Paul Temple Pries Again

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 787, 20 August 1954, Page 19

Paul Temple Pries Again

"| HE BBC's famous private detective Paul Temple is to be heard soon from stations of the Commercial Division. in a mystery serial eptitled Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case. Through eight episodes, listeners can follow the adventures of this civilised sleuth as he unravels the reasons for several mysterious murders. The first victim is a beautiful Bond Street model, whose fiancé is charged with the crime and sentenced to death. After an interview with the condemned man, Temple cancels a proposed holiday and concentrates on what turns out to be one of his most successful cases. As with previous Temple stories, the question of "whodunit" is concealed, even from members of the cast, until the final episode. But without revealing too much of the. plot, listeners can be told that episode two, The Third Shoe, plays more than a passing part in the story. * Written. by Francis Durbridge and produced by Martyn C. Webster, the Temple story now has Peter Coke as Paul, but retains two old identities in Marjorie Westbury, as Steve, his wife, and Lester Mudditt, as Sir Graham Forbes, of Scotland Yard. The latter has taken this part in the stories ever since Temple first appeared on the BBC in 1938. Listeners to 2XA will already be familiar with the new set-up, for The Gilbert Case is currently being heard from the Wanganui station on Sunday evenings. -According to his creator, Francis Durbridge, Paul Temple was born in On-» tario; son of the late Lt.-General Ian Temple, and went to England at an early age. He was educated at Rugby and Magdalen College, Oxford, and from the age of 22 earned his living as a writer of detective novels. While on holiday in Cornwall he became accidentally involved in the notorious Tenworthy case. Sir Graham Forbes, of

Scotland Yard, was so impressed with his handling of it that he invited him to intervene in the mysterious affair of the Knave of Diamonds. Temple has been in the detection. business ever since. Outside his work, Temple is alleged to like fishing and collecting first editions; the music of Beethoven, Debussy and Jerome Kern; the plays of Noel Coward; the lyrics of Cole Porter; and, Sof course, dry: martinis. He dislikes people who always have "ideas" for plots, women who ask him if he writes under his own name, "hot" music, and _ oysters. Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case is to play from all ZB stations and 2ZA at 8.0 p.m. on Sundays, starting as follows: 2ZA 29, 4ZB September 12, 3ZB Septem£94 of: 2ZB October 10, and 1ZB Novem-