Paul Temple and the Vervoid Affair

I mentioned Paul Temple not that long ago and got blank looks in return. Had I chosen to say “Poirot” or “Holmes” or even “Lord Peter Whimsy” I would’ve scored on the recognition-o-meter. I wonder why Temple, a star on radio for thirty years, a hero in print for longer and the subject of a high profile television series in the nineteen seventies has sunk into obscurity. The books are long out of print, the TV series was briefly shown on UKG in a daytime slot (I remember seeing one episode while off ill back in what was then 1993) and about two thirds of the radio serials no longer exist.

So who was Paul Temple? He was a writer of detective novels and a solver of real life murder mysteries. He was upper class enough to have one servant (a general factotum called Charlie) but down to earth enough to have contacts in London’s seedier and less legal circles. He was an amateur sleuth called in by Scotland Yard when they were faced with a situation too complicated for them to deal with. Such situations generally broke down into two camps – someone’s daughter had disappeared or someone had been found murdered. Over the next eight weeks (the serials were almost all eight episodes long which gave plenty of time for twists and turns) a complicated network of plots would be revealed with a single unknown mastermind behind it. Drugs sometimes figured into the equation, usually there was a dose of blackmail and someone would always try to shoot Temple (usually from a speeding car).

Several men played Paul Temple over the years but only one of the long running stars still exists for us to enjoy. He was Peter Coke (pronounced Cook) and is presumably the man responsible for Peter Cook (the comedian) having an early run in with the actors union Equity. To cut a long story short, they told him to change his name, he refused, they said they wouldn’t give him membership, he said he would become ‘Sting Thunderpants’ and Equity eventually gave in and let him stay as Peter Cook. Whether it is entirely true or not we will never know. Peter Coke gave a splendid performance – heroic and upstanding, cunning and wise, charming and humorous. All wrapped up with that infuriating quality that all sleuths have to have in order to spin things out for hours or weeks.

Temple’s wife was called Steve. It is over ten years since I heard my first Paul Temple case (“The Conrad Case” borrowed from the library) and yet it wasn’t until this week that I knew why his wife was called Steve. I assumed it was more likely to be short for Stephanie than as an early gay rights statement. But the truth – discovered on an internet fan site (where else?) is that she was a journalist in less enlightened times and used a male soubriquet – Steve – in order to get stories published which wouldn’t have been published under her real name of Louise. It is an interesting touch because it does explain why Steve is such a plucky character. It wasn’t the last time the journalism gimmick would be used to give a gustiness to what would otherwise be a nice little wifey. As with Paul, there were several Steves over the years but only one – Marjory Westbury – still exists in the archives.

Being eight episodes long, there were plenty of cliff-hangers in Paul Temple mysteries. These ranged from the stock-dramatic (Temple trapped in a cellar filling with water) to the surprising (the Temples were warned for weeks to watch out for someone called “Captain Smith” and find that he is the man giving them a lift home) to the charmingly awful (“Paul – I’ve lost my handbag”). The audio cliff-hanger is very different from its visual counterpart. Denied the dramatic close up of Colin Ba… the lead actor’s face, the makers of Paul Temple generally went with Mr Coke saying something (often, if we’re being honest, something quite banal) in a very grave tone of voice. Possibly there was less competition in those days and they knew their audience would return anyway, maybe they simply had confidence that the previous 26 minutes of plot was enough and they didn’t need to resort to dramatic endings. Or maybe the 1950s were a more sedate time when missing handbags kept people glued to the edge of their seats for seven whole days and nights.

The first story to be released – the previously mentioned Conrad Case – came out on cassette in 1989 and obviously made very little impression for it wasn’t until 2000 that the second one was released. Interestingly, the second story – The Spencer Affair – was broadcast on Radio 4 round about the time I borrowed the Conrad Case for I have off air tapes of it. Since 2000 the BBC Radio Collection have released four more – now on the more glamorous medium of compact disc. Alas there is no sign of either Conrad or Spencer on CD so my iPod and I have to make do with recording the tapes onto the Mac and diddling about with them. If I may come over all Mark Ayres for a moment, I did quite a good job of improving the Conrad Case’s hissy and crackly old audio. There are three more surviving serials available and I hope they bring them out soon. Now that BBC Radio Collection have understood the importance of releasing them episodically rather than in compilation form they make excellent bed time listening.

Paul Temple is part of the era between the upper class murders of Agatha Christie and the gritty murders of today. It ought to be a paradox that stories of killing can be thought of as innocent but they really were. I’ll take clues like gramophone records and enigmatic dying words over forensic science and marital strife any day. But golly – we’re very nearly at the end of the column. Break out the cliff-hanger…

“Reader – I can’t find my slippers”

(The theme music - “The Coronation Scot” – plays as the audience chews their nails)

Post script - I wrote the above while copying "The Spencer Affair" from tape to Mac and everything went as swimmingly as can be expected of old tapes, FM reception and my inbuilt incompetence. Until the moment came to trim the audio files and remove the first two minutes of Yesterday in Parliament. Seven episodes were trimmed perfectly. The file stops when the theme tune has faded down and just before the continuity announcer tells us what we've just been listening to. What I wasn't expecting was that episode eight's credits would include the (censored just in case I've convinced anyone to listen) line "John Actor as Jim Character aka Spencer". Bugger. My drive for efficiency had denied me eight nights of bedtime excitement. I had totally forgotten the details of the plot - I'm like that. Oh well. I'll listen to it anyway - if for no other reason than to nerdily test out the sound filters I applied to the slightly muffled recordings and to chuckle at the name "Lester Mudditt" in the end credits.

17th January 2004