The Bar shows up in some unexpected places.
Take, for example, the 2025 film Pillion starring Alexander Skarsgard and Harry Melling described by the Guardian (with a combination of words which, I suspect, have literally never been put together before) as:
“…50 shades of BDSM Wallace and Gromit in brilliant Bromley biker romance.”
It’s a controversial, very much 18+ queer love story which explores kinks, control, submission and sexuality.
There will be a point about all this, just give me a second.
Pillion is based on a book, Box Hill, which was written in 2020 by Adam Mars-Jones. Adam Mars-Jones was born in 1954, the son of Sir William Mars-Jones and Sheila Cobon. And thus, the connection: both Sir William and Lady Mars-Jones were barristers, the former having helped to prosecute the Moors murderers and, as a High Court Judge, presided over the trial of serial killer Donald Neilson.
Adam Mars-Jones is a fascinating person especially in the context of his father’s life. He wrote about his father in a searingly honest memoir, Kid Gloves: A Voyage Round My Father, which offers any prospective barrister a series of profound, hilarious and frequently deeply uncomfortable reflections on the character of an individual judge, parent-child relationships and how a life spent in the law can profoundly impact on family life.
We hear that Sir William Mars-Jones overflows with self-satisfaction at his legal success: “a resinous perfume he needed to have in his nostrils.” He is titanic in his overbearingness and “judicial” in his every waking interaction. I think it’s interesting for someone at the very beginning of their legal journey to reflect on how the qualities that make an excellent barrister or judge could become corrosive if allowed to bleed into other ordinary life. For example, the same self-confidence and ability to project power which the-then William Mars-Jones QC deployed against Ian Fleming (namely a 28 hour opening which single-handedly forced the 007 creator to cave in and abandon his case) could equally be deployed to humiliate a guest at a party. When a family friend asked Sir William whether he felt the judiciary had kept pace with social change he ordered her to leave and, when the terrified young woman tried to apologise and said she meant no offence he said: “That is something you will have to live with for the rest of your life.” His son notes that whenever he was offensive to a guest, he would always find a way to make himself the victim and use his legalese chicanery to offer them his forgiveness.
Most poignantly of all, especially in the context of Pillion’s success, Adam Mars-Jones draws out his father’s obdurate homophobia which was born not in spite of his legal mind but because of it. In a video recorded for the London Review of Books (see below), Mars-Jones, who is himself gay, explains “to him homosexuality was an absolute wrong… and if something was illegal then to him it was obvious that’s because it’s bloody wrong.”
Whilst exploring his father’s mind Mars-Jones denigrates his own capacity for the law:
“This world which was the atmosphere both my parents breathed because they were both lawyers might as well be methane to my lungs because I cannot get any nourishment from it.”
The “breathing” of the law profoundly shaped the externally projected Mars-Jones family narrative created by Sir William, who wanted all of his sons to follow in his footsteps. However, Adam felt he had a radically different kind of brain. “I always highlight my bafflement. What are these people talking about? How is a contract void because unperformable or voidable because voi- as far as I’m concerned it might as well be Gertrude Stein talking.”
But I wonder. I wonder if Mars-Jones’ creative sensitivity, ability to capture an impossibly complex parental relationship with mere words and his absolute commitment to being fair (a large part of the book is about how he moved in with his father to become his carer when he suffered from dementia in old age) actually represents the potential for an exceptionally good barrister. Not just successful in the way his father was but good.
Either way, it is rare to be able to explore a profession from a psychological, personal and family perspective. It also reflects the richness and breadth of life experience that a dynamic, individual-driven profession like the Bar gives rise to. Sir William Mars-Jones probably could not have imagined in his most tortured nightmares that people in 2026 may only have heard of him because of a film like Pillion, yet here we are.
As I say, a connection to the Bar can show up in the most unlikely of places. But where pulling on a thread can immerse us in exploring what it means to be a lawyer, or even just a member of a family, it is well worth doing so.
Thanks to Richard Griffiths for this piece; it is so true that when an interest is fired (particularly a career-based one) you start seeing connections everywhere. The worlds of literature and film are a brilliant place to start.
Richard is a graduate of Durham University and aspiring barrister having won Durham’s major mooting and mock trial competitions. Before writing for Lawbore he was Head of News for his student broadcaster, PalTV, a researcher for The Times newspaper and an aide to a Member of Parliament. He is developing an interest in commercial and public law, particularly where it intersects with information, media and technology. He is currently on the GDL at City.