The classic mystery has a rich hertitage on the radio, from the likes of Behind the Screen (1930) to ‘Cabin B-13’ (1943) to the readings of classic mysteries that proliferate to this day. So a brand new, fair play mystery on the radio could well be something to get excited about.
At some point in the last year — I’m not being deliberately vague, because it doesn’t really matter when — the writer Brendon Connelly contacted me about a radio mystery he was hoping to get produced called Done to Death. It quickly became pretty clear to me that Brendon is a devotee of the classic mystery, and I asked to be kept in the loop. Then, the best news happened: the BBC had greenlit the pilot episode, and it was due to go out on Radio 4 at…some point.
Well, that point has arrived: Done to Death was broadcast recently, and ahead of that broadcast Brendon very kindly sat down to discuss mysteries in general — including how his own love of the genre developed — and the specifics of plotting and clewing for radio. All of this is, of course, a shameless advert for Done to Death, but since the first episode is so good, and since Brendon’s love of classic mystery tropes makes the remaining episodes — which will only get produced if this pilot episode garners sufficient attention — sound so enticing, well, I’m happy to shamelessly promote it for an hour.
You can listen to the podcast on iTunes here, on Spotify here, or by using the player below.
My thanks to Brendon for all the work that has gone into this, to Johnny Berliner for the music, and to you, as always, for listening. I don’t ask for any remuneration for this podcast, but if you could see your way clear to checking out a genuine fair-play mystery puzzle written for we fans by a fan, the Done to Death page can be found on the BBC website here. Your support would mean a lot, not least because this is clearly a labour of love, and it’s wonderful to think that we have such talented people striving to entertain us so fully. The rise of the classic mystery continues!
Many thanks for publicising this Jim as I would never have come across it otherwise. And many thanks to Brendon for writing it. I hope the full series does get made.
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I don’t now what sort of numbers a show has to do on the radio — or on TV, to be honest — but I feel every bit of attention this gets is going to help. I’d love to see where Brendon intends on taking this, especially after so strong an opening. Fingers crossed, eh?
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This sounds like a lot of fun and I hope to both listen to the episode and the pilot sometime soon!
Related question- I can’t recall if I discussed this with you or someone else, but have you listened to Cabin Pressure, and in particular the Paris episode? It’s a heist episode that is also both a well constructed locked room, or perhaps more accurately locked bottle, closed circle mystery (not sure it’s 1000% fair play but it’s very very close) and a loving tribute to golden age detective fiction. John Finnemore has confirmed being a long standing golden age reader, and while his outright references in the episode are more basic it’s clear that he’s engaged a lot with the structure.
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Cabin Pressure has been mentioned to me before, I think in the context of Finnemore writing the follow-up to Cain’s Jawbone. I listened to the first episode and…never got any further. Not through thinking it bad, far from it, I just didn’t listen to it again, and it drifted from my radar. So thank-you for putting it back on, so that I can forget about it again in a few weeks 🙂
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That would make sense! If you ever do pick this up over the next several years lol I would say that S1 starts pretty good but the show gets better as it goes along. The most mystery-y episode (Paris) is one I’ve used as people’s first episode (there a bit of reliance on earlier events but it’s easy to pick up as it goes along) and if you only have half an hour to give it a try you could do much worse. It’s one of my favorite episodes both because of the mystery stuff and it’s just really funny.
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Maybe that’s the right idea: I should check out the Paris episode and then see how I feel about pursuing the program further. Expect updates…eventually.
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