Pie in the Sky (TV series)

Detective Inspector Henry Crabbe is a long-serving police officer in the fictional county of Westershire. Although very much his own man and an independent thinker, he is not a maverick, nor has he any particular neuroses; indeed, Crabbe is a highly intelligent, gentle and thoughtful man of high moral principle. On the other hand, he does have one passion in life: food. He dreams of retiring from the police to run his own restaurant serving good English fare. However, since he is the most outstanding detective in his department, his superiors – in particular Assistant Chief Constable Freddie Fisher – are reluctant to allow him to leave.

The first episode (The Best of Both Worlds) opens with Crabbe, after 25 years in the force, just seven weeks away from retirement when he finds himself close to catching high-profile fraudster Dudley Hooperman (played by Michael Kitchen), whom he has been trailing for years. While making his escape (with £3–4 million worth of stolen treasury bills) Hooperman shoots Crabbe in the leg, which, although a relatively minor injury, consolidates Crabbe's desire to retire on his police pension and open his own restaurant in the fictional town of Middleton – Pie in the Sky, technically owned by his wife Margaret, although Henry is the main chef. (Much to Henry's disgust, Margaret has no feeling whatever for food, seeing it as nothing more than fuel, and has a partiality for bars of chocolate and – horror of horrors, in Henry's eyes – prawn cocktail flavour crisps). However, during his "final" case, an investigation into police corruption, he is tricked into appearing to take a bribe. Although Crabbe himself is entirely innocent, the circumstances enable his superior, A.C.C. Fisher, effectively to blackmail Crabbe into continuing to take on occasional cases as required, threatening to re-open the inquiry if Crabbe disagrees. Thus Crabbe has, in Fisher's own words, the best of both worlds – still investigating the cases that Fisher puts his way while at the same time cooking back at Pie in the Sky.

Crabbe's portrait of Soyer

Between his first love – cooking – and being constantly called back on duty by Fisher, Henry finds that he's not going to fulfil his dream in peace.

Prowlers, sudden deaths, retrieving rebellious daughters, missing lovers, psychics and fear of the restaurant critic are all elements Henry has to deal with as well as creating his signature steak and kidney pie – containing anchovies and said to be addictive.

In the kitchen of the restaurant, Mr. Crabbe keeps a portrait of the famous French British chef and philanthropist Alexis Soyer, and sometimes takes the portrait out with him, and talks about his work and charitable deeds.

• Richard Griffiths as DI Henry Crabbe, detective and restaurant owner
• Maggie Steed as Margaret Crabbe, Henry's wife
• Malcolm Sinclair as ACC Freddy Fisher, Assistant Chief Constable of Police
• Bella Enahoro as WPC [Later DS] Sophia Cambridge, detective (Series 1—4)
• Nick Raggett as Leon Henderson, restaurant supplier
• Alison McKenna as Linda Walker, waitress (Series 1)
• Ashley Russell as John Dawson, waiter (Series 1—2)
• Samantha Janus as Nicola Dooley, waitress (Series 2—4)
• Marsha Thomason as Sally Nicholls, waitress (Series 5)
• Joe Duttine as Steve Turner, chef (Series 1—2)
• Nicholas Lamont as Gary Palmer, chef (Series 3—5)
• Mary Woodvine as WPC Jane Morton, police constable (Series 5)
• Derren Litten as PC Ed Guthrie, police constable (Series 5)
• Robert Putt as Chief Constable Braithwaite (Recurring; Series 4—5)
• Caroline Loncq as Jenny Drabble (Recurring; Series 4—5)

In order to establish Crabbe's dual role as both detective and chef, the opening credits featured a montage of the character's imagined bookshelf featuring books on criminology and various books on culinary subjects. These include: George H. Ellwanger's The Pleasures of the Table edited by Jennifer Taylor, The Selected Soyer: The writings of the legendary Victorian Chef Alexis Soyer, Elizabeth Ray's biography of Soyer, Abbie Zabar's The Potted Herb, Henri Babinski's Encyclopedia of Practical Gastronomy (under his alias "Ali-Bab"), Warne's Model Cookery and Housekeeping Book by Mary Jewry, Isabella Mary Beeton's Mrs. Beeton's Family Cookery, and Volume I & II of John Kirkland's The Modern Baker, Confectioner and Caterer.

Westershire, the fictional county where the series is set, is based on Berkshire in southern England. Although scenes in Middleton were often filmed in Marlow in Buckinghamshire, the exterior of the restaurant, Pie in the Sky, was filmed outside number 64 High Street in the Old Town in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. Originally, a florist and then a toy shop, the building became a minor tourist attraction while the series ran, and from 1997 has housed the business of a dolls’-house maker. A nearby restaurant at 80 High Street renamed itself "Pie in the Sky" (later becoming "Les Amants") to capitalise on the programme's popularity. In Olinda, Victoria in Australia, a very successful restaurant called "Pie in the Sky" also serves many of the TV series' recipes and especially its famous crusty steak and kidney pies. All internal filming at the restaurant was carried out at Bray Studios at Water Oakley, near Windsor in Berkshire. The local newspaper, the Maidenhead Advertiser, occasionally appears in the series redubbed the 'Barstock and Middleton Advertiser'. Freddie Fisher plays golf at Stoke Park Golf Club at Stoke Poges.[1][2][3]

The entire series is available on DVD in the UK.

In the United States, Acorn Media has released separate sets of all five series on 12 May 2009 (Series 1), 26 January 2010 (Series 2),[4] 7 September 2010 (Series 3),[5] 25 January 2011 (Series 4)[6] and 2 August 2011 (Series 5).[7] The complete series was released on DVD by Acorn Media on 11 November 2011.

• Pie in the Sky at IMDb
• Pie in the Sky at TV.com
• Pie in the Sky at epguides.com