John Thaw

James Kavanagh QC is one of the top flight barristers in Britain. Each episode has him handling challenging cases and defendants which put his skills to the test regularly.

Morse (played by the late John Thaw) is not the ideal policeman, his superiors think. He is prickly and sarcastic, a bachelor, an Oxford graduate, an intellectual snob, and he doesn't always follow protocol strictly as he should. But he gets results.

Henry Willows is a middle-aged divorcee contentedly living alone. Feathers really fly as his orderly life is disrupted when his teenage son Matthew, whom he has not seen for seven years, appears out of the blue, intending to stay. While Henry has never quite seen himself as the typical loving parent, he reluctantly agrees to give the arrangement a try. The differences in age and temperament between father and son produce hilarious situations as they attempt to adjust to life together. Matthew is a typical teenager who likes rock music, girls, telling lies and drinking his father's whiskey. From the moment he moves in, life for poor Henry will never be the same.

In one of his less-appreciated roles, John Thaw plays Mitch, a hard nosed investigative crime reporter for a Fleet Street daily. Mitch is well known for getting to the heart of the matter, and handles the toughest cases with skill and vigour.

The Sweeney was one of the finest British police series of the mid 1970s. Jack Regan is a hard edged detective in the Flying Squad of London's Metropolitan police (called 'the Sweeney' from the Cockney rhyming slang 'Sweeney Todd' = 'Flying Squad"). He pursues villains by methods which are underhand, often illegal, frequently violent, and more often than not, successful.