Jennifer Selway: The war is finally over for Foyle

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The gorgeous Honeysuckle Weeks, who played the role of Sam in Foyle's War, pictured in 2004

Similarly Foyle’s War was first broadcast in 2002 and 13 years later the last ever episode (sad to write this) will be shown tomorrow. 

The drama is now in the post-war period but even so it too has lasted longer than the conflict it portrayed. 

Some years ago foolish TV executives axed it because ITV wanted to chase younger viewers. 

Following an uprising by fans (old, cross ones) it was brought back. 

The truth is I’m not sure there are any more stories to tell

Anthony Horowitz

Conceived as a replacement for Inspector Morse, it was created by Anthony Horowitz who says: “It feels a terrible wrench to say good bye to characters I’ve lived with for more than 15 years. But the truth is I’m not sure there are any more stories to tell.” 

A poor excuse, frankly. 

Foyle’s War was both a Second World War drama and a police drama. There are plenty of both but this was special. 

It wasn’t just the painstaking period detail (though the sight of a Routemaster bus years before they were on the roads caused a stir among purists), nor was it the plots, nor the performances from Michael Kitchen and Honeysuckle Weeks, wonderful though they are. 

Foyle’s War may be cosy Sunday night TV but it has an air of moral seriousness about it, as Morse did. 

The sombre, stylish opening credits set the tone for a drama of troubling intelligence. 

Set in the quiet seaside town of Hastings it picked away mercilessly at the comfortable and familiar myths about the war. 

No, people did not always behave honourably, stoically and heroically.

The stories were about sabotage, the black market, Nazi sympathisers and bigotry towards foreigners. 

The teaming of Michael Kitchen as detective Christopher Foyle and Honeysuckle Weeks as his driver Sam was inspired. 

Kitchen is a brilliant, mysterious actor who never gives interviews but turns in subtle, authoritative performances every time. 

Foyle was not an action man but a reaction man – that distinctive chewing of the lip as he sought the right words for the occasion, his hooded eyes assessing every situation, astute, watchful. 

He could do disdain for unworthy superiors magnificently. 

Sam (for many gentlemen viewers a posh girl pin-up in her neatly pressed uniform) was Foyle’s perfect foil. 

There was never a hint of anything between them, which was as it should be though she did of course fall badly for Foyle’s fighter pilot son Andrew. 

Tomorrow’s final episode will probably not deliver some earth shattering denouement. 

It will be well-constructed, beautifully acted, visually impeccable. 

But once it’s over it’s unlikely that there will be anything of similar quality to fill the gap it leaves. 

Oh and if someone in the costume department could parcel up Honeysuckle Weeks’s beautiful 1940s overcoats and send them to me I’d be jolly grateful.

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