Lord Peter Wimsey (radio series)

Last updated

Lord Peter Wimsey
Genre Radio drama
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Home station BBC Radio 4
Starring Ian Carmichael
Peter Jones
Written byChris Miller
Peter Jones
Tania Lieven
Alistair Beaton
Michael Bakewell
Adapted from the works of Dorothy L. Sayers
Directed by Simon Brett
Martin Fisher
Enyd Williams
Original release30 December 1973 (1973-12-30) – 24 June 2010 (2010-06-24)
Opening theme"When Day is Done" by Paul Whiteman and His Concert Orchestra [1]
("Rain or Shine" by The London West End Orchestra for Gaudy Night)

Lord Peter Wimsey is a series of full cast BBC Radio drama adaptations of Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1973 and 1983, with a further adaptation of Gaudy Night mounted for BBC Audiobooks in 2005 to complete the full sequence of Sayers' novels, all starring Ian Carmichael in the title role. [2]

Contents

Cast and crew

The series stars Ian Carmichael as aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. Carmichael played the role concurrently in five BBC Television adaptations beginning with Clouds of Witness in April 1972. [3] Peter Jones played Wimsey's loyal valet and assistant Mervyn Bunter in all original adaptations, and also dramatised Clouds of Witness with Tania Lieven. [4] [5] Gabriel Woolf featured as Inspector Charles Parker, Lord Peter's friend and contact at Scotland Yard (later brother-in-law) in three adaptations. Mystery writer Harriet Vane was played by Ann Bell (Strong Poison), Maria Aitken (Have His Carcase) and Sarah Badel (Busman's Honeymoon) in the original sequence and Joanna David in Gaudy Night.

The first six productions were directed by Simon Brett, who became a crime writer himself following his involvement with the series, [6] with the next four directed by Martin Fisher. Gaudy Night, missing from the original sequence, was directed for BBC Audiobooks in 2005 by Enyd Williams [2] and was later broadcast on BBC Radio 7 in 2010. [7]

List of adaptations

No.TitleFirst broadcastNotes
1 Whose Body? 30 December 19735 episodes adapted by Chris Miller, directed by Simon Brett. [8]
2 Clouds of Witness 3 February 19748 episodes adapted by Peter Jones and Tania Lieven, directed by Simon Brett. [5]
3 Unnatural Death 5 May 19757 episodes adapted by Chris Miller, directed by Simon Brett. [9]
4 The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club 23 June 19756 episodes adapted by Chris Miller, directed by Simon Brett. [10]
5 Strong Poison 17 May 19766 episodes adapted by Chris Miller, directed by Simon Brett. [11]
6 The Five Red Herrings 4 January 19788 episodes adapted by Chris Miller, directed by Simon Brett. [12]
7 Murder Must Advertise 1 January 19796 episodes adapted by Alistair Beaton, directed by Martin Fisher. [13]
8 The Nine Tailors 20 October 19808 episodes adapted by Alistair Beaton, directed by Martin Fisher. [14]
9 Have His Carcase 21 October 19816 episodes adapted by Alistair Beaton, directed by Martin Fisher. [15]
10 Busman's Honeymoon 3 January 19836 episodes adapted by Alistair Beaton, directed by Martin Fisher. [16]
11 Gaudy Night 18 June 20105 episodes adapted by Michael Bakewell, directed by Enyd Williams.
Originally produced for BBC Audiobooks in 2005, first broadcast on BBC Radio 7 in 2010. [2] [7]

Reception

Caroline Crampton reviewing a 2016 repeat of Have His Carcase in the New Statesman notes that "Ian Carmichael is Peter Wimsey...Somehow, the Hull-born Carmichael inhabits the character of Wimsey – the Eton and Oxford educated younger son of a Duke who turns to mystery-solving after traumatic experiences in the First World War – better than any of the others who tried over the course of the twentieth century...Just as Wimsey’s buffoonish, aristocratic utterances conceal a vulnerable, perceptive intellect, so does the old-fashioned style of this drama hide a darker, more difficult story." [17] David Hepworth in The Guardian notes that Carmichael "was put on this earth to play two great heroes of popular fiction: Bertie Wooster and Lord Peter Wimsey." [18]

Director and producer Simon Brett credits the series with inspiring him to become a crime novelist and his actor-sleuth character Charles Paris. [6] He recalls:

I was delegated to produce a series of adaptations...Ian Carmichael had just played the part on television and they wanted him to reprise the character on radio. Up until then, although I'd written four very proper unpublished novels, I’d been rather scared of crime fiction. I thought you had to have a computerised brain to work out the plots. But working with Chris Miller, the writer who adapted the books, I made some very encouraging discoveries. First, we found some gaping holes in Sayers' plots. And, also, although the plot was important, character and dialogue were at least as important. That realisation, together with the fact that on the Wimseys I was working with a lot of middle-aged actors, led to the birth of Charles Paris. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Gaudy Night</i> 1935 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers

Gaudy Night (1935) is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third including Harriet Vane.

Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey is the fictional protagonist in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers. A dilettante who solves mysteries for his own amusement, Wimsey is an archetype for the British gentleman detective. He is often assisted by his valet and former batman, Mervyn Bunter; by his good friend and later brother-in-law, police detective Charles Parker; and, in a few books, by Harriet Vane, who becomes his wife.

<i>Murder Must Advertise</i> 1933 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers

Murder Must Advertise is a 1933 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the eighth in her series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. Most of the action of the novel takes place in an advertising agency, a setting with which Sayers was familiar as she had herself worked as an advertising copywriter until 1931.

Simon Anthony Lee Brett OBE FRSL is a British writer of detective fiction and a radio producer.

<i>Clouds of Witness</i> 1926 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers

Clouds of Witness is a 1926 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the second in her series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. In the United States the novel was first published in 1927 under the title Clouds of Witnesses.

<i>Unnatural Death</i> (novel) 1927 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers

Unnatural Death is a 1927 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her third featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. It was published under the title The Dawson Pedigree in the United States in 1928.

<i>Have His Carcase</i> 1932 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers

Have His Carcase is a 1932 locked-room mystery by Dorothy L. Sayers, her seventh novel featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and the second in which Harriet Vane appears.

<i>Busmans Honeymoon</i> 1937 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers

Busman's Honeymoon is a 1937 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her eleventh and last featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, and her fourth and last to feature Harriet Vane.

Ian Carmichael English actor (1920–2010)

Ian Gillett Carmichael, OBE was an English actor who worked prolifically on stage, screen and radio in a career spanning 70 years. He found prominence in the films of the Boulting brothers, including Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right Jack (1959). In the 1960s, he played Bertie Wooster opposite Dennis Price's Jeeves in The World of Wooster (1965-67). Beginning in the 1970s, he portrayed Dorothy L. Sayers's gentleman detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, on television and radio. In his later career, he starred in the ITV medical drama The Royal as TJ Middleditch, a role he originally played in parent show Heartbeat.

Harriet Deborah Vane, later Lady Peter Wimsey, is a fictional character in the works of British writer Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957).

Charlotte Mitchell

Charlotte Mitchell was an English actress and poet.

Richard Morant English actor (1945–2011)

Richard Morant was an English actor.

Mervyn Bunter is a fictional character in Dorothy L. Sayers' novels and short stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.

Sergeant/Inspector/Chief Inspector Charles Parker is a fictional police detective who appears in several Lord Peter Wimsey stories by Dorothy L. Sayers, and later becomes Lord Peter's brother-in-law.

<i>Busmans Honeymoon</i> (film) 1940 film by Arthur B. Woods

Busman's Honeymoon is a 1940 British detective film directed by Arthur B. Woods. An adaptation of the 1937 Lord Peter Wimsey novel Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon stars Robert Montgomery, Constance Cummings, Leslie Banks, Googie Withers, Robert Newton and Seymour Hicks as Mervyn Bunter.

The English actor and comedian Ian Carmichael OBE (1920–2010) performed in many mediums of light entertainment, including theatre, radio, television and film. His career spanned from 1939 until his death in 2010. According to Brian McFarlane, writing for The Encyclopedia of British Film, Carmichael "epitomises the good-natured, undemanding pleasures of '50s British cinema".

<i>A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery</i> Series of television adaptations of three novels by English writer Dorothy L. Sayer

A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery is a series of television adaptations of three Lord Peter Wimsey novels—Strong Poison, Have his Carcase and Gaudy Night—by Dorothy L. Sayers.

Miss Katharine Alexandra Climpson is a minor character in the Lord Peter Wimsey stories by Dorothy L. Sayers. She appears in two novels: Unnatural Death (1927) and Strong Poison (1930), and is mentioned in Gaudy Night (1935) and Busman's Honeymoon (1937).

Hercule Poirot is a series of full cast BBC Radio drama adaptations of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novels and short stories adapted by Michael Bakewell, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1985 and 2007. With the exception of the first two adaptations, the series stars John Moffatt as Poirot.

<i>Lord Peter Wimsey</i> (TV series)

Lord Peter Wimsey is a series of television serial adaptations of five Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L. Sayers starring Ian Carmichael broadcast on BBC One between 1972 and 1975, beginning with Clouds of Witness in April 1972.

References

  1. ↑ "Victor matrix BVE-36302. When day is done / Paul Whiteman Orchestra". Discography of American Historical Recordings. Retrieved 15 April 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 "Gaudy Night". WorldCat. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  3. ↑ "Clouds of Witness TV adaptation". BBC Genome. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  4. ↑ "Wimsey". BBC Radio 4 Extra.
  5. 1 2 "Clouds of Witness". BBC Genome. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  6. 1 2 "About". Simon Brett. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
  7. 1 2 "Gaudy Night". BBC Programmes. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  8. ↑ "Whose Body?". BBC Genome. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  9. ↑ "Unnatural Death". BBC Genome. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  10. ↑ "The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club". BBC Genome. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  11. ↑ "Strong Poison". BBC Genome. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  12. ↑ "The Five Red Herrings". BBC Genome. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  13. ↑ "Murder Must Advertise". BBC Genome. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  14. ↑ "The Nine Tailors". BBC Genome. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  15. ↑ "Have His Carcase". BBC Genome. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  16. ↑ "Busman's Honeymoon". BBC Genome. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  17. ↑ "Why the antics of 1930s detective Peter Wimsey still sound fresh on the radio today". New Statesman. 14 September 2016.
  18. ↑ "Too Late To Stop Now, Strong Poison and what else to listen to this week". Guardian. 24 January 2015.
  19. ↑ "Meet the author: Simon Brett". Suffolk Libraries. Retrieved 30 July 2020.

Lord Peter Wimsey at BBC Online OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.