Remembering Kenneth Cope’s immaculate ‘Marty’
Mr Hopkirk – aka Kenneth Cope – is, sadly, deceased. Again. Though this time at the ripe old age of 93, instead of cut-off-in-his-prime.
As a kid I loved the 1969 ITC produced UK detective show he is best known for, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), about two private dicks based in London – one of whom, the white-suited, baby-faced Marty Hopkirk, was WFH. That is, working from heaven.
Well, technically he was in some kind of limbo, or afterlife holding pattern. Hence he was able to watch over his partner Jeff Randall (Mike Pratt), and make unannounced, all-hours home visits. More intimately than he was able to when alive and living with his wife. He saves Jeff’s life regularly and uses his paranormal powers to help him solve cases.
It is implied that Marty’s love for Jeff is what is keeping him from “passing over” properly. In the US, the show was given the title ‘My Partner the Ghost’, emphasising this implication. An almost courtly romance, where consummation would require some Holy Ghostery.
Certainly, Jeff is the only living person (apart from a medium in one episode) who can see Marty, which suggests that the bond between these ‘partners’ is mutual. In death, Marty exists only for Jeff.
Marty’s widowed, pretty, and resourceful wife Jeannie (Annette Andre) isn’t allowed the privilege of seeing him. And although he cares about her it’s obviously not as much as he cares about Jeff, otherwise she would have to be able to see him, and the show’s title would have to be changed.
I think, as you’ve probably guessed, I fancied Marty, who was a good-looking fella (it was the 1970s, remember), with big blue eyes that he liked to swivel around in close-up, being the funny man and sex-object in this PI comedy duo. His ghostly attire – his suit, shirt, tie, and shoes were all spotless, dazzling white – was also very cool. Marty looked more like a pop star than a spook. Or perhaps a male bride on his wedding day – forever scrubbed-up, immaculate and radiant.
I can see why the comic duo Reeves and Mortimer (also childhood fans) tried a reboot of the show in 2001. But I haven’t watched it, because I didn’t fancy seeing their heavily ironic style applied to my childhood.
I rewatched the original recently (on Prime Video) and realised why I haven’t seen it anywhere since I was a kid in the early 1970s. The concept and characterisation are fun, but script and plotting are often non-existent, and every episode seems to end up with a chase around some big old blowsy house just outside London, obviously rented cheap for the day to save on sets. (Lord Grade, ITC’s boss, was famously tight-fisted.)
It was a scream for UK kids back in the early 1970s, but it was originally made for US primetime, and was, unsurprisingly given its low production values, not recommissioned after the first series.
But Cope/Hopkirk was exactly as I remembered him. Glamorous. Cute. Funny. Innocent. Cheeky. Stainless. Mischievous. And slightly melancholic (he is dead, after all). Devoted to his best mate, forever. Who wouldn’t fall for that? Even without the sad, harpsichord theme tune (by Edwin Astley).
Unfortunately, the show seems to think that plain old mortal Jeff, the hard-bitten, morally ambiguous, and frighteningly unkempt PI, is the star, not impeccable Marty. Mike Pratt also appears to struggle in the role sometimes, which is understandable, given the poor script and hurried schedule. It was also a challenging genre, serious and silly – in which he had to be a man of the world, but also regularly chatting to a ghostly partner.
For his part Cope, who also appeared in Carry On films, and soaps like Coronation Street, levitates to the challenge.
And gives the performance of an (after)lifetime.