MORE ABOUT PAUL TEMPLE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 660, 29 February 1952, Page 15

MORE ABOUT PAUL TEMPLE

AUL TEMPLE wasn’t born until April, 1938, but he was first thought of in Ontario, probably within ten years of the turn of the century. The turn-of-the-century touch is a modest footnote deduced, without finger-print powder or tape-recorder (magnifying glasses are definitely archaic), from Francis Durbridge’s recént account in the London

Evening News of hhow he concocted the character of the famous detective. But this peep at the files is only preliminary to introduction of BBC’s thirteenth Paul Temple serialPaul Temple and the Jonathan Mys-

tery. In this drama Temple operates in the vicinity of Oxford, making his infallible way from Oxford clue to "blue" -by degrees, Producer Martyn Webster is liberal with corpses, Kim Peacock (Paul Temple) with courage, cleverness and the like "private-eye" virtues, Marjorie Westbury (Steve, Temple’s wife) with loving support and intuition, while Lester Mudditt (Sir Graham Forbes, of Scotland Yard) acts the "also ‘ran." Mr. Temple has had a slightly more exciting life than most people pethaps,

but according to Mr. Durbridge he "has | his likes and dislikes. He likes fishing and collecting first editions; the music of Beethoven, Debussy, Jerome Kern | and Rodgers and Hart; the plays of Noel Coward; the lyrics of Cole Porter; the water-colours of Raoul Dufy-and, of course, dry Martinis. (Whoever heard of a detective who didn’t? Holmes?-de-finitely, old-hat.) He. dislikes people who always have ‘ideas* for plots (Paul Temple, too, writes mystery stories. Perhaps about people who write mystery stories about people who . . . Anyhow, he has enough ideas of his own apparently); he also dislikes women who ask him whether he writes under his own name; ‘hot’ music (a dislike considered suspect among American private eyes), and oysters." An undistinguished personality, perhaps, but to add that little extra required of good mystery heroes the author has allowed Temple a few deviations from the path of normal existence. "During the past 12 years Temple has on more than one occasion natrowly escaped death, Last year he was nearly killed in ,. ." The list will continue to grow with the presentation of the Jonathan Mystery on Sundays at 7.45 p.m. from 2ZA, beginning on March 2. The serial is scheduled for other Commercial stations later in the year.