Part of Series
Bernard Braden stars in an original 1940 full-cast production of the very first Paul Temple adventure Between 1938 and 1968 the exploits of amateur detective Paul Temple and his wife, Steve, enthralled generations of BBC radio listeners. Theirs was an exciting world of violence and glamour - car bombs and cocktail parties. In Paul and Steve’s very first adventure, starring Bernard Braden as Paul with Peggy Hassard as Steve, a spate of jewel robberies in the Midlands has left the police baffled. They are the work of a shadowy criminal mastermind known only as The Knave of Diamonds. But who is the Knave? And can he be stopped? All but one episode of the original 1938 BBC production of Send for Paul Temple are lost from the archives. However, this complete recording of a 1940 production - made for Canadian radio and based on the original BBC radio scripts - was recently rediscovered in the national Library and Archives of Canada. Digitally restored, all six episodes are now available for the very first time. Two bonus features are also included: the sole surviving sixth episode of the original 1938 production, starring the original Paul Temple, Hugh Morton, and an unbroadcast interview with the longest-running Paul Temple actor, Peter Coke. 4 CDs, 276 minutes
Author
Francis Henry Durbridge was an English playwright and author born in Hull. In 1938, he created the character Paul Temple for the BBC radio serial Send for Paul Temple. A crime novelist and detective, the gentlemanly Temple solved numerous crimes with the help of Steve Trent, a Fleet Street journalist who later became his wife. The character proved enormously popular and appeared in 16 radio serials and later spawned a 64-part big-budget television series (1969-71) and radio productions, as well as a number of comic strips, four feature films and various foreign radio productions. Francis Durbridge also had a successful career as a writer for the stage and screen. His most successful play, Suddenly at Home, ran in London’s West End for over a year.
