Send For Paul Temple by Francis Durbridge

Send For Paul Temple by Francis Durbridge

Bernard Braden stars in an original 1940 full-cast production of the very first Paul Temple adventure

Between 1938 and 1968 the exploits of amateur detective Paul Temple and his wife, Steve, enthralled generations of BC radio listeners. Theirs was an exciting world of violence and glamour - car bombs and cocktail parties.

In Paul and Steve's very first adventure, starring Bernard Braden as Paul with Peggy Hassard as Steve, a spate of jewel robberies in the Midlands has left the police baffled. They are the work of a shadowy criminal mastermind known only as The Knave of Diamonds. But who is the Knave? And can he be stopped?

All but one episode of the original 1938 BC production of Send for Paul Temple are lost from the archives. However, this complete recording of a 1940 production - made for Canadian radio and based on the original BC radio scripts - was recently rediscovered in the national Library and Archives of Canada. Digitally restored, all six episodes are now available for the very first time. Two bonus features are also included: the sole surviving sixth episode of the original 1938 production, starring the original Paul Temple, Hugh Morton, and an unbroadcast interview with the longest-running Paul Temple actor, Peter Coke.

Francis Durbridge (1912-1998) wrote his first detective fiction when he was twenty-two years old and went on to write over a hundred more. Many of his novels and plays were broadcast on radio and television, and his most successful character, Detective Paul Temple, spawned twenty-one series over a thirty-year span.