Paul Temple

Original radio serials

The Paul Temple characters and formula were developed in a succession of BBC radio serials broadcast between 1938 and 1968, with several voice actors portraying the Temples. The longest-running team, and the most popular with audiences, was Peter Coke (pronounced Cooke)^[2] and Marjorie Westbury, who starred together in every serial made between 1954 and 1968 — and Marjorie Westbury also co-starred as Steve Temple in every serial aired between 1945 and 1954.^[3]

The radio series was a collaboration between writer Francis Durbridge and BBC producer Martyn C Webster, both of whom worked on every one of the radio broadcasts aired over the thirty years from 1938 to 1968. Durbridge was still at college when he approached Webster, who then was with the BBC's regional service in the Midlands, with his proposal for a mystery series about a gentleman detective.^[4]

The introductory and closing music for the majority of the long-running series was Coronation Scot, composed by Vivian Ellis, though the earliest serials (those aired prior to December 1947) used an excerpt from Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.^[5]

Initially the serials aired only on the BBC's regional service in the Midlands. As they gained in popularity, they were aired nationally instead on the Home Service. But in 1945 they found a new permanent home on the recently founded BBC Light Programme, which too was a national station, where they remained (save for occasional repeats on Home Service) until the final serial in 1968. Repeats of selected serials then continued to be heard on Radio 4 (the new name for the Home Service) during the 1980s, and as late as 1992 (when The Spencer Affair was repeated to celebrate Francis Durbridge's 80th birthday).^[6]

Many of the earliest serials, in which the eponymous hero was played by a wide variety of different actors, have not survived the passage of time (largely because these recordings had no value to the BBC once Peter Coke had become synonymous with the lead character). Several were remade in the 1940s, in abridged form, as feature films. However some of the early radio serials do still exist: including Paul Temple Intervenes from 1942, featuring the first appearance in the series by Marjorie Westbury, in a supporting role, who would later co-star as Mrs Temple. All but one of the serials starring Peter Coke also exist: since 2003 these have been regularly repeated on digital station BBC Radio 7 (now called BBC Radio 4 Extra). In 2006 the station tracked down the then 93-year-old Coke for a half-hour interview programme, Peter Coke and the Paul Temple Affair^[7]; and the actor had also been interviewed extensively in 1998, for the half hour documentary Send For Paul Temple, an episode in the series The Radio Detectives.

Because no recordings survive for many of the early serials, in 2006 BBC Radio 4 began recreating them, in as authentic a manner as possible: as mono productions, employing vintage microphones and sound effects, and using the original scripts. In all cases Crawford Logan starred as Paul Temple with Gerda Stevenson as Steve, in place of the original leads. The first of these broadcasts, in August 2006, was a new 8-part production of Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery, originally aired in 1947. A new production of The Madison Mystery, from 1949, aired between May and July 2008, followed by the 1947 serial Paul Temple and Steve in June and July 2010. A Case for Paul Temple, from 1946, was transmitted in August and September 2011. The final such production to date was Paul Temple and the Gregory Affair, aired in 2013 (the longest of all the serials, running to ten episodes). Many of these new productions featured Welsh character actor Gareth Thomas as the head of Scotland Yard. Each of the new recordings was also released on CD.^[8][9]

Paul Temple's catchphrase, "by Timothy", first occurred in episode two of the first ever serial, Send for Paul Temple. As spoken by Kim Peacock in the 1940s serials, it made Temple sound like Wilfrid Hyde-White (it was a phrase Hyde-White frequently used, particularly in the BBC radio series The Men from the Ministry). Interviewed in 2006, Peter Coke said he hated the phrase, because even in the 1950s he thought it sounded old-fashioned.

In 1998, on the death of author Francis Durbridge, the BBC made a radio documentary about Paul Temple written and presented by noted authority Professor Jeffrey Richards, entitled Send For Paul Temple (aired on 20th May 1998), which included extracts from surviving recordings held in the BBC sound archives going right back to the first ever serial in 1938.^[10][11]

Film adaptations

Between 1946 and 1952 Paul Temple appeared in four feature films, each an abridged version of one of the early (hence, now lost) BBC radio serials. These films were distributed by Butcher's Film Service, a distributor based in the North of England (best known as a distributor of Northern comedies including the fifteen Old Mother Riley films).

• 1946 Send for Paul Temple (abridged remake of the radio serial of the same name) with Anthony Hulme (1910–2007) (born Harry Idris Miller) as Temple, Joy Shelton as Steve and Maire O'Neill as Mrs Neddy.
• 1948 Calling Paul Temple (abridged remake of radio serial Send for Paul Temple Again) with John Bentley as Temple and Dinah Sheridan as Steve.
• 1950 Paul Temple's Triumph (abridged remake of radio serial News of Paul Temple) with John Bentley as Temple and Dinah Sheridan as Steve.
• 1952 Paul Temple Returns (abridged remake of radio serial Paul Temple Intervenes) with John Bentley as Temple and Patricia Dainton as Steve. It was also released under the alternative title Bombay Waterfront.

BBC television series

Francis Durbridge licensed the television rights in his characters to the BBC, who between 1969 and 1971 produced fifty two colour 50-minute episodes of a drama series entitled Paul Temple.^[38] It starred Francis Matthews as Paul Temple, and co-starred Ros Drinkwater as his wife Steve, with George Sewell as Sammy Carson. None of the television scripts were written by Durbridge.

The 52 episodes, made over 4 seasons, were co-produced with ZDF, a West German television station based in Munich, making it the very first international co-production of the TV era. This made it practicable, in terms of the show's budget, to film location scenes for the series overseas (i.e. in Munich and other cities in West Germany). The episodes were subsequently dubbed into German, using German voice artists, for broadcast by ZDF to German audiences.

Only 16 of the 52 episodes currently exist in the BBC's television archive with their original English soundtrack, and only 11 of these are in colour (for the other 5, only black and white telerecordings survive^[39]); the other 36 episodes are lost. Many of the missing episodes survive, in colour, in ZDF TV's archives in Germany, but with dubbed German soundtracks.

The theme tune of the television series was composed by Ron Grainer, who composed very many tv themes for the BBC during the 1960s.

Novels

Many of the BBC Paul Temple radio serials were novelized between 1938 and 1989 by Francis Durbridge from his original scripts^[40]. Some of the novels in which the character appears were written in collaboration with John Thewes, Douglas Rutherford or Charles Hatten – and those with Rutherford were even published under the pen-name Paul Temple, thus making the fictional writer a "real" one.

• Send for Paul Temple (1938), Anthony Head (2007)*
• Paul Temple and the Front Page Men (1939), Anthony Head (2009)*
• News of Paul Temple (1940), Anthony Head (2008)*
• Paul Temple Intervenes (1944), Toby Stephens (2011)*
• Send for Paul Temple Again! (1948)
• The Tyler Mystery (1957), Anthony Head (2006)*
• East of Algiers (1959), Anthony Head (2009)* - based on The Sullivan Mystery but with locations and character names altered
• Paul Temple and the Harkdale Robbery (1970), Anthony Head (2007)*
• Paul Temple and the Kelby Affair (1970), Anthony Head (2007)*
• The Geneva Mystery (1971), Toby Stephens (2011)*
• The Curzon Case (1972), Anthony Head (2006)*
• Paul Temple and the Margot Mystery (1986), Toby Stephens (2011)*
• Paul Temple and the Madison Case (1988)
• Paul Temple and the Conrad Case (1989)

(*) Indicates released as a CD-only audiobook between 2006 and 2011, read by Anthony Head or Toby Stephens.

Netherlands

In the Netherlands several of the radio plays were recorded with Dutch actors and with the main character's name translated to 'Paul Vlaanderen '.

Germany

In Germany, 12 Paul Temple radio serials were adapted between 1949 and 1967, each episode (in common with the BBC serials) ending with a cliffhanger. They were listened to by such huge numbers of people that they earned the sobriquet Straßenfeger ("street sweepers"), because they left the streets practically deserted whenever an episode was broadcast. They were performed by actors of national renown, including Luxembourg-born René Deltgen (who played the title role in 11 of the 12 series), Gustav Knuth, Friedrich W. Bauschulte, Pinkas Braun, Heinz Schimmelpfennig, Siegfried Wischnewski, Wolfgang Wahl, Günther Ungeheuer and Paul Klinger amongst others.

All 11 surviving German radio serials have since been released on CD as audiobooks. Two short-lived comic series by the Aachener Bildschriftenverlag and the Luna-Kriminalromane are rare collector's items.

In 2014, an abridged remake of the lost 1949 version of "Paul Temple and the Gregory Affair" was aired and released, followed by a live radio show in 2015 with the cast and the WDR Radio Orchestra, hosted by German Comedian Bastian Pastewka.

In 2015, all four Paul Temple feature films were released on DVD.