The Main Chance: Coroner’s Verdict (18 Jul 1975)

Fittingly Coroner’s Verdict, the last ever episode of The Main Chance is written by series creator Edmund Ward. David is asked by Detective Sergeant Allington to look into the circumstances surrounding his wife’s death, he blames Doctor Fenway who was prescribing her medication. Meanwhile Andrew is acting for Doctor Fenway.

Margaret offers David a partnership once again, free and on his own terms but David won’t agree to it whilst Henry is still in charge. As much he values Henry he feels it is the right time for him to retire.

Watch out for a very rare view of David’s apartment from the other side of the room at the beginning of the episode, in fact it may be the only time we see that side of the room. As befitting last episode status all the series regulars are present, David hires Walter via Peter Jarrett to do the background work on Fenway,. Margaret is busy trying to lure David back into partnership. Henry is using David’s apartment as something of a base whilst on the court circuit in London. Inge is already realising that work comes before everything else for David.

By the time the episode ends there is some sense of closure, Henry does decide to retire (but will still act as a consultant to both Margaret and Henry), David has made it plain to Inge that he is just a stop on the train line of life and she decides to head back to Norway. Finally Laura looks like she may be the only woman to understand that the only way to actually keep David is to not want to keep him.

The actual final scene is a brilliant end to a brilliant series, Clegg and Main the only two left in the courtroom and David’s last line being “a keyhole with the usual draft blowing through it called the future.”

Maurice O’Connell who plays the widowed Ray Allington is best known for his role as Dolly’s wife in Lynda La Plante’s Widows. Derek Farr also pops up playing the coroner in charge of the inqust. Having been a well known movie actor in the forties and fifties he was having something of a renaissance during the mid-seventies with starring roles in Mr Nightingale and London Belongs To Me.

classic quote
“Life’s an ambush Inge, the only way to live it is as a moving target. “

production details
UK / ITV – Yorkshire / 1×50 minute episode / Broadcast Friday 18 July 1975 at 9.00pm

Writer: Edmund Ward / Production Design: Mike Long / Director: Bob Hird

Series: The Main Chance Season 4 Episode 13

cast
John Stride as David Main
Glynn Edwards as Walter Clegg
Margaret Ashcroft as Margaret Castleton
John Wentworth as Henry Castleton
Sharon Mughan as Inge Lindstrom
Gary Bond as Andrew Retford
Ingrid Hafner as Laura Granton
Maurice O’Connell as Ray Allington
Derek Farr as Robert Douglas
Michael Turner as Doctor Fenway
Rod Beacham as John Paulton
Margo Johns as Mrs Fenway
John Nettleton as Joseph Shelton
Michael Hawkins as Harold Layton
Diane Mercer as Dorothy Yeldham
James Lynch as Jury foreman