DETECTION, MYSTERY AND MURDER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 491, 19 November 1948, Page 23

DETECTION, MYSTERY AND MURDER

Four New Thrillers from BBC |

RIME doesn’t pay, they say -unless you write a book about it. It is also a fruit.ful source of material for radio playwrights, and next week’s programmes should provide plenty of

entertainment. foT those who. like a good thriller on the air (whether it is spiced/with humour or is of the straightforward whodunit type), for four new BBC ‘shows dealing with the murkier side of life are to be broadcast from vari_ous stations. At, 9.30 p.m, on Monday, November 22, listeners to 2YA will wear the first episode of Crime, Gentlemen, Please! the latest comedythriller in which Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford renew the partnership that

has made them two | of the most popular laughter-makers in radio. In Traveller's Joy, Fool’s Para-

dise, and Double Bedlam, they played the parts of Woolcott and Spencer, the two well-intentioned but slow thinkers who always finally succeeded in defeating the crooks without having any very clear knowledge of what it was all about anyway. As Berkeley and Bulstrode in Crime, Gentlemen, Please! their genius for grasping the obvious and getting it wrong is slightly impaired, but they do have interests outside of sport and the pursuit of the Right Thing. Naunton Wayne, as Berkeley, plays a professor of archaeology who also writes thrillers, and Basil Radford, as Bulstrode, is a retired colonel turned farmer. Max Koster, who wrote the script, gets them nicely mixed up with smugglers and the Black Market before the end‘ of the first episode, and the fun and thrills are kept going all out until the eighth. For those who prefer,a more scientific sort of detective there is Lord Peter Wimsey in Whose Body? the serialised version of the Dorothy RE Sayers novel. It is more than 20 years since Wimsey made: his bow, and immediately won the high regard of connoisseurs of crime fiction. Dorothy L. Sayers has published many of his adventures since then, and Whose Body? is as good an example of them as could be found. From the opening episode, where inoffensive little Mr. Thipps discovers the body of a. perfect stranger in his bath, the action moves rapidly from one intriguing situation to- another. The BBC adaptation is in six episodes; and has been praised by English radio critics for its slick effectiveness and the joyous gusto with which it is played. Whose Body? starts from 3YA at 7.58 p.m. on Tuesday, November 23. The part

of Lord Peter Wimsey is played, incidentally, by Hugh Burdon, a British actor, born in Colombo, who made his first West End appearance in the famous Edgar Wallace thriller The Frog. Two half-hour mystery plays will be heard next week. Both are produced Co i i ae. ee. ©, ee

My Avecetyss wee VER" ster of the BBC. Sweet Death (1YA at 10.0 pm. on Wednesday, November 24) is by Christianna Brand, an ingenions crime-fic-tion writer who is expert at adding new twists to the plot just when you think everything is becoming neatly unravelled. The play is about a woman who fights a battle of wits with the police. A Nice Cup of Tea, by Anthony Gilbert, is another grim little story that does not work out

just as the listener expects. It will be heard from 3YA at 9.30 p.m. on Saturday, November 27.