MY TEN FAVOURITE RADIO PLAYS
(for US readers make that "favorite...")
One of the
difficulties in listing my top ten plays, is that other members have already
beaten me to it. A few years ago Rod Beacham's "Inter-City Contract"
was listed in an article, and I would automatically have included that amongst
my own favourites. Someone also included John Mair's "Never Come
Back" in their list with its anti-hero on the run - Richard Hanney as a
rat. That too is a play I come back to repeatedly. So I have to cheat really.
This list is my top twelve - those two and ten others!
1. The Day of the Triffids
(Serial in 6
parts - 2-10-1957 to 20-11-1957)
I am indebted to
contacts in the VRPCC for obtaining a copy of this vintage serial from 1957.
The first time around, as a 12 year old I hung on every word. My school-friends
were hooked on "Journey Into Space" but that passed me by. However, I
made a date with "Triffids" each week and it sent me to the book by John Wyndham.
Listening to it today (compared with more recent versions) it still has an
impact.
2. The Hollow Man. (1959)
(SNT -
10-1-1959)
The fairly
recent series of Gideon Fell mysteries starring Donald Sinden have had their
moments, although the last suffered from the restrictions of a one hour time
slot. John Dickson Carr's plots have enough twists and turns to fill an hour
and a half without any difficulty. However, from the opening jokey music the
Donald Sinden versions are played somewhat tongue in cheek. The original
rendition of "The Hollow Man" from 1959 with Norman Shelley as Fell
was played straight, and apart from a slight touch of the 'theatricals' in one
or two performances, stands up well today.
My Saturdays in the late 1950s always involved playing out with friends
in the daytime, a quick early tea and out to the local flea-pit cinema, and
finally home to bed with the valve portable radio by the pillow listening to
Saturday Night Theatre in the dark. This sacrosanct routine was soundly trashed
when the BBC in its wisdom brought the starting time for SNT forward from 9.15
pm to 8.30 pm. (At that stage of life the cinema won.) "The Hollow
Man", with its background of convicts escaping from buried coffins, and
not one but two impossible murders - both observed by independent witnesses but
with a rational explanation at the end - started me off as a collector of
Carr's fiction, which I read avidly for years.
John Dickson
Carr was a prolific writer of radio plays himself in the 1940s, and some of his
playscripts have been published in recent years. Sadly, very few tapes have
surfaced.
3. You Have Been Warned.
(Serial in 6
parts - 19-2-1958 to 26-3-1958)
Another John
Dickson Carr tale from the novel "The Reader is Warned", this time
from his output as Carter Dickson. A man named Herman Pennik claims that he can
cause people to drop dead just by thought - which he calls
"Teleforce" - and apparently succeeds in doing so. A named victim is
seen to twitch and fall over with no-one touching him, and there are no signs
of foul play when the body is examined. Needless to say Pennik is nowhere near
at the time. How could it happen? Who would be next? Could it be used to
eliminate Hitler or Mussolini? (The play was set in 1939.) As the play appears
lost, I only have memory to go on, but the concept was that there you were at
home listening - and horror of horrors - Pennik could choose YOU next... The
user of "Teleforce" - ultimately more victim than villain was played
by Irish actor Patrick Magee. His voice of subtle menace always brought back
memories of "You Have Been Warned" when he turned up in various films
over the next twenty-five years.
4. He Wouldn't Kill Patience
(SNT - 4-4-1959)
A final Carr
thriller, again from the Carter Dickson output, and again one that seems to be
lost. Patience is a small tree snake. Her keeper apparently commits suicide.
The room in which he gasses himself is locked from the inside, and completely
sealed up from the inside, even down to sticky paper over cracks in doors and
windows. But - Patience, the pet tree snake also dies in its cage in the room.
Even if he had committed suicide, he wouldn't kill Patience... How was it done?
Felix Felton had another rich fruity voice, akin to Norman Shelley, to play
amateur sleuth Sir Henry Merrivale, a slightly more humorous version of Gideon
Fell.
John Dickson
Carr wrote over twenty novels under the Carter Dickson banner. To my knowledge,
apart from the two above, only the Carr ones seem to have been taken up by
dramatisers. They would be worth some enterprising adapter to consider.
5. The Last Renaissance Man
(SNT -
14-6-1986)
A nicely moving
thriller by T D Webster about fake antiques and murder, with a stirring bit of
Vivaldi as the theme music. For some reason this has become a generic comfort
blanket in our household. If someone takes to their bed with flu, "The
Last Renaissance Man" invariably makes the playlist.
6. The Wench is Dead
(SNT - 21-3-92)
John Shrapnel
played Morse in three excellent radio versions of Colin Dexter's novels in the
1990s. It is a great shame there were not more. These adaptations were far more
faithful to Colin Dexter's novels than the TV series with John Thaw. (There was
a feeling of déjà-vu when Shrapnel turned up as a main character in one of the
TV episodes opposite John Thaw in "Death Is Now My Neighbour".)
All three plays
- "Last Seen Wearing", "The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn"
and "The Wench is Dead" are excellent. I have chosen "The Wench
is Dead" because the TV version seemed to stray even further from the
novel than usual, even eliminating Sergeant Lewis. The main plot device
(policeman stuck in hospital solves ancient crime) is a steal from Josephine
Tey's "The Daughter of Time" - which was turned into another
excellent play starring Peter Gilmore as Inspector Grant.
7. Speckled Band
(Probably
4-9-1962)
This Conan Doyle
story, is a token of the Carlton Hobbes and Norman Shelley partnership as
Holmes and Watson. A grand staple of Children's Hour until the adults
complained that it was on too early for them. A simple production, depending
enormously on the projected voices of the actors. It was apparently recorded on
several occasions by Hobbes and Shelley, with different supporting casts. My
version is the one issued on the BBC Radio Collection.
8. Enquiry
(Afternoon
Theatre - 19-19-1979)
From the very
opening words of actor Tony Osoba "Yesterday, I lost my licence" -
this adaptation of a Dick Francis novel rumbles away at a fast pace and the
hour and a half speeds by. They must have had great fun in the studio staging
the fight with the hero's demented nemesis at the end. Our off-air recording
was virtually worn out by the time the BBC issued it with "Bonecrack"
- another excellent play starring Francis Matthews - in the BBC Radio
Collection.
9. Daughters in Law
(SNT - 2-9-1961)
This stands for
the whole Henry Cecil output. His books had pages of humorous dialogue that
translated effortlessly into radio drama. A protracted legal case about a
borrowed lawn-mower, starring two veteran actors, Cecil Parker and Naunton
Wayne.
10. A Shilling for Candles
(Saturday Play -
c.2000)
Strictly
speaking this play should illustrate much of what is wrong with modern radio
drama. Pared down to just an hour, with much of Josephine Tey's novel
jettisoned, this free adaptation changes both the murderer and the explanation for
the title in the original. (Just minor details really...) However, in spite of
this, it trundles along with much good humour (including several references to
superior drama on the "wireless") and a number of set pieces that
could have featured in an Alfred Hitchcock film. Hitchcock in fact filmed the
novel as "Young and Innocent" in 1938 and also took drastic liberties
in his version. But taken on its own, it is a modern play that I have enjoyed
hearing again and again.
A personal
delight when compiling this review has been to dig out all the plays (where
available) and listen to them again. It also reminded the family that, while
reading tastes might include "great literature" our listening tastes
remain more limited. As long as the play featured a murder or mystery of some
sort, and ideally included a policeman or detective in the cast-list - we would
be sure to listen in and tape it.
