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Hetty Wainthropp Investigates

If you are looking for a mystery series to watch that is short on the gore and long on fun with a lot of “cozy-ness” thrown in, then look no more……. you have found it……. Hetty Wainthropp Investigates is for you!

I first started watching the Hetty Wainthropp series on PBS years ago, and, having been a fan of Keeping Up Appearance, I was already a fan of Patricia Routledge. If you first saw Routledge as Hyacinth Bucket (Keeping Up Appearances… and pronounced “Bouquet”!!!) and then as Hetty, you will know what a wonderful actress Dame Routledge is. Don’t expect any “pratfalls” when you see Hetty…

Expect the BBC’s wonderful attention to detail when you see the Hetty Wainthropp Investigates shows. Patricia Routledge (as I stated above) is absolutely wonderful. And, for all of you Tolkien Trilogy movie fans, Geoffrey, her young, but very capable sidekick is played by Dominic Monaghan. (You might also recognize him from the TV show Lost…)

The first season of the Hetty Wainthropp Investigates is from 1996. We meet Hetty (right as she turns sixty), her retired husband Robert (Derek Benfield), and Geoffrey. Hetty is determined that she will not be a “senior citizen”… She is too young for that label, and she is going to show the world that people in the later part of their lives are viable and productive. And that, she does!

She starts up a detective agency with Geoffrey as her assistant in the field, and Robert, who is only involved in the field when absolutely necessary, handles the phone back in the “office” (home). She slowly wins the admiration and respect of DCI Adams (played perfectly by John Graham Davies), and is even called in a few times when DCI Adams feels that a case needs Hetty’s gentle technique. Unfortunately, PBS only showed four of the six episodes in the first season of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates.

At the end of 1996 and beginning of 1997, the BBC filmed six new shows for the second season of the Hetty Wainthopp Investigates series. (Again, for some reason, PBS only showed four of the six episodes.) These shows were as good as the first season’s. The scenery is beautiful, the acting is faultless, and the shows are great fun to watch. Very cozy!

Apparently, the BBC knew that they had a great show on their hands, because the third season of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates has nine episodes in it, instead of the previous two seasons that only had six episodes each. During the middle of the season, Robert (Hetty’s husband) makes an abrupt trip to Australia to visit their son. I am not quite sure what happened to the actor who played Robert, but, they brought Robert’s brother Frank in to replace him for the rest of the season. Although I missed Robert, Frank was able to infuse a new type of “friction” to the series, as he insists on helping Hetty and Geoffrey, usually messing things up along the way.

In 1998 the BBC made the fourth season of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, which unfortunately is the end of the shows. Hetty’s husband is back, and you don’t want to miss him as the millionaire who is confined to a wheelchair!  Of course, seeing Geoffrey as his chauffeur is a real treat!

One thing that I feel I must add is that six years before the BBC bought the rights to Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, another network commissioned a pilot for the series. Missing Persons is the name of the pilot, and it is based on the David Cook novel with the same name. The station (ITV) didn’t pick up the series.  I was able to track down this movie, and was really surprised at how different everything is. I would definitely not recommend watching this episode first; it is not at all like the BBC Hetty Wainthropp Investigates series. And, if you do decide to watch this pilot, it might help if you convince yourself that it is another character with the same name as the wonderful Hetty Wainthropp, even though Patricia Routledge is also the actress playing this very different Hetty.

I can truly say that I love (and highly recommend) the Hetty Wainthropp Investigates series!

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Comments

  1. I also wondered about Hetty’s husband. I was thinking that maybe he got sick because I noticed he started looking thinner and kind of frail a few episodes before they said he went to Australia. Just a thought.

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  3. We just watched the first disc of Season One on Netflix. Fun stuff! Interesting to hear that the earlier pilot is different; that would be based on the original novel, right?

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  4. Isn’t Hetty Wainthopp Investigates a terrific mystery series? I wish they had made more episodes. Of course, Dominic Monaghan, after his terrific success in the Lord of the Rings movies, would probably not be available to play Geoffrey >>> not to mention that he would no longer be a very young side-kick.

    I haven’t read the novel, so am not quite sure if the Missing Persons pilot is based entirely on it.

    I think that if people started with that pilot movie/show, they probably wouldn’t bother getting the series.

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    • I was introduced to Hetty in the first episode and loved it.

      My sole complaint is that It was then moved from glorious Yorkshire to red rose country. What the check were TPTB thinking?

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  5. “We don’t do murder…”

    Gotta love this show. It’s a great one for would-be writers, too, in that they meet the no-murder challenge so beautifully. All sorts of mysterious things going on out there…

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  7. I am a big fan of Patricia Routledge, after having watched the entire series on netflix. I hunted until I found this detective series. Though a completely different character, I found myself treated to the occasional Hyacinth facial tic, eye brow raising, hand gesture, etc. And perhaps as a nod to her old character, she uttered the line, “I can’t possibly answer the phone with wet feet”. Classic. Definitely worth the trouble I went through to find it (of all places…on YouTube!).

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    • Kathie, I watched Hetty Wainthropp Investigates by myself, and then again with my husband. I enjoy this British mystery show so much that I then watched it again with my daughter. I am sure I will watch it again in the future. Patricia Routledge is terrific!

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  8. Danna, I’m so pleased that you are a fan of “Hetty Wainthrop,” set in my beloved home county of Lancashire, where folk are forthright and nosy and call a spade a spade. It’s a wee bit old fashioned and nostalgic but that’s it’s appeal. I know all the locations of course,and, “exiled “as I am at the moment (in lovely Staffordshire, no sweat) I love spotting them.
    Patricia Routledge is a great actress but she is also a very good singer and has played in many West End of London musicals.

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  9. I’m a big fan of Patricia! Saw her first as Hyacinth and have tried to watch everything she’s been in, because she always delivers whether it is comedy, drama, music, whatever. There is a very old British film starring Peter Sellers, wish I could remember the name of it! Patricia was very young and thin and completely hilarious in the role she played. Reminds me of Carol Burnett. If I ever run across it again, I will post the title here, she only had a small part but she stole the film! I’ve always wondered if she got along with Sellers, I’m a fan of his too but there are some wild stories about him.

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    • Don’t know about that film but she was in “30 is a dangerous age, Cynthia” with Dudley Moore.
      I first remember her in Alan Bennet’s “A Woman of no Importance” which was a dramatic role, a monologue – she’s so versatile.
      Do you remember the skit Peter Sellers made of “A Hard Day’s Night?”
      It was a recitation of the lyrics in Theatrical Manner, and very funny.

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      • p.s. That record came to my mind because of the recent re-burial of Richard 111 -Sellers based his skit on Laurence Olivier’s version in a film version of the play.

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    • Donna Mc, I tried to find the movie you’re referring to, but couldn’t. Please let us know when you come up with it. She’s terrific in everything she was ever in. I appreciate how different Hyacinth and Hetty are, and she makes both of them her own!

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      • This might be a red herring but I’ve found a ref. to a comedy LP with Patricia Routledge and Peter Sellers called Bridge on the River Wye, directed by Spike Milligan and produced by George Martin, 1962. Go to the Peter Cook Appreciation Society.

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    Just saw “The Bearded Lady” and didn’t get the ending. Hettie collects a nice fee from the you-know-what company and… that’s it? Didn’t quite get the point of the brother-sister connection — was it there to create sympathy? TIA!

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  12. Kyllisa

    I’ve been Google’ing trying to find out the reason for Robert ‘going to Australia’ and being missing from the show in season 3. I’ve thought that perhaps with his arm being in a sling for the previous shows, that perhaps he required rotator cuff surgery and was off the show for recovery….but again, that is just pure speculation. Thought maybe someone else has run across that information. This is one of my favorite ‘put on in the background while I’m busy around the house’ relaxing shows, but I often find myself just wondering about Robert when that season comes on 😀 lol

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  13. I’m currently binge watching Hetty Wainthropp Investigates on Britbox and just want to add that I love the show for many of the reasons noted above, fine acting and writing, but also because many episodes also deal with controversial social issues. I also am sometimes surprised at the not so happy endings. I was very troubled by the death of the schizophrenic man in A High Profile before his mother could find him. I have to say, though, upsetting as some of the endings are, I admire that the writers dared to be realistic in those episodes rather than tie things up with sappy happy endings.
    The comic relief is well done as well.
    I saw the series on PBS years ago and never forget it. So glad to be able to watch it again!

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  14. My husband and I just finished watching the last episode. We thoroughly enjoyed each and everyone and now sad that there aren’t any left to watch. Didn’t realize that Patricia Routledge had this series after keeping up appearances, which I have watched and re-watched many times over the years.
    Guess I’ll have to switch back over to my Midsommer Murder mysteries with the new Barnaby. I’m really dreading when I catch up with the current episodes because I really enjoy those also

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  15. I am on episode 6 of Season 3, and already sad that I have only one season left to watch. I watched Hetty back when she was first on PBS, and I was so frustrated when they did not show the entire seasons. I subscribed to BritBox, and was delighted to find her there! (I also adore the series, “Vera” with Brenda Blethyn, just as an aside.)
    For other viewers who sometimes don’t quite catch all the dialog, I recommend turning on Closed Captioning. I re-watched some episodes with CC added, and discovered I had been missing some terrific lines and comments to the thick British accents some of the characters have. Anyway, just a suggestion! Cheerio!

    Reply

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