• Air date: 01 Jan '90 7 episodes
      Hetty Wainthropp Investigates is a genteel British crime/comedy drama television programme that aired from 1996 to 1998 on BBC One. Patricia Routledge starred as the titular character, Derek Benfield as her patient husband Robert, Dominic Monaghan as their lodger Geoffrey Shawcross and John Graham Davies as DCI Adams. Later episodes include Suzanne Maddock as Janet Frazer, a feisty young auto mechanic who sells a car to Geoffrey; their relationship develops by the end of the series. In the United States, episodes have been featured on PBS's anthology programme Mystery!
  • List of Episodes (7)
    • 1. Missing Persons (Pilot Episode)

      01 Jan '90
      Hetty Waintthropp is annoyed at the cards celebrating her sixtieth birthday--they all offer her well wishes for ""joining the club"" of senior citizens and old-age pensioners, even though she's not entitled to a pension. Determined to make something of herself, Hetty gets a job at the local post office, where she proves her mettle quite quickly by throwing out a troublemaking biker and chasing down a shoplifter.
    • 2. The Bearded Lady

      03 Jan '96
      Hetty is called on by a pair of worried parents whose deaf-mute son, Malcolm, has disappeared while out bird-watching on the day he was to meet his mail-order bride from Thailand. Malcolm is on the run because he has witnessed the strangulation of a beautiful model-turned-journalist by her lover, Sergeant Steve Lennox, a rogue policeman. After doing the deed, Lennox sends the woman's body over a cliff in a car -- and takes off after Malcolm. Hetty and Geoff's search for Malcolm proves more diffi
    • 3. Eye Witness

      10 Jan '96
      A restaurant owner in Italy is sent a package apparently containing his son's index finger plus a photo of him in front of graffiti art in Manchester and a warning: Silence and await instruction. The distraught family finds solace when who should be taking a holiday in Italy than Hetty Wainthropp? After snooping at her passport and learning she's a detective, they come to her and she accepts their case. As hetty investigates, she discovers that Gianni may be involved in a bad loan connected to
    • 4. Fingers

      17 Jan '96
      Hetty and Robert travel to the small village of Readsby, where his revered elderly uncle, a former professional soccer player, has apparently committed suicide. But Hetty doesn't believe it -- for one thing, where's the suicide note? And when she begins to suspect that the villagers of Readsby, once a notorious haven for witches, are engaged in satanic practices, she's determined to prove that they were somehow involved -- with surprising results!
    • 5. Widdershins

      24 Jan '96
      A desperate Hetty takes Geoffrey up and down the streets and sidewalks of town advertising the detective agency. This proves to be a wise method of business, as they pick up a client: a woman whose estranged son, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, has disappeared from his sheltered housing unit. As Hetty investigates, she discovers that the woman's son, Reg, has had a hard time being accepted by society, as well as his stepfather, who turns out to have been the person who threw Reg into
    • 6. A High Profile

      31 Jan '96
      An old friend of Hetty's - her partner in a music-hall routine years ago -- seeks her help in locating her troubled foster daughter, Chrissie. A teenage mother, Chrissie has disappeared just as a series of arson attacks on local homes have occurred --and Chrissie has a history of setting fires! As Hetty and Geoffrey look for Chrissie, a local newspaper photo competition reveals more than the photographer intended, prompting Geoff to dress in drag -- blonde wig, high heels and all -- to confront
    • 7. Safe as Houses

      07 Feb '96