9:48am Thursday 9th September 2010
By Giles Woodforde
After 13 books and 33 television episodes, you might imagine that Morse, that most famous of Oxford fictional detectives, had solved his last case. There would be no more snapping at the pathologist, and no longer would DS Lewis always be expected to shell out for a pint at the pub.
There’s also the small matter of Morse having died in front of 18 million TV viewers, after collapsing outside Exeter College Chapel.
But Morse has come back to life as he transfers from printed page and TV screen on to the stage.
New play House of Ghosts features an entirely fresh case, written by Alma Cullen, author of four Morse screenplays.
But how on earth do you find an actor to play Morse? Everyone automatically thinks of John Thaw, who played him on TV, and Thaw himself died 15 months after his alter ego.
Enter former Dr Who Colin Baker, who put it this way when we met during rehearsals: “If you play Hamlet, you’ve got the ghosts of a hundred Hamlets before you, some of whom were superb, while others were, frankly, pants.
“But John Thaw is, and always will be, Morse for most people. I would say this wouldn’t I, but I think they’ve been quite clever to cast someone who doesn’t look anything like him, and hopefully I can bring different things to the role. Different is good.”
But, I asked Colin, can you actually erase Thaw’s Morse from the mind as you create your own characterisation?
“Probably not entirely, because I watched Morse going out, like everybody else. But that was some time ago, and I’ve deliberately not looked back at them — although John Thaw’s performance was very particular, and you can’t help but hear the resonances. What I did was go to the books: they don’t describe John Thaw, they describe Morse.”
In advance publicity for House of Ghosts, Colin Baker wrote: “I am both appalled, and greatly encouraged to discover just how many characteristics I share with the great Inspector.”
Such as?
“I also studied classics, that’s one tick. I like classical music, although, unlike Morse, I do tend to play Sibelius more than Wagner in the car. As for crosswords, I entered the Times’s competition when I was a 20-year-old, and got through to the regional finals. I’m terrified of spiders, like Morse, and took my driving test in my father’s maroon Jag.
“My children tell me that I’m intolerant and grumpy, and also like Morse, I’m frightened of heights, and wouldn’t go and look at a dead body either. We do have a lot in common.”
Colin Baker almost lives on Morse’s patch too — his home is just over the ‘county line’ in Buckinghamshire, and his four daughters were all born in the John Radcliffe Hospital.
But there’s one difference: unlike Morse, he doesn’t expect other people to buy his round at the pub.
“There is a marked divergence there! I like to have a quiet drink at home with my wife.”
House of Ghosts could not, of course, have seen the light of day without the approval of Morse creator Colin Dexter.
Talking at his Oxford home, he told me why he had allowed the project to go forward.
“I have said, and meant, that I was not going to allow anybody to take over Morse on television, I wasn’t going to allow any remakes: for me, Morse was John Thaw, and those are the definitive versions.
“But when it comes to new stories, then one could see it — there are a couple of people thinking about a series on the young Morse, following a story I wrote in the Daily Mail — they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
“So when the House of Ghosts came up, and the producers asked Alma Cullen to write a new story, I thought it was fine, and so did Macmillan, my publisher.
“I had a couple of talks with Alma about it, but I didn’t make any significant alterations, apart from trying to get to the heyday of Morse’s way of talking to Lewis, which she knew anyway, and maybe adding a bit more humour.”
Meanwhile, back at the rehearsal studio, new Morse Colin Baker did confess to one nightmare.
“I do have this recurring fear that the curtain will go up one night, and I will see John Thaw’s widow, Sheila Hancock, sitting in the middle of the front row.”
House of Ghosts is at the New Theatre, Oxford, from September 13 to 15. Tickets: 0844 847 1585 or online at newtheatreoxford.org.uk
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