Product Description

In a thrilling case that takes Paul and Steve to exotic Egypt, Paul Temple is called in to investigate a mysterious murder. The twisting trail takes them from London to the back streets and nightclubs of Cairo...From 1938 to 1969 crime novelist and detective, Paul Temple and his Fleet Street journalist wife, Steve solved case after case in one of BBC radio's most popular serials. They inhabit a sophisticated, well-dressed world of chilled cocktails and fast cars, where the women are chic and the men still wear cravats. And where Sir Graham Forbes of Scotland Yard always needs Paul's help with a tricky case. Now Paul Temple is being brought into the 21st century in this brand new 8 part recording of a lost archive Paul Temple mystery, starring Crawford Logan and Gerda Stevenson.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68111 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-02
• Released on: 2006-10-02
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 4
• Binding: Audio CD

Customer Reviews

What a wonderful surprise
Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery was broadcast is December 1947 with Kim Peacock as Temple and was never reprised by Peter Coke.

This new production uses the original scripts and as far as possible the sound effects techniques and music used in the original production.

The result is a resounding success, with Crawford Logan and Gerda Stevenson fitting effortlessly into the characterisations of Coke and Westbury but never becoming mimics. The production adopts the acting styles of the original, and whether it was intentional or not the supporting actors frequently sound very similar to their counterparts in the original productions.

Many of the Coke series were remakes of productions starring Kim Peacock, and listening to this using the original 1947 version one wonders whether the scripts were updated for the Coke remakes.

The temples flight to Cairo is nostalgia heaven as they flew in a seaplane from the BOAC base at Poole in Dorset, requiring an overnight stop completing the flight in two days, routine in 1947 but it now vividly takes us back to a earlier age.

After listening to this triumph one can only hope there are more to follow, there are seven serials for which no original recording exist, so please BBC don't keep us waiting too long.

They're at it again!
Having listened to the surviving original BBC radio episodes for years. I welcome the decision to "revive" the lost radio episodes, and I look forward to more of them. Readers of this review will know that only about one third of the long radio Paul Temple broadcast series survives. This "revival" project seeks, by using contemporary microphones, sound effects and the original Francis Durbridge scripts, to recreate the original productions for today's audience.

Slight production differences are noticeable. Sound effects, crowd noises, etc. are suggested here rather than overplayed as they used to be. Sometimes a shock ending to an episode loses its effect when several seconds elapse before "Coronation Scot" breaks in. A smaller cast is engaged, doubling many of the parts. Just as Marjorie Westbury's contributions outshone all others in the original series, I find Eliza Langland's work to be the most effective here.

The plot is not one of Durbridge's best. After Paul and Steve are entrusted with a pair of spectacles to return to their owner as they depart for a holiday in Egypt, murders, deceptions, dodgey assignations and kidnappings follow at breath-taking speed.

This is a 2006 recreation of a 1947 original.

Look out Steve!
This ludicrous story involves a breathless trip to Egypt in a flying boat as the central theme, with Paul and Steve having taken on the task of returning a pair of glasses(!) to its supposed owner. Of course being the Temples nothing goes smoothly and within hours the death toll mounts as just about everyone the pair comes in contact with cops their lot in a variety of ways. As coincidence piles on coincidence, this pair must be the most dense private eyes in the business as they cause havoc wherever they go and get the solution more by luck than judgement (just as well as we were running out of characters to play with) Did this sort of thing really keep our parents and grandparents amused all those years ago?

Of course it did, and we enjoy it even now. Of course my score gave it away because for all the daft stuff that happens, this story kept the kids (and their mum) quiet and enthralled on a long motorway trip to Scotland, so for entertainment value you can't beat it! One complaint I have is that the discs could have been edited because the opening of each episode has a brief reprise of the cliffhanger ending of the previous one, which is necessary when it was on radio but gets a bit wearing on CD.