Being on annual leave, and being hosue bound due to an ongoing illness and a pile of freelance work I am getting through, I have had the good fortune to come across the BBC Drama Judge John Deed.

TV Tome describes the show:

In this BBC drama series, Mr Justice Deed (played by Martin Shaw) is an unusual English High Court judge. An idealistic lawyer from a working-class background, Deed has got near to the top of his profession by his intellect, his boyish charm, and an obsessive belief in justice.

Judge Deed wants to uphold the law (and the independence of the judiciary) at all costs, and this leaves him at odds with a series of British government stooges who try to influence his judgements.

Outside court, John Deed has an up-and-down relationship with fellow barrister Jo Mills (played by Jenny Seagrove), and his glamorous ex-wife Georgina Channing (another barrister, played by Caroline Langrishe) is somehow never quite out of his life. He and Georgina have a daughter called Charlie (Louisa Clein) whose escapades have a way of getting Deed into hot water.

Shaw is great in the title role of this personally flawed, interventionist judge who keeps pissing off the higher ups. Its entertaining drama which I suspect gives a somewhat accurate picture of the tension between the executive and the judiciary and the underlying political powerplays of the British justice system.
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