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Shadow of the Noose

television series

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ19650508 ↗
Source-derived summary

Shadow of the Noose is a BBC television legal drama serial about the life and career of barrister Sir Edward Marshall Hall. It starred Jonathan Hyde as Marshall Hall; Michael Feast as his clerk, Edgar Bowker; Leslee Udwin as Henriette Marshall Hall; and Terry Taplin as solicitor Arthur Newton. All eight episodes were written by Richard Cooper, produced by Colin Tucker, and first transmitted between 1 March and 19 April 1989 on BBC Two. It was a co-production with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Television New Zealand.

Main cast

Jonathan Hyde as Edward Marshall Hall

Michael Feast as Edgar Bowker

Leslee Udwin as Henriette Marshall Hall

Terry Taplin as Arthur Newton

Trevor Ray as Harry Bishop

Julian Firth as Wellesley Orr

Gary Files as Mr. Justice Wills

Phil McCall as Mr. Jackson, Judge's Clerk

Richard Moore as Sir Charles Matthews

Episode list

Tie-in novel

A novel by Cooper, also called Shadow of the Noose, was published at the time the series was transmitted. The narrative of the novel mainly comprises a vast expansion of the story of Marshall Hall's first marriage to Ethel and her subsequent death, as featured in Gone for a Soldier. The book ends with the Marie Hermann case from An Alien Shore.

Home media

Although the complete series was never released on commercial home video, An Alien Shore and Gun in Hand appeared on Vol.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Shadow of the Noose” as television series. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1989—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Shadow, Noose and television can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as television series. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19650508. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1989.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Shadow of the Noose”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Shadow of the Noose primary sources, Shadow of the Noose archive and Shadow research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Shadow of the Noose”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Shadow of the Noose” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.