DARK TALES
[RADIO-SERIES]
This short-run BBC series did ninety-minute versions of two 19th century classics of the
supernatural, Alexander Pushkin’s “The Queen Of Spades” and Richard Marsh’s The Beetle, plus
one new script, “The Shroud.”
[CHRONOLOGY]
DARK TALES (RADIO 4, LONDON—BBC)
[???day—10:15-11:45 PM]
March 15, 1997 “The Beetle”
[“…MP Paul Lessingham, a handsome man of wealth, talent and
ambition, has a strange and disturbing past which threatens to destroy
him…”]
SCRIPT: Roger Danes (adapted from the novel by Richard Marsh).
PERSONNEL: Marion Nancarrow (producer).
CAST: Sean Baker, Hugh Dickson, Robert Harper, Alex Lowe, Janet Maw, Gerard
McDermott, Ioan Meredith, Tracy Oberman, Chris Pavlo, Alison Pettitt, Linda
Polan, Christopher Scott, Stephen Thorne.
EXTANT RECORDING
March 22, 1997 “The Shroud”
[“…Robert Forrest’s play is set in a murky underworld of crime and
religious extremism. Detective Inspector Quinlan follows a trail of
corpses that have one strange thing in common—they are all linked to the
Shroud of Turin…”]
SCRIPT: Robert Forrest.
PERSONNEL: Patrick Rayner (producer).
CAST: James Bryce, Sheila Donald, Kern Falconer, Russell Hunter, Cara Kelly,
Finlay McLean, Sandy Neilson, John Ramage, Muriel Romanes, Douglas Russell,
Finlay Welsh.
EXTANT RECORDING
March 29, 1997 “The Queen of Spades” (Alexander Pushkin)
[“…It is every gambler’s dream: the secret of three cards that always win.
Lise is gambling for a lover, and Hermann wants the money—but how to
get the secret?...”]
SCRIPT: Michelene Wandor (adapted from the story by Alexander Pushkin).
PERSONNEL: Janet Whitaker (producer).
CAST: Sean Baker, Hugh Dickson, Carolyn Jones, Moira Lister, Alex Lowe, Chris
Pavlo, Alison Pettitt, Amanda Root, Christopher Scott, Kim Wall, Greg Wise.
EXTANT RECORDING