Stephen Sheridan Radio Plays
Stephen Sheridan is a well-known writer for radio 4; probably better known for his comedies than anything else. But he has a flair both for parody and for creepy tales of the supernatural.
BBC Radio Broadcasts
1987 *The teeth of Abbot Thomas
1988 *Perseus Pin Investigates, 2 x 30m comedy
1988 *Fallen Arches, 4 x 30m comedy, series 1
1988 *Fallen Arches, 4 x 30m comedy, series 2
1991 *The secret life of Rosewood Avenue, 6 x 30m comedy series
c1991? Things that go bump in the night
c1994? *The Lodger (Belloc-Lownes), dram
c1999 *The Perfume of the Lady in Black (Gaston Leroux), dram
c1999 *Mystery of the yellow room (Gaston Leroux), dram
c1999 *The case of the vanishing author
2001 *Murders in the Rue Morgue (Poe), dram.
2003 *The House at World's End
Dates not known:
Murder by the Book
Carmilla (Poe, dram)
Bella in Brighton
NOTES
The Teeth of Abbot Thomas....1987
25 Dec 87: M.R.James parody by Stephen
Sheridan. Starring Alfred Marks, Jonathan Adams. (Radio 4). A quest for a set of
medieval false teeth.
PERSEUS PIN INVESTIGATES.....1988
Perseus Pin, detective, solver of three thousand murder cases in a single
year, takes time off for a cruise. Little does he expect that the ruthless
string magnate in an adjoining cabin will be murdered....
The Secret Life of Rosewood Avenue....1991
Sitcom with a difference; full of comic, grotesques
of the sort you might find in an Agatha Christie
novel. Stars James Grout as the Reverend Carswell, Margaret
Courtenay as Miss Tilling, Jean Hatward as Miss Tapp, Sarah Thomas
as Mrs Muir; also stars Christopher Good, Maxine Audley, Frazer
Kerr, Oriel Smith, producer Lissa Evans.
THE LODGER
A creepy melodrama; a hard-up couple take in a lodger. But who
is he, and what does he get up to at night? With Nigel Anthony (narrator),
David Ryle, Maggie McCarthy, John Glover, Harry Myers, Alison Pettitt, Paul
Moriarty, Brett Fancie. Director David Blount - a Peer production.
Perfume of the Lady in Black....c1999
....rather like a French Sherlock Holmes....you know the sort of thing,
where the detective shakes hands with someone and says: "You are a wealthy
man who's fallen on hard times, and a regular snuff-taker." ....(Clive Lever)
Murders in the Rue Morgue....2001, ABC National (rpt)
This tale of the macabre is one of the earliest detective
stories. It has all the hallmarks of the genre: a brilliant but
eccentric detective, an admiring but less astute companion, and a
puzzling, almost inexplicable crime. Dramatised by Stephen Sheridan
Directed by David Blount for BBC Radio Drama (date?); rpt on ABC
Radio National, 5 May 01. (ABC is Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
The House at World's End....2003
16 Oct 03, 1415, R4. Stephen Sheridan's drama has the master
of the ghost story M.R.
James describing an incident in his life 'far more substantial
than a work of fiction.' James is taking a break at a remote
house in Cornwall. But the owner is keeping a lamp burning
all night and is obviously terrified. The moral of the tale
was that we should be careful how we acquire secondhand books.
(I know about this - they breed).
Radio Times adds:M.R.James, Provost of King's College Cambridge explains to a Christmas gathering of friends and undergraduates how he first became interested in the supernatural. He tells the tale of an ancient cabalistic text that dooms the family and associates of a Cornish bibliophile. With John Rowe, Jonathan Keeble, Charles Simpson, David Collings, John Eitts, Jean Trend, James Durrant, Alex Hutchinson and Trevor Nichols. Director David Blount.
The book in the story was a sixteenth-century tome called De Regni Umbrorum, or The Kingdom of Shadows, of which only one copy existed, and which was said to invoke the Devil. "The Book of Shadows", by Scott Cherry, (c1998, R4) is a play somewhat longer, along similar lines, and is well worth exploring. Correction....it's terrific.
MURDER BY THE BOOK....date nk
Murder in a small British library; two ladies try to find the killer in the same way that Miss Marple might have used ... producer David Blount. Info from Sarah L - ....many thanks
Asterisked plays known to exist in VRPCC collections.
Nigel Deacon / Diversity Website
