The Radio Times has a picked a new play set to air on February 4th, 2010 in BBC Radio 4’s Afternoon Play slot. It’ll be a curious dramatization of the real life collaboration between Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler while working on the screen adaptation of James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity!
This will be part of a series of BBC Radio dramatisations of all Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novels. Toby Stephens will be playing Philip Marlowe throughout (see more details at the bottom of this post).
Double Jeopardy
By Stephen Wyatt; Directed by Claire Grove; Performed by a full cast
1 Broadcast – Approx. 1 Hour [RADIO DRAMA]
In 1944 Raymond Chandler (Patrick Stewart) and Billy Wilder (Adrian Scarborough) work on a screen adaptation of James M. Cain’s novel Double Indemnity. Billy Wilder is a 36-year-old German Jewish émigré just making his name as a director and Raymond Chandler is a reformed alcoholic with a developing reputation as a novelist – but absolutely no experience of writing for the movies.
Other Raymond Chandler treats airing on BBC Radio 4 include:
Feature: A Coat, A Hat and A Gun
11.30am-noon, Thursday 3 February 2011
Harriett Gilbert presents a reappraisal of the life and legacy of the man from Upper Norwood who invented the private investigator as we know him. “I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.” Philip Marlowe has become the archetypal American detective anti-hero, yet his creator was educated at English public school, took the Civil Service exam and started a career in the Admiralty. With contributions from writer Sarah Dunant, Professor John Sutherland, David Thomson, and David Fine. Producer Rebecca Stratford.
Saturday Play: The Big Sleep
Saturday 5 February 2011, 2.30-4.00pm
Philip Marlowe (Toby Stephens) becomes entangled with the Sternwood family – respectable sister with gambling addiction (Kelly Burke), younger sister with drink/drug problem (Leah Brotherhead) and an attendant cast of colourful underworld figures. Robin Brooks; director Claire Grove.
Saturday Play: The Lady In The Lake
Saturday 12 February 2011, 2.30-4.00pm
Derace Kingsley (Sam Dale), a wealthy businessman, hires Philip Marlowe to find his estranged wife Crystal. Kingsley fears that rich, reckless Crystal may have got herself into a scandal and the last place she was known to have been was a resort called Little Fawn Lake. Dramatised by Stephen Wyatt; director Claire Grove.
Saturday Play: Farewell My Lovely
Saturday 19 February 2011, 2.30-4.00pm
When Philip Marlowe sees a huge, loudly dressed man casually throwing a bouncer out onto the the pavement as he goes into a bar, he knows it’s time to walk away, so he follows him inside. The big guy is Moose Molloy (Richard Ridings), recently released from an eight-year prison sentence and now on the hunt for his old sweetheart, a red-haired nightclub singer named Velma Valento. Marlowe follows a trail which includes a stick-up, blackmail, an irresistible blonde, a psychic, drugs and murder, and it leads him all the way to the top of a corrupt state of California. Dramatised by Robin Brooks; director Mary Peate.
Saturday Play: Playback
Saturday 26 February 2.30-3.30pm
Philip Marlowe is hired to tail the mysterious Betty Mayfield (Sarah Goldberg) all the way to the seaside town of Esmerelda, without knowing why or the identity of his employer. It’s not long before he realises that he’s not the only one on the trail, and that he too is being watched. Director Sasha Yevtushenko; producer Claire Grove.
And coming up later in 2011: The Long Goodbye, The High Window, The Little Sister, and Poodle Springs.
[Thanks Roy!]
Posted by Jesse Willis