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RA.cc + BBC R4: 15 Minute Drama: Modesty Blaise: A Taste For Death

Aural Noir: Online Audio

A Taste For Death - Fawcett

There’s a terrific radio drama series available via torrent over on RadioArchive.cc.

Broadcast late last year on BBC Radio 4, December 17 – 21, 2012, Modesty Blaise: A Taste For Death is truly lovely listening!

Modesty Blaise

I listened to the entire five part serial two or three times. That’s something I rarely do. Yet even after multiple listens this program has left me wanting more.

Blaise, as voiced by Daphne Alexander, is a confident, mysterious, and thoughtful secret agent. The supporting cast is top shelf, as is the sound design, editing, and music. This show is unmissably great.

In tone it’s probably not what you expect, being more of a cozy version of The Sandbaggers than a feminized James Bond. Not campy, exactly, as it is far too reverent for that.

Indeed, this particular adventure features far more than just 007 style espionage, romance, and action – it features friendship, teamwork, kindness, thoughtfulness, and a light-handed touch.

Best of all the producers aren’t at all above teasing the audience – the very first sounds from episode one are a total tease!

I love it.

Also cool, Modesty Blaise: A Taste For Death seems to be set in the period the novel of the same name was written (1969). Blaise, a child escapee from a WWII era displaced person camp, drives a “Jensen” (in my mind it’s a Jensen Interceptor).

Here’s the description from RA.cc:

She’s glamorous, intelligent, rich and very, very cool. Modesty Blaise has been called the female James Bond but she’s much more interesting than that. With her expertise in martial arts and unusual weapons, the ability to speak several languages and her liking for fast cars, twenty-something Modesty became a female icon long before the likes of Emma Peel, Lara Croft, or Buffy.

In Stef Penney’s brand new radio adaptation of Peter O’Donnell’s novel, Sir Gerald Tarrant, Head of a secret British agency, tempts Modesty out of retirement and into a job involving a young woman with extra sensory powers, an exotic desert location, and a larger than life public school villain, intent on murdering his way to a vast fortune. With its perfect cocktail of glamorous settings, hidden treasure, a twisting turning plot, and characters to root for, A Taste for Death is an action packed treat – and a guilty pleasure.

With an original score by Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory, arranged by Ian Gardiner, and performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Ben Foster.

Cast:
Modesty Blaise ….. Daphne Alexander
Willie Garvin ….. Carl Prekopp
Sir Gerald Tarrant ….. Alun Armstrong
Simon Delicata ….. Sam Dale
Steve Collier ….. Geoffrey Streatfeild
Dinah Pilgrim ….. Samantha Dakin
McWhirter ….. Alex Fearns
Skeet Lowry ….. Jeff Mash
Sir Howard Presteign ….. Nigel Anthony

A Taste For Death by Peter O'Donnell

Produced and Directed by Kate McAll

Modesty Blaise’s comics origin:

And here’s the movie trailer, yikes!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Ray Bradbury’s The Flying Machine and The Fruit At The Bottom Of The Bowl

SFFaudio Online Audio

I’m not sure exactly how I came across this broadcast recording. But I’m very glad I did. It’s as part of a collection called The Golden Apples Of The Sun – a five part half hour of radio drama series adapting Ray Bradbury stories. This episode, episode 2, includes a pair of stories.

The first, The Flying Machine, is a short “fantasy” set in a mythical China. The story was familiar somehow so I looked it up and realized it was in an issue of Playboy that I have. I have appended the beautiful accompanying illustration (by Franz Altschuler).

In the same broadcast was an iconic tale of an obsessive compulsive murderer. Called, The Fruit At The Bottom Of The Bowl, it was first published as Touch And Go! in a mag called Detective Book (November 1948). Unfortunately, I don’t have a beautiful scan of the first publication of that. Instead, I have a terrible scan (see below).

But, my new friend John Feaster, who I found through LibriVox, mentioned an adaptation of it in the EC Comics comic called Crime SuspenStories (#17). And that I do have a nice picture of.

The Golden Apples Of The Sun – The Flying Machine
Adapted from the story by Ray Bradbury; Adapted by Lawrence Gilbert; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 5
Broadcast: January 30, 1991
Source: Archive.org

Producer Peter Hutchings.

Cast:
Paul Maxwell
Don Fellows
Ed Bishop
Paul Downing

The Flying Machine from Playboy August, 1954 - illustration by Franz Altschuler

Touc And Go! by Ray Bradbury - from Detective Book, November 1948

Touch And Go! adapted from the story by Ray Bradbury - from Crime SuspenStories #17

And The Fruit At The Bottom Of The Bowl was adapted to TV for The Ray Bradbury Theater. And it stars Michael Ironside and Robert Vaughn!

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBCR4X: A Canticle For Leibowitz: Fiat Homo by Walter M. Miller Jr.

SFFaudio Online Audio

A new five part abridged reading, with added sound effects, of the first part of A Canticle For Leibowitz, “Fiat Homo”, begins here:

A Canticle For Leibowitz
By Walter M. Miller, Jr.; Read by Nigel Lindsay
STREAMING AUDIO – [ABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Extra
Broadcast: November 26, 2012
Set in a Catholic monastery in the desert of the southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the story spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself. The monks of the fictional Albertian Order of Leibowitz take up the mission of preserving the surviving remnants of man’s scientific knowledge until the day the outside world is again ready for it.
First published in 1959.

A Canticle For Leibowitz

[thanks Roy!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Duel by Richard Matheson

SFFaudio Online Audio

Derived from an incident in which he and a friend were dangerously tailgated by a large truck on the same day as the Kennedy assassination, Duel is emblematic of Richard Matheson’s queer existential fiction. It was first published in the April 1971 of Playboy.

Playboy, April 1971 - Duel by Richard Matheson

The most accessible version of this classic story is this one, put out by Harper Audio in 2009:

Duel (from Road Rage)
By Richard Matheson; Read by Stephen Lang
1 |MP3| – Approx. 63 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Harper Audio
Published: February 2009
“Driving to San Francisco, a businessman finds himself the victim of a deadly game being played by the driver of a huge, mysterious truck. Later to become Steven Spielberg’s classic 1971 film.”

But, back in 2006 BBC Radio 7 (now BBC Radio 4 Extra) did a special broadcast in honour of Richard Matheson’s 80th birthday. Along with a specially recorded interview there was also an unabridged reading of Duel. That version is available via torrent over on RadioArchive.cc:

Duel
By Richard Matheson; Read by Nathan Osgood
2 MP3s via TORRENT – Approx. 1 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7
Broadcast: February 18, 2006
“A huge truck plays deadly games with an innocent motorist.”

Blackstone Audio’s collection, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, released in 2009 also includes it:

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
By Richard Matheson; Read by Various
10.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009

And while the movie version is currently available, in its entirety, on YouTube this short film version, recut from Spielberg’s TV-Movie is perhaps even better:

Posted by Jesse Willis

Dune Roller by Julian May

SFFaudio Online Audio

Julian May’s first published story, Dune Roller, became something of a popular tale – at least with editor Robert Silverberg who had it in two of his anthologies one which collected “masterpieces” and the other which collected “great” tales. Indeed, the novelette was quickly adapted as an episode of the Tales Of Tomorrow TV series. There was also an apparently “abominable” 1972 movie adaptation called The Cremators, and there was this 1961 BBC Home Service radio dramatization (available via torrent over on RadioArchive.cc).

BBC Radio Dune Roller
Adapted from the short story by Julian May; Performed by a full cast
MP3 via TORRENT – Approx. 59 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Home Service
Broadcast: January 26, 1961
On isolated island in Lake Michigan a visiting ecologist discovers an unknown mineral that’s been linked to a local legend of a ravenous creature. First published in Astounding, December 1951.

Dune Roller - illustrated by Julian May

It was also, rather successfully adapted to television for Tales Of Tomorrow:

Download the |MP4|.

Trailer for The Cremators:

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBCR4+RA.cc: Metropolis (2006) RADIO DRAMA

SFFaudio Online Audio

Ace Books F-246 - Metropolis by Thea Von Harbou

The Tower of Babylon in Metropolis I wrote about it airing six year ago, but I’ve just now heard it.

Metropolis, an astoundingly great radio dramatization of a famous novel that was turned into a famous movie, is nuanced, deep, surprising, and totally, idea based.

I’m astounded, really and truly astounded and amazed too at the depth and power an hour long program is able to achieve.

The script has humor, skepticism, cynicism, hope, sex, romance, informative infodumps, and a city full of pathos.

The production, acting, pacing, and composite audio experience is completely awe inspiring.

What gets me most is that even though it is based on a 1926 novel by Thea von Harbou, this version of Metropolis is, arguably, even more relevant than either Brave New World (1931) or 1984 (1949).

Those two classics don’t feel wholly and completely modern – this production of Metropolis does. It’s modernity is ripe, it’s like an episode of Black Mirror, and it should be on your radar.

Still not sold? Then imagine a Science Fiction version of Fight Club but set in the world of The Space Merchants or Judge Dredd and imagine it written by either Philip K. Dick or Frederik Pohl.

Here’s a review by Elisabeth Mahoney of The Guardian:

An audacious portrayal of a futuristic city as much as a state of mind, and an iconic film to boot, Metropolis (Radio 4, Friday) doesn’t exactly scream radio adaptation. But writer Peter Straughan and director Toby Swift, who won the Prix Italia in 2004 for their adaptation of Fritz Lang’s M, clearly aren’t put off by such hurdles. Their Metropolis was all deliciously claustrophobic intensity and dark interiority; their mega-city full of bubbling, menacing sounds you soon wanted to shut out. Without the famous visuals, you never really got a sense of the scale of Lang’s vision – you didn’t believe in the 62 million workers in Metropolis – but you did get the chilling psychological dimension of the dystopia. Edward Hogg, as Freddy, though sounding like a young Woody Allen at times, convinced as the alienated, lonely outsider who manages to subvert the mega-state from within. There were laughs, too, at least early on. “When was the last time you slept?” a therapist asks a suicidal Freddy. “About eight years ago,” says Freddy. “No,” the therapist concludes, “I don’t think that’s significant.”

Peter Straughan, the adaptor, and Toby Swift, the director, have achieved a classic for our time and for the ages – this is highly, highly recommended!

Thea von Harbou’s Metropolis SFFaudio Essential
Adapted by Peter Straughan; Performed by a full cast
MP3 via TORRENT – 57 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 (Friday Drama)
Broadcast: March 24, 2006
Available via RadioArchive.cc
Freder, the protagonist of Metropolis is an underworked “captain” in a high level position in the futuristic consumer society of the mega city named Metropolis. Feeling suicidal, but unable to understand why, Fredor switches identities with a low level “product insertion” – a kind of telemarketing – but failing at that Fredor soon finds himself working for Maria, an imperfect beauty with all the answers. Maria plunges Fredor into the depths of her underground conspiracy to disrupt the workings of society.

Directed by Toby Swift

Cast:
Freder – Edward Hogg
Maria – Tracy Wiles
Josaphat – Damian Lynch
Schmale – Peter Marinker

Michael W. Kaluta illustration of Maria and Freder

Posted by Jesse Willis

[Use Omitron! Omitron, use it! Use Omitron, it’s great!]