Radio Reviews

Given the fact this site primarily reviews radio programmes, I expect we will see a fair bit of James Follet appearing on this site. Through the seventies and eighties he wrote dozens of radio plays, many with an SF or fantasy feel, several are crying out for a decent review. The Twisted Image is a particular favourite of mine, it feels much more like a mood piece and is not dominated by a traditional narrative with a neat ending.

Initially it has the feel of an R.D Wingfield play (Douglas Blackwell &  Peter Wickham are excellent as the policemen) but slowly it moves in a different direction.  My favourite moment is the girl telling the story of visiting the empty shopping estate and seeing the shop dummies in the living fabric centre. For this small section the story steps away from a traditional crime story into the kind of urban dark fantasy popularised by Fritz Leiber (The Smoke Ghost or Our Lady of Darkness) or Ramsay Campbell. The rest of the story is less abstract in it’s presentation but this scene sets an unsettled tone for the rest of the play.

I shall not go too much into the strange happenings in the town of Oakhanger as that will remove much of the fun of the story, but time is playing funny tricks and the detectives are given a strange glimpse of the future. The story could easily have ended up like a bad episode of the X Files but James Follett wisely doesn’t try to rationalise the stranger elements of the story, you are left wondering what strange disturbance moved through the town of Oakhanger one night. In that respect it reels more like an urban folk tale told to kids to send chills down their spine.

As I mentioned earlier both actors do a great job as the policemen and James Follett’s great dialogue moves the play along swiftly, managing to highlight the strangeness of the situation without making a meal of it.

I have several more James Follett plays I would like to review and this one is not typical, it is however my favourite of all his plays. It has a nice disquieting feel which is engrossing throughout whilst carefully walking the line between horror and SF and cleverly avoiding both traps.

Grab it now..

Radioarchive link
http://radioarchive.cc/torrents-details.php?id=4488

James Follet info site
http://www.jamesfollett.dswilliams.co.uk/

Occasionally (very occasionally) you see, read or hear something that immediately becomes an old friend.  You slip into it like a comfortable shoe, and you wonder how you have ever done without it.

As you can see by my lack of posting it’s been a busy time, filming all over the UK, some big shows to prep for and we are moving into a new office.  Well on my last drive I purchased (purely on spec having read a review) Full Dark House, by Chrisopher Fowler on Audio book.  With this I settled down to listen to the CD’s as I drove around the UK.

The book features 2 new heroes for us all to enjoy, Arthur Bryant and John May – a pair of octogenarian investigators in the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Now that in itself is enough to get one interested, but when you add in the fact that Arthur Bryant is murdered on the first page, most of the book is set in 1940 and the action all takes place in a theatre its tantalising stuff.

Despite the idea of the Peculiar Crimes unit this is not the X Files.  The world of Bryant and May, whether it’s the 1940’s or present day London, is real – warts and all. There is a tremendous amount of dialogue, the relationship between the two men is critical to the success of the book and they are so clearly defined, so readily accepted by you, that by half way through the book you can see them as clearly as any literary character you have ever known.

The humour in the book, both in observation and dialogue is quite superb.  It is a real pleasure to be listening to a book, hooked by suspense one minute and sniggering the next. The detail of both modern day and the bombed out London of 1940 is fantastic, Christopher Fowler has an idea for texture and detail which fully immerses one in his world, without getting one to bogged down by unnecessary detail.

The story, building throughout to a thrilling climax, is peculiar in every regard without being ‘fantastic’. Characters are all real, but given the theatrical nature of the plot, given room for plenty of humour. It is real humour though, not manufactured and it never betrays the real dramatic centre of the book, or the tragedies behind it.

It flips backwards and forwards between 1940 and the present effortlessly, both stories, dovetailing neatly to the climax.  I think the decision the frame the drama (which is predominately set in 1940) was a stroke of genius.  The war time story could easily stand on it’s own as the drama and characters are quite brilliant, but by linking and referencing the present day and the past, the introduction of our heroes becomes so much more effective.

Knowing (and he lets us know enough, but not too much) about the events of 1940 seen from the present day, adds different complexities and dynamics to the story. What it also does is introduce Bryant and may at the very beginning of their relationship, whilst also clearly showing their present relationship.

In Bryant and May, Christopher Fowler has added 2 new characters to the great tradition of detective fiction.  When you try to summarise the characters, Bryant – brilliant, cranky, insensitive and bookish – May, Charming, empathic, organised, it gives a rather stereotyped impression.

In reality they are so brilliantly brought to life, the have the myriad of hues that real people have, and hence are not quite so easily categorised. What they are though, is thoroughly interesting and engrossing, and of course likeable.

Perhaps the biggest pleasure is to know I have heard the first book in a great series that promises many more hours with Bryant and May.

The book is brilliantly read by Tim Goodman, his Bryant is simply great and he delivers the lines with obvious pleasure.

I cannot recommend this highly enough, as either audio book or paperback – so dive in you will not regret it!

PS.  Just stared reading The Water Room and thoroughly enjoying it.

Buy them at:  http://www.wholestoryaudio.co.uk/catalogue/artist/author/christopher_fowler/654

Read about Christopher fowler at:  http://www.christopherfowler.co.uk/

With seemingly endless trips everywhere recently filming people from Brighton to Edinburgh I haven’t had much time to review but a lot of time to listen. So 3 reviews in the works, here is the first…

One of the first things I hunted for when I discovered radioarchive was R. D. Wingfield’s Outbreak of Fear.  Nosing around the internet it was always mentioned as a great radio drama and gets passing mention in the biography of the famous crumpled detective Jack Frost.  I have to admit I never got on with TV’s Frost. Nothing against it, it just never clicked with me. A shame, because if it had, I may have sought out the radio versions sooner.

So when I listened to ‘Outbreak of Fear’ I had no preconceptions, no knowledge of Wingfield’s style. What I had was a tremendously good time.

What strikes one immediately is the great characters Wingfield creates.  At the centre of it is a faultless performance by Leslie Sands as Sergeant Fowler. Down to earth, gruff, sarcastic, realistic, so many things that make him human.  Don’t get me wrong this is not a small inward performance, this is a real character actor at his very best, but it is perfect.  I understand that Leslie Sands was a favourite of Wingfield (he played Frost’s on his first radio outing) and I can see why, Wingfield’s words and Sand’s performance are perfect partners.

Things are not going well in Polford (near Denton), though of course that’s not it’s real name… A man tore his own eye out to run away from an unamed fear, people butchered and bludgeoned to death. Sounds grim?  Well it is, but it’s also very funny  (thanks to the great character interactions) and suitably fantastic by the end.

The new boy, Constable Roy Beaumont (very nicely played by Nick Orchard) offers us a narrative of thoughts, as well as the occasional chilling comment on what we are about to find out.  He finds a rural police station run by Seargant Fowler, assisted by Constable Dave Clark (Cornelius Garrett) a bit of a lad and a ladies man.  They are busy dealing with wandering sheep, the odd domestic dispute and generally trying to have an easy life.  Over the course of a few days, people are murdered, the area is cut of due to a rabies outbreak, hardened criminals escape from a prison and Superintendant Chadwick (Nicholas Courtney) turns up from U.N.I.T (sorry couldn’t resist it), turns up from the County Constabulary to take charge of the investigation.

There are red herrings, cliff hangers, twists and turns before we reach the end of this real rollercoaster thriller.

What strikes one is how Wingfield manages to mix comedy and horror without having to use black comedy, it just emerges from the natural relationships of the characters. There are real laugh out loud moments here, and moments of real terror but the two never jar, never clash clumsily, just sit side by side as in real life.

Having now listened to most of R D Wingfield’s radio plays I would hesitate to call it his best, he has written so many very good drama’s I wouldn’t like to choose.  But it’s tempo and increasingly outlandish plot make it different to a lot of his work where the plots are more mundane.

The dialogue is just brilliant and combined with an excellent cast it’s hard to go criticise really.  The pace may slacken a bit at the end, but any finale to a drama with a tempo like this was bound to disappoint just a little. Nothing wrong with the ending, you simply wish you could spend another few days in Pulford.

Anyone who hasn’t heard this should really download it and maybe it will start you on a discovery of the brillaint work of R. D. Wingfield, whose string of radio plays, without exception, are an unalloyed pleasure.

Radioarchive.cc link – Outbreak of fear:

http://radioarchive.cc/torrents-details.php?id=2306

Radioarchive.cc link – various R D Wingfield

http://radioarchive.cc/torrents-search.php?search=wingfield&cat=0&incldead=0&lang=0