Doug Lucie's dramatisation of Wilkie Collins' detective masterpiece from 1868, starring Eleanor Bron as Lady Verinder and Kenneth Cranham as Sergeant Cuff, Paul Rhys as Franklin Blake and narrated by Steve Hodson as Betteridge.

Described by T.S. Eliot as the first and best of English Detective novels, The Moonstone, involves a huge diamond stolen from the forehead of an Indian deity, plundered in a siege and finally given to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. It is said to carry a curse and mysteriously disappears on the night of the celebrations.

Are the Indian jugglers who were at the house earlier to blame? Why are they hanging around the property with a little boy they appear to be able to hypnotise? When the local police get nowhere, one of the new detective police is called for from London, and quickly finds a clue, but what is it going to tell him? Has the curse of the Moonstone brought with it suspicion and superstition to poison the happy Verinder household on the Yorkshire coast?

Cast:
Lady Verinder ..... Eleanor Bron
Rachel Verinder ..... Jasmine Hyde
Betteridge ..... Steve Hodson
Franklin Blake ..... Paul Rhys
Sergeant Cuff ..... Kenneth Cranham
John Herncastle ..... Stephen Critchlow
Rosanna Spearman ..... Alison Pettitt
Godfrey Ablewhite ..... Mark Straker
Penelope ..... Clare Corbett
Mr Murthwaite ..... Paul Battacharjee
Khan/Indian..... Narinder Samra
Housemaid ..... Carolyn Pickles
Boy ..... Alex Miller

Recorded on location by Lucinda Mason Brown
Original Music by David Chilton
Dramatised by Doug Lucie

Producer: Janet Whitaker
A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4. Show less