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{{short description|British television mystery crime drama series (1997–2016)}}
{{other uses}}
{{refimprove|date=November 2024}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=
{{Infobox television
| image = Jcreek title.jpg
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| alt_name =
| genre = [[Mystery fiction|Mystery]] [[Drama]]
| creator =
| writer = [[David Renwick]]
| director = [[Sandy Johnson (director)|Sandy Johnson]]<br>Keith Washington<br>Marcus Mortimer<br>Richard Holthouse<br>Christine Gernon<br>David Renwick<br>[[David Sant]]
| starring = [[Alan Davies]]<br>[[Caroline Quentin]] <small>(1997–2000)</small><br>[[Julia Sawalha]] <small>(2001–2004)</small><br>[[Sheridan Smith]] <small>(2009–2013)</small><br>[[Sarah Alexander]] <small>(2013–2016)</small>
| narrated =
| opentheme = "[[Danse macabre (Saint-Saëns)|Danse macabre]]" by [[Camille Saint-Saëns]] (arr by [[Julian Stewart Lindsay]])
| composer =
| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
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| num_episodes = 32
| list_episodes = List of Jonathan Creek episodes
| executive_producer =
| producer =
| editor =
| location =
| cinematography =
| camera =
| runtime =
| network = [[BBC One]]
| first_aired = {{start date|1997|5|10|df=y}}
| last_aired = {{end date|2016|12|28|df=y}}
}}
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Sheridan Smith reprised her role as Joey in both specials. Series 5 comprised three episodes and featured [[Sarah Alexander]] as Jonathan's wife Polly. These episodes were shown at 9{{nbsp}}pm on Friday 28 February, 7 and 14 March 2014 respectively.
In 2014, conflicting reports surfaced regarding Alan Davies's view of the show. In one article published online he was said to be
On 4 March 2016, it was reported that the series would be returning for another 90-minute one-off special, with filming to begin in summer 2016.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/cult/news/a785761/jonathan-creek-is-returning-to-bbc-one-for-a-new-special/|title=Jonathan Creek is returning to BBC One for a new special |first=Catriona |last=Wightman |work=Digital Spy |date=4 March 2016 |access-date=3 August 2016}}</ref>
The cult success of the series won it the [[British Academy Television Awards|BAFTA]] for [[British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series|Best Drama Series]] in 1998.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000123/1998 |title=BAFTA Awards (1998) |work=imdb.com |year=2014 |access-date=21 July 2014}}</ref> It was notable for featuring comic characters and sub-plots that lent a lot of humour to the series. Unusually, it was produced by the BBC's in-house Entertainment department rather than the Drama department – this was because Renwick preferred working with people he knew rather than the people at Drama who might not share his vision.<ref name=WorldOfJonathanCreek>{{cite book|first=Steve |last=Clark |title=The World of Jonathan Creek Paperback |date=21 October 1999 |publisher=BBC Books |location=London |isbn=978-0563551355 }}</ref> It has included guest-stars such as [[Bob Monkhouse]], [[Griff Rhys Jones]], [[Rik Mayall]], [[Jack Dee]], [[Bill Bailey]], [[John Bird (actor)|John Bird]], [[Nigel Planer]] and [[Ade Edmondson]], who are mainly associated with comedy, but who gave straight performances.
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==Concept and casting==
[[David Renwick]] wanted to write a detective series that dealt with the actual work of detection rather than action, which most crime dramas appeared to focus on at the time.<ref name="WorldOfJonathanCreek"/> Also, whereas most of these were about ''who did it'' (''[[Inspector Morse (TV series)|Inspector Morse]]'' or ''[[Taggart (series)|Taggart]]'') and ''why it was done'' (''[[Cracker (UK TV series)|Cracker]]''), this new series would be about ''how it was done'', with such tropes as murders committed in [[Locked room mystery|locked rooms]], a person being in two places at once, or impossible thefts. Finding a culprit would still be part of the detective's job, but the emphasis would be on discovering how the crime was committed.
Magic would play an important part of the series, but it would be in the form of tricks and [[Sleight of hand|sleight-of-hand]] used by stage magicians to audiences. The programme often exposed how such tricks are actually done, but in a way quite banal compared to the trick itself.
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==Cast==
{| class="wikitable planrowheaders" style="width: 100%; margin-right: 0;"
|-
!rowspan=2|Actor
!rowspan=2|Character
!rowspan=2|P
!colspan=4|Series 1
!colspan=6|Series 2
!rowspan=2|S1
!colspan=6|Series 3
!rowspan=2|S2
!colspan=6|Series 4
!rowspan=2|S3
!rowspan=2|S4
!rowspan=2|S5
!colspan=3|Series 5
!rowspan=2|S6
|-
!1
!2
!3
!4
!1
!2
!3
!4
!5
!6
!1
!2
!3
!4
!5
!6
!1
!2
!3
!4
!5
!6
!1
!2
!3
|-
! colspan="
|-
|[[Alan Davies]]
|Jonathan Creek
|
|-
|[[Caroline Quentin]]
|Maddy Magellan
|
|
|-
|[[Julia Sawalha]]
|Carla Borrego
|
|
|
|-
|[[Sheridan Smith]]
|Joey Ross
|
|
|
|-
|[[Sarah Alexander]]
|Polly Creek
|
|
|-
! colspan="
|-
|[[Anthony Head]]
|rowspan=2|Adam Klaus
|{{yes2|}}
|
|-
|[[Stuart Milligan]]
|colspan=5 {{no|}}
|{{yes2|}}
|
|colspan=3 {{yes2|}}
|{{no|}}
|colspan=2 {{yes2|}}
|colspan=2 {{no|}}
|{{yes2|}}
|{{no|}}
|colspan=2 {{yes2|}}
|{{no|}}
|colspan=7 {{yes2|}}
|colspan=5 {{no|}}
|-
|
|Barry Opper
|{{yes2|}}
|{{no|}}
|
|
|colspan=2 {{yes2|}}
|colspan=24 {{no|}}
|-
|[[Adrian Edmondson]]
|Brendan Baxter
|
|
|
|-
|[[Rik Mayall]]
|DI Gideon Pryke
|
|{{yes2|}}
|
|{{yes2|}}
|colspan=4 {{no|}}
|-
|[[Bill Bailey]]
|Kenny Starkiss
|
|{{yes2|}}
|
|{{yes2|}}
|colspan=10 {{no|}}
|-
|[[John Bird (actor)|John Bird]]
|Horace Greeley
|
|
|
|-
!rowspan=2|Actor
!rowspan=2|Character
!rowspan=2|P
!1
!2
!3
!4
!1
!2
!3
!4
!5
!6
!rowspan=2|S1
!1
!2
!3
!4
!5
!6
!rowspan=2|S2
!1
!2
!3
!4
!5
!6
!rowspan=2|S3
!rowspan=2|S4
!rowspan=2|S5
!1
!2
!3
!rowspan=2|S6
|-
!colspan=4|Series 1
!colspan=6|Series 2
!colspan=6|Series 3
!colspan=6|Series 4
!colspan=3|Series 5
|}
===Guest cast===
Many well-known actors have appeared in the series, including [[Bob Monkhouse]], [[Rik Mayall]] (who had been considered to play Jonathan) and [[Jack Dee]] who are better known for their comedy roles. Other guest stars, both comedy and straight, have included: [[Rob Jarvis]] who made two appearances, each time as a different character, [[Colin Baker]], [[Sheila Gish]], [[Alistair McGowan]], [[John Bluthal]], [[Lysette Anthony]], [[Simon Day]], [[Selina Cadell]], [[Peter Davison]], [[Pippa Haywood]], [[Dermot Crowley]], [[Deborah Grant]], [[Amanda Holden]], [[Nicola Walker]], [[Francis Matthews (actor)|Francis Matthews]], [[Griff Rhys Jones]], [[Maxine Peake]], [[Rebecca Front]], [[Terrence Hardiman]], [[Michael Brandon]], [[Jim Bowen]], [[Dinah Sheridan]], [[Hattie Hayridge]], [[Steven Berkoff]], [[Mary Tamm]], [[Benjamin Whitrow]], [[Bill Bailey]], [[Sophie Thompson]], [[Maureen Lipman]], [[Celia Imrie]], [[Judy Parfitt]], [[Katherine Parkinson]], [[Paul McGann]], [[Ian McNeice]], [[Joanna Lumley]], [[Paula Wilcox]], [[Raquel Cassidy]], [[Kieran Hodgson]], [[June Whitfield]], [[Josie Lawrence]] and [[Warwick Davis]].
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===Cast links to other Renwick productions===
Actors [[Annette Crosbie]], [[Peter Copley]], [[Jonathan Kydd (actor)|Jonathan Kydd]], [[Brian Murphy (actor)|Brian Murphy]], [[John Bluthal]], [[Hannah Gordon]], Nick Maloney and [[John Bird (actor)|John Bird]] made appearances, (Bird as two different characters, one of which a recurring role) and all worked with
[[Tamsin Greig]], [[Georgie Glen]], [[Sheridan Smith]] and Sara Markland worked with Renwick on his sitcom ''[[Love Soup]]''.
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[[Doreen Mantle]] has appeared in eighteen episodes of ''One Foot in the Grave'', one episode of ''Love Soup'', as well as one episode of ''Jonathan Creek''.
==Character development==
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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 (magician)|Ali Bongo]].<ref>{{cite web |url= https://twitter.com/alandavies1/status/1306843816 |title=Thanks for all tweets regarding ... |author=alandavies1 |work=twitter.com |date=10 March 2009 |access-date=21 July 2014 |quote=Thanks for all tweets regarding Ali Bongo's passing. He was a great inventor of tricks & the inspiration for J Creek, nice man.}}</ref>
As the series progresses, Creek gradually changes from an asocial [[anorak (slang)|anorak]]
For the 2001 Christmas special and thereafter, Caroline Quentin declined to appear, and so a second supporting role was introduced, [[Theatre|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
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 Maddy, Carla or Joey. In "The Scented Room", which centred around a theft from a critic who had lambasted Adam's act, he took great delight in announcing that 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 Maddy 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.
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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 Maddy being held at gunpoint by a gang member who was only just disarmed thanks to a card trick Jonathan had picked up recently. The [[The Grinning Man (Jonathan Creek)|2009 special]] contained a hybrid of elements from earlier and later series, with the lethal engineering element, somewhat reminiscent of "[[List of Jonathan Creek episodes|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.
In the 2013 episode "The Clue of the Savant's Thumb", Jonathan Creek had left the world of theatre and magic and is now a high-powered businessman with a wife, Polly
==Episodes==
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In 2021 [[Alan Davies]] commented that [[David Renwick]] "wouldn’t tell me if he had written a script. But if he did write one, I would do it, out of loyalty to him. I can’t see it happening, but who knows."<ref>Fletcher, Alex. (2021). [https://www.bt.com/tv/comedy/alan-davies-as-yet-untitled-dave-jonathan-creek-strictly "Alan Davies TV Passions: The As Yet Untitled star talks Strictly, Taskmaster and the future of Jonathan Creek"]. bt.com. Retrieved 2 April 2022.</ref>
In a 2021 interview David Renwick discussed his retirement from television and referred to "Daemon's Roost" as "the final Jonathan Creek",<ref>Richardson, Jay. (2021). [https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/david_renwick/features/david-renwick-interview/ "David Renwick on resurrecting Victor Meldrew interview"]. comedy.co.uk. Retrieved 26 July 2022.</ref> suggesting an end to the series. Alan Davies and [[Caroline Quentin]], among other former cast members have made clear that they would return to the show if invited.
===Stage adaptation===
In September 2022 it was reported that David Renwick had written stage adaptations of the show and that Alan Davies and Caroline Quentin had shown interest in reprising their roles. The project however has been on hold since the Covid-19 pandemic.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://uk.news.yahoo.com/one-foot-grave-could-become-090000663.html | title=One Foot in the Grave could become a West End musical | date=6 September 2022 }}</ref>
==Home media==
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==Footnotes==
{{
==References==
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[[Category:2010s British mystery television series]]
[[Category:Fictional amateur detectives|Creek, Jonathan]]
[[Category:Fictional American detectives]]
[[Category:Television series produced at Pinewood Studios]]
[[Category:British English-language television shows]]
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