Jonathan Creek - Summary

Summary

The series follows the exploits of Jonathan Creek and (in the first three series) Maddy Magellan, a pushy investigative journalist as they work together to solve crimes where others have failed.

Creek is a somewhat cynical designer of illusions for stage magician Adam Klaus, and lives in a windmill in Sussex; his ingenuity and lateral thinking usually, if not immediately, lead to an unveiling of the intricacies of the crime.

Magellan is a plausible liar who never seems to have trouble sneaking in to closed crime scenes, and Klaus is a flamboyant performer with a sinister stage persona who is really a dumb-witted, insensitive womaniser. In some instances, his magic tricks go comically wrong.

The programme usually features 'impossible crimes', for example an offence having been committed in a sealed environment from which no criminal could have escaped (a "locked room mystery"), paranormal thefts and murders. Creek solves these cases using his knowledge of misdirection and illusion. No matter how fantastic the crime appears to be at first, he always finds a rational explanation, giving the character a passing resemblance to stage magician turned paranormal investigator James Randi. Some aspects of the character were inspired by Ali Bongo.

As the series progresses, Creek gradually changes from an antisocial anorak to a man with a great deal of wit and charm. This helps to fuel the romantic thread between him and Maddie. Jonathan's trademark duffle coat worn in the first series was actually Alan Davies' own coat that he wore to the auditions; it helped him win the role, as the writer and producers thought it suited the character. After the first series, Jonathan's coat was supplied by the wardrobe department. Davies kept the original at his home, and wore it again for the 2009 New Year's special.

For the 2001 Christmas special and thereafter, Caroline Quentin declined to appear, and so a second supporting role was introduced, theatrical agent Carla Borrego, played by Julia Sawalha. After her first appearance, the character married TV producer Brendan Baxter (Adrian Edmondson), and she became a TV presenter.

Part of the humour comes from the fact that Jonathan often does not want to get involved in other people's problems, and has to be pressured into it by Maddie or Carla. In "The Scented Room", which centred around a theft from a critic who had lambasted Adam's act, he took great delight in announcing he had solved the crime but wasn't going to tell anybody how it was done. Initially Jonathan was only brought in to investigate because he was asked by Maddie due to her having a professional connection to the crime in her role as a journalist, or because it involved an old friend of theirs (Such as one case featuring Jonathan being contacted by an old friend of his mother's after her husband was impaled by a sword in a sealed room). As time went on, he acquired a more significant reputation and was independently recruited by such varied contacts as a chief of police or even the United States military.

Over time the show became noticeably darker, with Jonathan investigating psychopaths, pimps, gangsters and corrupt policemen, who stood in stark contrast to the duplicitous suburbanites of earlier series; one story even saw Maddie being held at gunpoint by a gang member who was only just disarmed thanks to a card trick Jonathan had picked up recently. The 2009 special contained a hybrid of elements from earlier and later seasons, with the lethal engineering element, somewhat reminiscent of "Mother Redcap", and the torture and murder of a young woman as she is held dangling by a rope in the middle of a room. This theme continued on in "The Judas Tree" with a murderer being killed and her accomplice then being framed for the crime.