Spine Chillers (BBC Radio Drama) 2

2 – Mrs M (by David Campton) 45 mins
Mrs Meadowsweet offers visitors to her country guesthouse a truly carefree holiday. Everybody is so happy. A little vague perhaps, but certainly happy. Newcomers Madge and Arthur are suspicious, but can Mrs M convert them? Stars Rosemary Leach as Mrs Meadowsweet, Anne Jameson as Madge and Roger Hume as Arthur.

https://archive.org/details/spinechillers19841figures/Spine+Chillers+-+1984+-+2+-+Mrs+M.mp3

Grand Virtues Seven _ draft novel

This was to be the last in the Grand Virtues series. Perhaps one more in a year or so. This is a almost ready to publish edition. I haven’t came up with a name yet or a cover.

Advanced age wife and grandmother Charity Hess takes one last trip to Mining Planet Seven to resolve political problems. Only this time she’s unwillingly accompanied with her two eldest grandchildren who manage to find trouble in humorous ways.

31,668 words – SciFi, family, health problems, saying the last goodbye to loved ones.

Left click to read, right click to download.

Grand Virtues Seven Draft

Spine Chillers (BBC Radio Drama) 1

Spine Chillers – 1984 – BBC Audio Drama
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A series of five chilling plays from 1984. Rebroadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra in Jan 2017.

1 – Figures (by Colin Haydn Evans) 45 mins
As soon as Ann saw the house she knew it had to be hers. Its past turns out to be part of her future. So all she has to do is sit in the upstairs room – kept locked for so long – and wait…
Stars Anna Massey as Ann, Blain Fairman as Ralph Symons, Jill Lidstone as Rebecca Symons and Jon Strickland as Peter Fuller.

https://archive.org/details/spinechillers19841figures/Spine+Chillers+-+1984+-+1+-+Figures.mp3

Escape

http://www.escape-suspense.com/

Escape 490402 Confidential Agent

Escape’s “Confidential Agent” was adapted from the 1939 novel The Confidential Agent: An Entertainment by Graham Greene. In this instance, they chose not to adapt the book as it was written, and so changed the story and characters that there is little resemblance between the radio version and the source work. The question is…why? The novel (which Greene wrote with the help of benzedrine) is the sort of desperate, gritty story that Escape normally didn’t shy away from.

Was it because Greene’s novel about a middle-aged, traumatized, war-weary, beaten-down agent who is relentlessly pursued by enemies and police–was just too depressing? Probably. Escape, instead, chose to punch up the excitement by making the agent younger, the story less perilous, and the romance standardized.

Escape’s adaptation was written by a man named Kendall Foster Crossen (1910-1981). Crossen was a prolific radio script writer, pulp fiction writer and an editor of Detective Fiction Weekly. He wrote more than twenty novels featuring Milo March, an insurance investigator.

So, Escape’s “Confidential Agent” is really a radio play by Kendall Foster Crossen within the basic framework of Greene’s novel.

Confidential Agent was also made into a movie in 1945 by Warner Brothers. You can find a review of both the novel and the movie over at Mysteryfile.com.

As the episode opens, a boat has just arrived in Dover harbor. David, a secret government agent, has come to England on a mission to obtain industrial diamonds. He is suspicious of everyone, but when fellow passenger Rose Cullen offers him a ride from Dover Harbor to London, he accepts. Is she one of them? Will the two of them make it to London without trouble? If they can, will David be successful in his mission?

“Confidential Agent” was adapted for radio by Ken Crossen with editorial supervision by John Dunkel. Norman MacDonnell produced and directed. Berry Kroeger starred as D. Also appearing were Edgar Barrier, Constance Cavendish, Herb Butterfield, Parley Baer, Olive Deering, Ben Wright, Wilms Herbert and Alec Harford. This episode aired on April 2, 1949.