{
  "title": "APPOINTMENT WITH FEAR",
  "category": "[RADIO-SERIES]",
  "article": "“This is your storyteller, The Man in Black, here again to tell you a story that may\ndivert…soothe…or—who knows?—…even disturb you.”\nTransposed bodily from the scripts and concepts created by John Dickson Carr in 1942 for the\nCBS show Suspense, this anthology series was a deliberate attempt by Carr and flamboyant BBC\nproducer Val Gielgud (the older brother of Sir John) to create a thriller program “in the American\nmanner.”\n“Carr was unequaled,” writes his biographer Douglas Greene, “in creating an eerie atmosphere\nby careful choice of emotive words, and many passages of his novels and short stories are\nespecially effective when read aloud. This ability transferred easily into the preparation of radio\ndramas.”\n“In spite of his many appearances on stage, screen, and radio, people still tend to look on him,\nhe once told us, as ‘The Man in Black.’ ‘I have even been stopped in the street and told by a man\nthat I had frightened his wife, and that if I continued with the series there’d be trouble.’”\nValentine Dyall: “It was a tremendous success… It was an empty jackpot which one hit… I don’t\nknow whether it was a bad thing or a good thing… The listening figures were only very slightly\nunder that of ITMA, so you’d imagine that people rather listened to it. And they were awfully good\nstories…”\n[London Times, November 1, 1945] “At an inquest at Birmingham yesterday on the body of\nBrian Howard Phillips, 13, of Egghill Lane, Northfields, Birmingham, who was found hanging in\nthe bathroom at his home, it was suggested by Mr. Roderick Baker, representing the school\nauthorities, that the boy tried out on himself Dr. Ley’s method of committing sucide after\nlistening to the B.B.C. feature ‘Appointment with Fear’.”\nAlthough it owed its genesis and inspiration to Carr, Appointment With Fear didn’t become a\nfull-fledged horror series until after he had left the show. Carr confessed (in a letter to Frederic\nDannay, one-half of the nom de plume “Ellery Queen”) that he lacked the temperament to delve\ninto the pure supernatural. “I can’t write a straight ghost story,” he admitted. “For my own soul’s\ncomfort I must have an explanation. It seems untidy, it seems dodging a writer’s real\nresponsibility, to say, ‘Oh, that was a ghost.’”\nIn 1946 Martyn Webster became sole producer of the series and began placing a greater\nemphasis on horror. Classics of supernatural menace, such as E. F. Benson’s vampire story “Mrs.\nAmworth,” were done, and also tales of physical and mental torture, including a play from the\nLondon Grand Guignol, “The Nutcracker Suite,” in which adulterous lovers are crushed to death\nin a room with inwardly-moving walls while the revengeful husband plays their favorite\nTchaikovsky piece on the gramophone.\nA northern station in the late Forties frolicked with  a comedy-variety hour called Appointment\nwith Cheer. And in 1953 Appointment with Weir was a platter-spinning series in which, the\nRadio Times announced, “Frank Weir invites you to listen to his selection of gramophone\nrecords.”\nValentine Dyall’s sinister narrator finally got his own program in this 1949 series.\nDyall was sometimes at pains to separate the reality of his own personality and interests from\nthe dark predilections of his vox persona, but he did so with grisly good humour. “A rumour\nstarted,” he wrote in 1954, “with my weekly broadcasts as ‘The Man in Black’—that my appetite\nfor mystery and horror was acquired at six years of age, when Christmas parcels got mixed up and\nI received The Works of Edgar Allan Poe instead of Mother Goose. It is absolutely untrue. I was\nonly five… There are many other cruel falsehoods—that I keep puff-adders as pets, rear\nBelladonna in my window-box and dress like a certain advertisement for a well-known port. The\ntruth is that I have no penchant for the macabre—only, like Kipling’s baby elephant, an ‘insatiable\ncuriosity’, a fatal fascination for ‘the sealed room’. I cannot resist an unsolved mystery, and if it\nhappens to involve ‘buckets of blood’—well, that’s no deterrent.”\n[Adelaide Mail, February 2, 1952—“Radio Round-up—‘Ghosts’” by John Quinn] “Anyone who\nenjoys being scared stiff by ghosties and things that go bump in the night will be captivated by\n‘The Man in Black.’\n“It is heard from 5CL on Monday at 9 p.m.\n“This is another of those excellent BBC transcriptions that seem to be the backbone of the ABC.\n“It is a series of stories described as tales of imagination, mystery, and fear.\n“This is something of an understatement for the two I have heard were both calculated to make\never [sic] Dracula look under his bier before tucking himself into his coffin of a night.\n“The rich, smoothly ominous voice of the Man in Black, who is the narrator, is an ideal vehicle\nfor these macabre tales.\n“Last Monday’s offering was called ‘Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad.’\n“It told of a harmless professor on holidays—and of the fearful visitor who came when he blew a\nlittle whistle he found in the ruins of a Knights Templar church.”",
  "origination": "Home Service (1943-1944), Manchester (BBC); The Light Programme (1945-1957), London\n(BBC).",
  "duration": "September 11-November 18, 1943 (first series), January 6-February 10, 1944 (second series),\nApril 13-May 18, 1944 (third series), October 5-December 28, 1944 (fourth series), September 11-October 16,\n1945 (fifth series), October 30-December 4, 1945 (sixth series), March 26-June 11, 1946 (seventh series),\nDecember 25, 1946 (Christmas special), February 25-April 29, 1947 (eighth series), December 4, 1947\n(Command Performance), January 31-March 21, 1949 (The Man in Black series), July 26-August 30, 1955\n(ninth series), August 12-September 16, 1957 (repeat broadcasts of the 1955 series).",
  "personnel": "Laidman Browne (scriptwriter), John Dickson Carr (scriptwriter, producer), John Keir Cross\n(scriptwriter—1949, The Man in Black), Franklin Dyall (voice of “The Man In Black”—second series; April\n20, 1944), Valentine Dyall (voice of “The Man In Black”—1943-1957), Cleland Finn (producer—1949, The\nMan in Black), Val Gielgud (producer, 1943), David H. Godfrey (producer—1949, The Man in Black; 1955),\nWalter Goehr (music, 1944), Charles Hatton (scriptwriter), Monckton Hoffe (scriptwriter), Mileson Horton\n(scriptwriter), Lester Powell (scriptwriter), T. J. Waldron (scriptwriter), Martyn C. Webster (producer, 1943-\n1955).\nCAST [9/11/43, “Cabin B-13”]:\nCASTS: Laidman Browne, Heron Carvic, Vivienne Chatterton, Belle Chrystall, Frank Cochrane, Ann\nCodrington, Anne Cullen, Constance Cummings, John Dodsworth, Graham Doody, Franklin Dyall, Valentine\nDyall, Richard George, Marius Goring, Stanley Groome, Grizelda Hervey, Basil Jones, P. Leaver, Eric Lugg,\nW. Lloyd, Duncan McIntyre, Harry Morris, Esme Percy, Eric Portman, Hartley Power, Molly Rankin, Eddy\nReed, Arthur Ridley, Sehri Saklatvala, Alexander Sarner, John Slater, Gladys Spencer, Marian Spencer,\nRonald Squire, J. Stone, Lewis Stringer, William Trent, Ralph Truman, Rita Vale, Harry Welchman,\nMarjorie Westbury, Richard Williams, et al.",
  "extant_recordings": "“The Pit And The Pendulum” (9/18/43), “Into Thin Air” (9/21/43), “The Speaking\nClock” (4/13/44), “The Clock Strikes Eight” (5/18/44), “And The Deep Shuddered” (11/20/45).\n[OG-NOTE: The Lester Powell-scripted “The Bell Room” (based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “Ligeia”), which originally ran\non Appointment With Fear on March 25, 1947, is extant from a January 2, 1957 broadcast on the BBC program Thirty\nMinute Theatre. Also extant from a September 17, 1959 broadcast of the same series is the Laidman Browne-scripted\nversion of Poe’s “The Cask Of Amontillado,” which aired originally on Appointment With Fear on April 9, 1946.\nThe National Sound Archive has episode no. 18 from the series BBC Close Up which was broadcast on September\n29, 1943, the title “How a Radio Play Is Produced.” This show has an re-enactment of a rehearsal session for “Cabin\nB-13,” the first play performed on Appointment With Fear, with Val Gielgud giving direction to Belle Chrystal and\nLaidmain Browne. An excerpt from this “rehearsal” was included in the BBC’s radio horror retrospective The Return\nof the Man in Black.]\nRecordings of some of the episodes of The Man in Black were re-broadcast on Washington station WOL in 1949\nand on Australian radio station 2FC in Sydney from January 20 to ????, 1952.]",
  "chronology": "APPOINTMENT WITH FEAR (HOME SERVICE)\n[Saturday—10:30-11:00 PM]\nSeptember 11, 1943\n“Cabin B-13”\nSCRIPT: John Dickson Carr.\nCAST: Laidman Browne, Belle Chrystal, et al.\nSeptember 18. 1943\n“The Pit and the Pendulum”\nSCRIPT: John Dickson Carr (adapted from the story by Edgar Allan Poe).\nCAST: Marius Goring, et al.\nEXTANT RECORDING\n[Tuesday—10:30-11:00 PM]\nSeptember 21, 1943\n“Into Thin Air” (JDC)\nSCRIPT: John Dickson Carr.\nEXTANT RECORDING\nB.B.C. CLOSE-UP (HOME SERVICE)\n[Wednesday—9:25-9:40 PM]\nSeptember 29, 1943\n“How a Radio Play Is Produced”\n[“…No. 18 in a series of programmes showing various aspects of the\nB.B.C. at war…”]\nEXTANT RECORDING—NSA\n[OG-NOTE: An archival copy of this program is held by the National Sound Archive.]\nAPPOINTMENT WITH FEAR (HOME SERVICE)\n[Thursday—10:30-11:00 PM]\nSeptember 30, 1943\n“The Body Snatchers” (JDC)\nOctober 7, 1943\n“The Customers Like Murder” (JDC)\nOctober 14, 1943\n“Will You Make a Bet with Death?” (JDC)\nOctober 21, 1943\n“The Devil’s Saint” (JDC)\nOctober 28, 1943\n“Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble” (JDC)\nNovember 4, 1943\n“The Phantom Archer” (JDC)\n[Thursday—9:40-10:10 PM]\nNovember 11, 1943\n“The Man Who Died Twice” (JDC)\nNovember 18, 1943\n“Menace in Wax” (JDC)\n[Thursday—9:35-10:05 PM]\nJanuary 6, 1944\n“Vex Not His Ghost” (JDC)\nJanuary 13, 1944\n“The Tell-Tale Heart” (Edgar Allan Poe; JDC)\n[Thursday—9:40-10:10 PM]\nJanuary 20, 1944\n“The Room of the Suicides” (JDC)\nJanuary 27, 1944\n“The Sire de Malatroit’s Door” (Robert Louis Stevenson; JDC)\nFebruary 3, 1944\n“The Dragon in the Pool”\n[BBC TITLE CARD: “Father kills himself with glass knife and makes it look\nlike murder so his children get insurance money—told how to by his son.\nDaughter suspects and puts the knife in swimming pool where the\nbrother dives on it and gets killed.”]\nSCRIPT: John Dickson Carr.\nFebruary 10, 1944\n“The Man Who Was Afraid of Dentists” (JDC)\nApril 13, 1944\n“The Speaking Clock” (JDC)\nEXTANT RECORDING\nApril 20, 1944\n“Death Flies Blind” (JDC)\nApril 27, 1944\n“A Watcher by the Dead” (Ambrose Bierce; JDC)\nMay 4, 1944\n“The Pit and the Pendulum” (Edgar Allan Poe; JDC)\nMay 11, 1944\n“Vampire Tower” (JDC)\nMay 18, 1944\n“The Clock Strikes Eight” (JDC)\nEXTANT RECORDING\n[Thursday—9:30-10:00 PM]\nOctober 5, 1944\n“I Never Suspected” (JDC)\nOctober 12, 1944\n“The Devil’s Manuscript” (JDC)\nOctober 19, 1944\n“Death Has Four Faces” (JDC)\nOctober 26, 1944\n“The Purple Wig” (G. K. Chesterton; JDC)\nNovember 2, 1944\n“He Who Whispers”\n[BBC TITLE CARD: “Young man is haunted by mysterious voice which\nthreatens and an attempt was made on his life one night by gassing him.\nFather pooh-poohs his story—he goes to police who meet them in\nVictorian music-hall. Turns out father had hired ventriloquist to frighten\nboy in Whispering Gallery of St. Paul’s—the rest his nerves supplied—he\ntried the gas himself. Father kills himself by dashing on to stage with\nblind folded knife thrower. He was only step-father and wanted boy’s\nmoney.”]\nSCRIPT: John Dickson Carr.\nNovember 9, 1944\n“The Curse of the Bronze Lamp” (JDC)\nNovember 16, 1944\n“The Great Cypher” (Melville Davisson Post, JDC)\nNovember 30, 1944\n“Vex Not His Ghost” (JDC)\nDecember 7, 1944\n“The Curse of the Bronze Lamp” (JDC)\nDecember 14, 1944\n“The Gong Cried Murder” (JDC)\nDecember 21, 1944\n“Lair of the Devil Fish” (JDC)\nDecember 28, 1944\n“The Oath of Rolling Thunder” (JDC)\nAPPOINTMENT WITH FEAR (THE LIGHT PROGRAMME)\n[Tuesday—9:30-10:00 PM]\nSeptember 11, 1945\n“Into Thin Air” (JDC)\nSeptember 18, 1945\n“Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble” (JDC)\nSeptember 25, 1945\n“The Man Who Died Twice” (JDC)\nOctober 2, 1945\n“The Clock Strikes Eight” (JDC)\nOctober 9, 1945\n“Cabin B-13” (JDC)\nOctober 16, 1945\n“Will You Make a Bet with Death?” (JDC)\nOctober 30, 1945\n“He Wasn’t Superstitious”\n[BBC TITLE CARD: “Young man comes to blackmail wife of doctor who\nkeeps snakes—he is scornful of the power of snakes to attract—but when\nhe imagines he sees one in his bedroom he is drawn towards it—imagines\nit strikes him and dies of shock. It was a stuffed voodoo snake put there\nby native servant.”]\nSCRIPT: John Dickson Carr (adapted from the story “The Man and the Snake” by\nAmbrose Bierce).\nNovember 6, 1945\n“The Man with Two Heads” (JDC)\nNovember 13, 1945\n“The Case of the Five Canaries” (JDC)\nNovember 20, 1945\n“And the Deep Shuddered” (Moncton Hoffe)\nSCRIPT: Moncton Hoffe.\nEXTANT RECORDING\nNovember 27, 1945\n“The Case”\nSCRIPT: John Slater, Roy Plomley.\nDecember 4, 1945\n“Death at Midnight” (Robert Barr)\nMarch 26, 1946\n“The Nutcracker Suite” (E. Crawshay-Williams; J. Leslie\nDodd)\nApril 2, 1946\n“Black Mamba” (Hugh Barnes, A. R. Ramsden)\nApril 9, 1946\n“The Cask of Amontillado” (Edgar Allan Poe; Laidman\nBrowne)\nApril 16, 1946\n“A Watcher by the Dead” (Ambrose Bierce; JDC)\nApril 23, 1946\n“The Man Who Knew How” (Dorothy Sayers; Robert\nCunliffe)\nApril 30, 1946\n“Dead Men’s Teeth” (Richard Fisher; Charles Hatton)\nMay 7, 1946\n“Experiment with Death”\n[“…A doctor experimenting with hypnosis and ‘astral wandering’ sends\nhis subject—a young medical student—to see into the Unknown. He sees\ncurious people there who won’t let him come back. He nearly dies, and is\ntold to tell the doctor never to try again, for he has been dabbling with\nthe Evil One…”]\nSCRIPT: Harry Bunton.\nMay 14, 1946\n“Death Takes a Honeymoon” (Mileson Horton, W. L.\nCatchpole)\nMay 21, 1946\n“Renovations at Merret’s”  (Honore de Balzac; Rankine Good)\nMay 28, 1946\n“The Monkey’s Paw” (W. W. Jacobs; Louis N. Parker)\nJune 4, 1946\n“Cottage for Sale” (T. J. Waldron)\nJune 11, 1946\n“A Mind in Shadow” (Kenneth Morgan)\n[Wednesday—9:00-9:30 PM]\nDecember 25, 1946\n“Escape to Death”\n[Tuesday—9:30-10:00 PM]\nFebruary 25, 1947\n“Mrs. Amworth” (E. F. Benson;         )\nMarch 4, 1947\n“Sink or Swim Together”\nMarch 11, 1947\n“The Last Pilgrimage” (T. J. Waldron)\nMarch 25, 1947\n“The Bell Room” (Edgar Allan Poe; Lester Powell)\nApril 1, 1947\n“The Diary of William Carpenter” (John Atkins; Patrick\nDickinson)\nApril 8, 1947\n“The Treasures” (Gilbert Frankau; Charles Hatton)\nApril 22, 1947\n“The Hands of Nekamen”\n[BBC TITLE CARD: “Hilary Talbot, an Egyptologist, steals the 3000-years-\nold mummified Hands of Nekamen from a secret Egyptian temple. The\npriest places a curse on him; and, 40 years later, the hands leave their\ncasket in Talbot’s private museum, come into his bedroom through the\nfanlight over the door, and kill him.”]\nSCRIPT: Lester Powell (adapted from a story by Kathleen Hyatt).\n[OG-NOTE: Spelling on BBC card is “Hyett.”]\n[Monday—9:30-10:00 PM]\nApril 28, 1947\n“All Cats May Snarl”\nSCRIPT: J. Vernon Basley.\n[Friday—4:15-4:45 PM]\nJuly 4, 1947\n“The Hands of Nekamen”\nAPPOINTMENT WITH FEAR (HOME SERVICE)\n[Thursday—9:45-10:15 PM]\nDecember 4, 1947\n“The Clock Strikes Eight” (JDC)\n[“…When the King and Queen visit Broadcasting House this evening they\nwill spend over two hours inspecting the activities of the B.B.C…. The\nKing and Queen will hear the news read at 9:00 and afterwards they will\nattend a performance of The Clock Strikes Eight, a play in the\n‘Appointment with Fear’ series…”]\nJanuary 14, 1948\n“The Clock Strikes Eight” (JDC)\nTHE MAN IN BLACK (THE LIGHT PROGRAMME, LONDON)\n[Monday—8:30-9:00 PM]\nJanuary 31, 1949\n“Markheim” (Robert Louis Stevenson)\nFebruary 7, 1949\n“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come To You, My Lad” (M.R. James)\nFebruary 14, 1949\n“The Middle Toe of the Right Foot” (Ambrose Bierce)\nFebruary 21, 1949\n“Our Feathered Friends” / “Thus I Refute Beelzy” (John Collier)\nFebruary 28, 1949\n“The Judge’s House” (Bram Stoker)\nMarch 7, 1949\n“The Yellow Wallpaper” (Charlotte Perkins Gillman)\nMarch 14, 1949\n“The Beast with Five Fingers” (W.F. Harvey)\nMarch 21, 1949\n“The Little House”\n(LIGHT PROGRAMME, LONDON)\n[\nDecember 27, 1949\n“The Night of the Twenty Seventh”\n[“…A real special, featuring the BBC’s most popular detectives in one big\nshow, first broadcast as a Christmas special in 1949…”]\nFrom the almost legendary Pat Hetherington scrapbooks, here is her\n(typed) transcription of this radio oddity: no recordings of this radio\nshow seem to have survived, but her marvellous efforts allow us another\nglimpse into the Golden Age of BBC Radio Thrillers!\nAs always, I have not attempted to edit Pat's work to any degree, apart\nfrom obvious typing errors.\nTHE NIGHT OF THE TWENTY-SEVENTH.\nDr. and Mrs. Dale are sitting over the fire at their home at Virginia\nLodge, Parkwood Hill, London, when there is a knock at the front door.\nDr. Dale gets up to answer it; a man comes into the room.\n\"My name is Walter Leesham\", he says, \"and I represent a well-known\nfirm of solicitors, Messrs. Croxford, Croxford, Featherdale & Croxford. I\nam here to carry out a will of a Mr. Silas Ephraim, who died a month\nago.\"\n\"How can we help?\" asks Dr. Dale, \"We have never even heard of the\nman.\"\n\"Ah, but he has heard of you\", continues the visitor, \"you see, he was a\nkeen radio fan and one of his wishes is to hold a dinner party in his\nmemory, and that you and Mrs. Dale should be host and hostess.\nThe party has to be held on the night of the 27th at Hallows Court, the\nhome of the late Silas Ephraim.\"\n\"Who are going to be invited?\" asks Mrs. Dale.\n\"Let me see\", answers Leesham, \"there are Dick Barton, Paul and Steve\nTemple, P.C.49 and Joan Carr, Philip Odell and Heather Macmara, the\nMan In Black and Miss Dangerfield. Each guest will receive £500 for\nattending, and you and Dr. Dale will receive £750 for being host and\nhostess.\"\nOn the night of the 27th, the Man In Black is walking along the road in\nthe direction of Hallows Court, when a car pulls up and the driver offers\nhim a lift; it turns out to be none other than Paul Temple who, with\nSteve, is on his way to the party.\nThey are greeted by Dr. and Mrs. Dale - just then, they hear a noise in the\nsky: looking up, they see a helicopter which gradually loses height until it\ncomes to a stop on the lawn.\n\"There is only one person who would come like that!\" says Steve.\nYes, it is Dick Barton, Special Agent.\n\"Why did you choose that kind of transport?\" asks Paul, curiously.\n\"Well, my car broke down,\" answers Dick, \"and as there are no buses in\nthis part of the country, I thought a helicopter was the next best thing. I\nused to play around here when I was young - that is how I know the\ncountry so well\".\nAs they are talking, a police car comes up the drive; it is driven by P.C.49.\n\"Good evening, all\", he greets them.\n\"Where did you get the car?\" asks the Man In Black.\n\"I borrowed it from Inspector Wilson\", answers P.C.49.\n\"It's a pity he wouldn't give you any promotion\", says Paul.\n\"Oh, I don't know,\" says P.C.49, \"'The Adventures Of Chief Inspector\nBerkley-Willoughby' wouldn't sound right, would it?\"\n\"No.\" agree the others.\n\"Well, I think we are all here now,\" says Mrs. Dale, as she leads the way\ninto the front room. As they approach it, they hear strains of the 'Harry\nLime Theme' from \"The Third Man\" being played on a gramophone.\n\"That is the four hundredth time I have heard that,\" sighs Steve.\n\"Good evening, everyone,\" says Philip Odell, switching off the\ngramophone.\n\"There is a telegram from Miss Dangerfield, saying she can't come,\" says\nDr. Dale, presently.\n\"Was there anything peculiar on the telegram?\" asks Paul.\n\"Oh, don't start now, dear,\" pleads Steve.\n\"Yes, there was,\" says Dr. Dale, \" and it rather puzzled me: it was 'Be\ncareful, the Borgias were always having dinner parties, too'.\"\nIt is then that Dick realises that the Borgias were used to finding poison\nin drinks and food...\n\"Talking of drinks, what about handing some round?\" says Dr. Dale, \"I'll\nmake sure that they aren't poisoned first.\"\n\"Yes, I could fancy a drop of scotch,\" says Philip, \"and I'll bet Paul and\nSteve have a gin and tonic.\"\n\"How do you know that?\" asks Paul.\n\"In all your adventures, you always have a gin and tonic!\" answers Philip.\n\"Do you realise, Steve,\" says Paul, \"he must be one of our fans!\"\n\"Why didn't you bring Snowey and Jock, Dick?\" asks P.C.49.\n\"Well there was only room in the helicopter for one, and if I had brought\nJock, Snowey would have sulked, and if I had brought Snowey, Jock\nwould have sulked, so I left them both at home,\" replies Dick.\n\"What is the matter with your face, Dick?\" asks Philip, \"it's all scratched.\"\n\"That's what I got from the tiger I met on the way.\" says Dick.\n\"I'll bet the tiger's face is ten times worse!\" laughs Paul.\n\"You know,\" says Dick, turning to Philip, \"I suggest we all say what we\nare thinking.\"\n\"I always do say what I think,\" says Philip, \"that's why nobody loves me.\"\n\"But, seriously,\" says Dick, \"why, for example, didn't you bring Heather?\"\n\"For the same reason that P.C.49 didn't bring Joan, I suppose,\" says\nPhilip, \"I guess we suspected danger.\"\n\"I expect you are wondering why I brought Steve, under those\ncircumstances,\" interrupts Paul. \"After all, Steve is my wife; P.C.49 isn't\nmarried to Joan and neither is Philip married to Heather, but Steve\nwould not stay at home when she received the invitation.\"\n\"As you know, I am familiar with this part of the country,\" says Dick,\n\"and I knew that this house had been bought two months ago, by a Mr.\nBrown. I checked up about Silas Ephraim and discovered that nobody\nhas died in this house for years and, what is more, the firm of Croxford,\nCroxford, Featherdale & Croxford do not employ a clerk named Walter\nLeesham.\"\nJust then, a servant comes into the room with some coffee.\n\"I should watch that coffee, sir\" he says, \"all the other food is home-\nmade, but the coffee was supplied by someone else.\"\nHe leaves the room and Dick notices that the coffee has a funny smell.\n\"Who is going to prove that it is poisoned?\" says Philip.\n\"By Jove, it is prussic acid!\" exclaims Dr. Dale.\n\"Now who would want to poison us?\" queries Philip.\n\"I don't think Inspector Wilson is very fond of me, but I don't think he'd\ntry to poison me,\" says P.C.49.\n\"Perhaps J. Arthur Rank is trying to make some money out of us.\" says\nDick.\n\"It's more likely that somebody is angry with us for not listening to\n'Faust' on the Third Programme,\" says Philip.\n\"I feel awful about this,\" says Mrs. Dale, \"we asked you to come.\"\n\"It isn't your fault,\" Paul assures her.\n\"Generally, we have work before play,\" says Philip, \"but this time things\nare reversed: we've had our play - what about doing a spot of work?\"\n\"That's just what I was thinking,\" says Dick. \"Come on, let's see what is\ngoing on in the kitchen.\"\nThey all enter the kitchen and find it empty; as they are about to go into\nthe hall, they discover that someone has locked them in.\n\"Has anyone got a pack of cards?\" asks Philip.\n\"Stop wasting time,\" says Dick, irritably.\n\"It's better than doing it,\" argues Philip.\nThey then hear for the first time the voice: \"I am Silas Ephraim and I am\nnot dead, but very much alive. I propose to kill you all, but first there will\nbe some fun and games. I am going to enjoy this. I am talking through a\nhidden loudspeaker and I can hear every word you say; YOU are now the\nslaves to the loudspeakers, just as I have been for years.\"\nMrs. Dale begins to cry: \"Oh, Jim!\" she sobs.\n\"Never mind, Mary, love,\" says Dr. Dale, trying to comfort her.\n\"We'll have to get out of here,\" says Dick, picking up a chair with the\nintention of breaking down the door.\n\"It's no good doing that,\" says the voice, \"the door is barred with steel.\"\n\"I never saw such a guy as you, Barton,\" scolds Philip, \"you are always\nwanting to break something.\"\n\"Anyway,\" says Paul, \"it's Silas Ephraim's neck you want to break, not his\nchair.\"\n\"Anyone want a game of pontoon?\" says P.C.49.\n\"You can escape by pressing the ornamental panelling round the\nfireplace,\" says the voice.\n\"I wish you'd send up a bottle of scotch, or send it down, as the case may\nbe. You don't drink, do you, Barton?\"\n\"No, I don't,\" answers Dick.\n\"You don't know what you're missing,\" says Philip.\n\"At each corner of the ceiling, some vapour is escaping,\" continues the\nvoice, \"you'll have to press the panelling.\"\n\"Come on, Dick,\" says the Man In Black, \"this is more in your line.\"\nAfter a quick search, \"I have discovered the secret,\" says Dick, \"it is a\nwooden carving of a lion's head on the right of the fireplace.\"\n\"Press it,\" says Silas Ephraim.\nDick presses it and the door opens; at the same time, the machinery pulls\nthe trigger of a gun: a hail of bullets is fired but no one is hurt, as the\nbullets go into the ceiling. They then proceed into the hall and walk\ntowards the stairs.\n\"Mind the stairs, and remember your 'Bulldog Drummond',\" warns the\nvoice.\nThey rack their brains and finally recall an incident when someone had to\nclimb stairs: on one step, something came out of the wall and hits them\nfor six.\n\"We'll have to get up there,\" says Barton.\n\"Don't go and commit suicide, Barton\" warns Philip, \"a hole in the Light\nProgramme from 6.45 to 7pm would be ghastly!\"\nUnder Dick's orders, they leave Paul Temple downstairs with Steve and\nMrs. Dale and make their way up by way of the stair rail; when they\narrive at the top they throw down a flowerpot, which rolls down the\nstairs, step by step. When it touches the fifth stair from the top, the trap\nworks as they expected.\n\"There are times when your methods pay dividends,\" says Philip,\nadmiringly.\nThey warn Paul, Steve and Mrs. Dale to come up, avoiding the fifth step\nfrom the top.\nWhen they have safely travelled upstairs, everyone goes into the first\nroom; they find a corpse in a chair, which Dr. Dale recognises as Walter\nLeesham.\n\"He died of heart failure,\" assures Ephraim.\nSuddenly, they discover they are locked in again; Dick, noticing no steel\ngrill on the window, breaks it, hoping to escape onto the balcony.\n\"You needn't have done that,\" says Philip, \"the window wasn't locked!\"\nJust as Dick gets on to the balcony, it gives way under him, but he\nmanages to hold on to the window frame and get back into the room.\n\"This is my lucky day,\" says Dick, \"first, I find a half crown in the turn-up\nof my trousers, and then I manage to save myself going with the\nbalcony.\"\nThey then find a coil of rope in the room, which Paul throws out of the\nwindow and climbs down.\n\"Goodbye, Steve, and don't forget to tell your mother that my last\nthoughts were for her!\" he shouts to his wife.\nSteve goes to the rope, with the intention of joining her husband.\n\"I am used to this kind of thing, as I used to do a lot of mountaineering,\"\nsays Steve.\n\"I bet you found a corpse in every crevice,\" says the Man In Black.\nSuddenly, Paul sees some wolves coming near to the house. He manages\nto give the alarm and Steve manages to get out of the way.\nPhilip takes out his pistol and, after assuring P.C.49 that he has a licence,\nshoots the wolves.\n\"I wouldn't have liked Paul to be the wolves' Christmas dinner. Why don't\nyou carry a pistol, Barton? They're very useful,\" says Philip.\n\"I am expected to do everything with my fists,\" replies Dick.\n\"I wonder what will happen next week... I mean, next?\" sobs Mrs. Dale,\n\"and when is it going to end?\"\n\"I don't think the author himself is sure,\" says Philip.\nSuddenly, snakes appear down the chimney! The voice very kindly\npushes a button, opening another door; they are confronted by a lift gate,\nbut, before they can open it, a rat scuttles past and is killed when it\ntouches the gate.\n\"I'm afraid one of your relations has been killed by your electric fence,\"\nshouts P.C.49 to Ephraim.\n\"The Light Programme is closing down as far as you are concerned,\"\nshouts Paul, who has just had an idea.\n\"If we all keep quiet, Ephraim may stop playing cat and mouse with us,\"\nsays Paul in a whisper, and they all proceed to speak in hushed tones.\nSuddenly, they see the shadow of a man with a gun, but this proves to be\nonly a dummy, which they ignore; however, Philip suddenly raises the\nalarm: \"His trigger finger is moving!\" he yells.\n\"Get down, all of you!\" shouts Dick, and they dive to the floor, managing\nto avoid all the bullets from the mechanical dummy.\nDick sees a gap in the wall at the top of another flight of stairs: it is a door\nfrom which the reflection of a light shines.\n\"This looks like the finale,\" says the Man In Black.\n\"That is where Ephraim is hiding,\" says P.C.49.\n\"Don't come in, or you will be sorry,\" warns Ephraim.\nThey ignore this remark and Philip threatens him with his pistol.\n\"I hate you all,\" says Silas Ephraim, \"for years I have been chained to my\nradio, craving to know what would happen next, but I always had to wait\nuntil next week. I broke my radio, only to discover that I can't live\nwithout you! For all I care, you can go to hell, all of you!\"\nHe screams hysterically and then bursts into evil laughter as he pulls a\nlever: the whole house blows up, but, somehow, everyone except Silas\nEphraim is thrown to safety.\nTheir explanation is: \"We are immortals!\"\nThen they see the damage: \"My car,\" says Paul; \"My helicopter,\" says\nDick; \"My diary,\" says Mrs. Dale; \"My Sunday helmet,\" says P.C.49.\nAs always, the final word comes from the Man In Black: \"Villains may\ncome and villains may go - we go on forever. Goodnight.\"\n\"The Night Of The Twenty Seventh\" was written by Edward J. Mason and\nproduced by Martyn C. Webster; it was first broadcast on 27th December\n1949 on the Light Programme, between 8.30 and 9.30pm. It was\nrepeated in the 'Curtain Up' series at 8.30pm on 22.3.50.\nSCRIPT: Edward J. Mason.\nPERSONNEL: Martyn C. Webster (producer).\nCAST: Max Adrian (Walter Leesham), Robert Beatty (Philip Odell), Douglas\nBurbridge (Dr. Dale), Duncan Carse (Dick Barton), Valentine Dyall (The Man in\nBlack), Malcolm Hayes (Servant), Kim Peacock (Paul Temple), Ellis Powell (Mrs.\nDale), Leon Quartermane (Silas Ephraim), Brian Reece (P.C. 49), Marjorie\nWestbury (Steve Temple).\n[OG-NOTE: There was a recorded repeat of this show on Curtain Up, broadcast on\nMarch 22, 1950.]\nAPPOINTMENT WITH FEAR (THE LIGHT PROGRAMME, LONDON)\n[Wednesday—9:00-9:30 PM]\nDecember 24, 1952\n“Cabin B-13”\n[Tuesday—8:45-9:15 PM]\nJuly 26, 1955\n“The Man Who Couldn’t Be Photographed” (JDC)\n[“…Why should the screen idol of millions be prevented from seeing the\nprints of a photograph he has had taken?...”]\nCAST: Beth Boyd (Francine), Peter Claughton (Mullis), George Hagan (Tom\nSherwood), Roderick Lovell (Bruce Ransom), Annabel Maule (Nita Valdez), John\nSerret (Monsieur du Lac), Gladys Spencer (Madame Vernet).\nAugust 2, 1955\n“White Tiger Passage” (JDC)\n[“…How a number scrawled on the wall of a Brighton telephone kiosk led\nto the arrest of a murderer, and the promotion of a junior reporter…”]\nCAST: Margaret Butt (Jenny Holden), George Hagan (Derwent), Douglas Hayes\n(Bill Stacey), Sarah Leigh (Mavis), Annabel Maule (Stella), Bryan Powley\n(Monsieur Henri Duchene), James Thomason (Johnson).\nAugust 9, 1955\n“The Dead Man’s Knock” (JDC)\n[“…The portrait of a beautiful lady… a strange meeting and the re-\nenactment of a murder in a vast house called Widestairs… Harpsichord\nplayed by Clifton Helliwell…”]\nCAST: Terence Brook (Jack Lacy), Elizabeth London (Margery Kynaston), James\nThomason (The Rev. Frank Richards). John Turnbull (Doctor Marshall),\nManning Wilson (Edward Kynaston).\nAugust 16, 1955\n“The Sleuth of Seven Dials” (JDC)\n[“…A visit to a lawyer by a strange Eastern gentleman…a seemingly\nimpossible murder, and an innocent man on the run from the police…”]\nCAST: Allan Cuthbertson (James Vaughan), Edwin Ellis (Thompson), George\nHagan (Inspector Hammond), Sarah Leigh (Eleanor Prentice), Geoffrey\nMatthews (Bellboy/Hassan El Moulk), Rudolf Offenbach (Schultz). Manning\nWilson (George Prentice).\nAugust 23, 1955\n“The Villa of the Damned” (JDC)\n[“…A honeymoon couple find adventure—and terror—in a mysterious\nvilla in Italy…”]\nCAST: Peter Claughton (Guard), Gordon Davies (Alan Stannard), Glen Farmer\n(American tourist), Joan Hart (Angela Stannard), Megan Latimer (Bianca da\nCarpi). Marjorie Mars (Brenda Stannard), Allan McClelland (Pietro), Edgar\nNorfolk (The Rev. Septimus Goodlaw).\nAugust 30, 1955\n“Till the Great Armadas Come” (JDC)\n[“…But for revelations given by Special Prisoner 24 the Fuhrer’s plot to\nstamp his mark for ever on London would have materialized…\nHarmonica played by Reg Damley…”]\nCAST: Peter Claughton (Jones), Peter Howell (Captain Nichols), David King-\nWood (Colonel Fielding), Rolf Lefebvre (Trevis), Edgar Norfolk (Sir Guy Worth),\nChristopher Rhodes (Charlie Siebold), Catherine Salkeld (Laura Sheldon), John\nTurnbull (Lord Glenarvon).\n[Monday—7:30-8:00 PM]\nAugust 12, 1957\n“The Man Who Couldn’t Be Photographed”\nAugust 19, 1957\n“White Tiger Passage”\nAugust 26, 1957\n“Dead Man’s Knock”\nSeptember 2, 1957\n“The Sleuth of Seven Dials”\nSeptember 9, 1957\n“The Villa of the Damned”\nSeptember 16, 1957\n“Till the Great Armadas Come”",
  "sources": "",
  "gallery": "John Dickson Carr            Franklin Dyall               Valentine Dyall\nVal Gielgud\nBBCSHOP.COM description: “Four chilling episodes from the famous 1940s BBC radio series, introduced\nby Valentine Dyall, AKA The Man in Black. These are the four sole surviving episodes from the BBC archive:\n: ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ by Edgar Allan Poe (18/9/1943); ‘The Speaking Clock’ by John Dickson Carr\n(13/4/1944); ‘The Clock Strikes Eight’ by John Dickson Carr(18/5/1944); ‘And The Deep Shuddered’ by\nMonckton Hoffe (20/11/1945) . Amongst the cast are Marjorie Westbury, Marius Goring and Gladys\nSpencer.",
  "images": []
}