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Drama on 4: Ruth Rendell - People Don't Do Such Things

Drama: Crime

People Don't Do Such Things

08/06/2012

Ruth Rendell - People Don't Do Such Things

BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, Ruth Rendell - People Don't Do Such Things

Hapless accountant Arthur and wife Gwen's new friendship with Reeve takes a sinister turn.

4 Extra Debut. 1979: Hapless accountant Arthur and wife Gwen's new friendship with Reeve takes a very sinister turn. Stars Reece Shearsmith.

It is 1979 and hapless accountant Arthur (a winning Reece Shearsmith) and his wife Gwen (Laura Pyper) have made a new friend. 

Flashy novelist Reeve (Michael Maloney) is everything they're not - carefree, charismatic and seemingly irresistible. At first, his friendship seems to offer an enticing window into a world beyond their cloistered suburban existence, but it doesn't take long for the relationship to slip into rather more sinister territory. With unfussy performances and a rumbling documentary-style soundscape, the grimness of late-70s suburbia is palpable throughout. 

From the moment colossal egotist Reeve arrives on the scene, it's clear that Arthur and Gwen don't stand a chance, and it's this festering inevitability, lurking in awkward pauses and fidgety middle-class tics, that gives this play its most haunting moments.

Dramatised by Mike Walker from a short story by Ruth Rendell.

Sound Design: Steve Bond


Directed by John Dryden
A Goldhawk Production for BBC Radio 4.

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