Loveliness may be absent from his work, but loneliness DeBryn seems well acquainted with in Endeavour. There’s a melancholy to James Bradshaw’s earlier incarnation of the character that’s less detectable in Peter Woodthorpe’s more cantankerous bon viveur in Inspector Morse. While both are exacting professionals who give not an inch to lesser men (“I couldn’t possibly say,” is Woodthorpe’s character’s catchphrase when asked to use guesswork instead of science. Like a fairy tale wizard, he demands to be asked the right question – a not unintelligent one – in the right format before he’ll deign to respond) more space is allowed for vulnerability in Bradshaw’s performance. There’s more space in general, with Bradshaw appearing across the prequel’s 33 films, instead of only the seven appearances Woodthorpe made in Inspector Morse before ill health forced his retirement.
That’s one joy of a prequel like Endeavour, to push deeper under the skin of characters we know and love, to peel it back and probe the wounds beneath. Actor James Bradshaw, writer Russell Lewis, and Endeavour’s many directors have created a Max DeBryn whose curtness and dry wit masks a tugging sense of loss. When Morse asks DeBryn what he makes of love in series four’s ‘Game’, he bats the enquiry away before quoting the line, “And one was fond of me and all are slain.” Morse, recognising the work of his favourite poet A.E. Housman, completes the verse. “Ask me no more, for fear I should reply.” In that same episode, DeBryn remarks, “Love and fishing. Sooner or later it all comes down to the same thing: the one that got away.” There was once somebody fond of DeBryn, it’s hinted, but whether slain, or perhaps unable to love him at a time when not all love was legally accepted, they got away.
Loneliness, or at least the pall of it cast over the prequel by our knowledge that Morse remains a bachelor, is one of many things shared by DeBryn and Endeavour. They’re fellow outsiders whose friendship is one of our greatest assurances of DeBryn’s decency. Amused as he is by Morse having no stomach for blood, DeBryn recognises a kinship there. Educated, cultured, with an appreciation of the finer things – food for gourmand DeBryn, opera for Morse, poetry and booze for them both – they’re out of place among the Jim Stranges of Thames Valley Police. (The lack of poetic soul in DS Strange puts him on the receiving end of DeBryn’s acid tongue more than once. When Strange remarks in series six’ ‘Confection’ that a victim “choked on his own puke”, DeBryn wryly comments, “Been at the Keats again, Sergeant?”)
Though DeBryn and Morse’s fondness for each other is more likely to express itself in gentle ribbing over a gin and Campari in Inspector Morse, there’s a smidge more tenderness and sincerity between them in Endeavour. It’s easy to feel that they care about each other, nowhere seen better than in DeBryn’s performing a bit of his finest broderie anglaise on Morse’s knifewound, or even in his explosive reaction to Morse and Thursday having a stand-up fight over the body of a young victim in series seven. Not only are DeBryn’s professional standards insulted by their behaviour, but he appears incensed by how destructive Morse is being. The same could be said for his series eight comment – about a victim but indirectly about Morse’s drink problem – that alcohol is a notorious depressant and “we rarely make wise choices when inebriated.” Dr DeBryn, no stranger to drink, must also be talking from personal experience.
A sharp wit, a dapper dresser, a good man, and an elegant speaker with more inventive euphemisms for death than Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch, it’s no wonder Dr Max DeBryn has become a fan-favourite character in the world of Morse. He may not be one of the leads, but even in the briefest of scenes, he never fails to leave an impression. In Colin Dexter’s novels, but particularly as played by James Bradshaw and Peter Woodthorpe, he’s somebody we’d all stand a drink for at The White Horse. So here’s to you, Max. Should we say two o’ clock?
Endeavour series 8 is available to stream now on ITV Hub and Britbox.
