysterious circumstances

His fiance believes that he is talking to her, helped by travellers who turn up offering their psychic services

The Chequered Box

A well known and respected police officer is implicated in a death, which he claims he knows nothing about. Which is problematic for him as there are photos of him looking at the body, taken by a tabloid photgrapher.

Carla senses there is something slightly odd about the detective, but does that make him a liar?

Gorgon's Wood

Everyone associated with a particular ancient porcelain figure has secrets, all of them seem to be tied by the sibling rivalry between a brother and sister over the ownership of it.

However when the statue disappears in the presence of the sister, being alone with it, though surrounded by people,