[9] Although details of Morse's education are kept vague, it is hinted that he won a scholarship to study at St John's College, Oxford.
[10] He lost the scholarship as the result of poor academic performance stemming from a failed love affair, which is mentioned in the second episode of the third series, "The Last Enemy", and recounted in detail in the novel The Riddle of the Third Mile, Chapter 7.
Morse is the embodiment of middle-class Englishness, with a set of prejudices and assumptions to match, although his background, being the son of a taxi driver, might be considered working class.
In the novels, Lewis is Welsh, but in the TV series this is altered to a Tyneside (Geordie) background, appropriately for the actor Kevin Whately.
Morse is in his forties at the start of the books (Service of all the Dead, Chapter Six: "… a bachelor still, forty-seven years old …"), and Lewis slightly younger (e.g.
[citation needed] Morse's relationships with authority, the establishment, bastions of power and the status quo, are markedly ambiguous, as are some of his relations with women.
He is a crossword addict[12] and dislikes grammatical and spelling errors; in every personal or private document that he receives, he manages to point out at least one mistake.
He claims that his approach to crime-solving is deductive, and one of his key tenets is that "there is a 50 per cent chance that the person who finds the body is the murderer".
[citation needed] Among Morse's conservative tastes are that he likes to drink real ale and whisky, and in the early novels, drives a Lancia.
The spin-off consisted the following cast members: Kevin Whately as DI Robbie Lewis, Laurence Fox as DS James Hathaway, Clare Holman as Dr Laura Hobson and Rebecca Front as CS Jean Innocent.
In August 2011, ITV announced plans to film a prequel drama called Endeavour, with author Colin Dexter's participation.
Four new episodes were televised from 14 April 2013, showing Morse's early cases working for DI Fred Thursday (Roger Allam) and with Jim Strange (Sean Rigby), initially as PC Jim Strange, later DS Jim Strange, and pathologist Max De Bryn (James Bradshaw), plus Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright (Anton Lesser), DS Peter Jakes (Jack Laskey), WPC Shirley Trewlove (Dakota Blue Richards), DC George Fancy (Lewis Peek), DI Ronnie Box (Simon Harrison) and DS Alan Jago (Richard Riddell).
An adaptation by Melville Jones of Last Bus to Woodstock featured in BBC Radio 4's Saturday Night Theatre series in June 1985, with Andrew Burt as Morse and Christopher Douglas as Lewis.
[19] In the 1990s, an occasional BBC Radio 4 series (for The Saturday Play) was made starring the voices of John Shrapnel as Morse and Robert Glenister as Lewis.
[21] A year later, Cullen penned an original drama entitled Morse: In The Shallows, with Pearson and Ingleby reprising their roles.
The play, entitled Morse—House of Ghosts, saw DCI Morse looking to his past, when an old acquaintance becomes the lead suspect in a murder case that involves the on-stage death of a young actress.
[23] Subsequent stagings include Weymouth, Dorset in 2015 with Nigel Fairs,[24] and an upcoming touring production starring Tom Chambers.