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Behind the Screen

Behind the Screen: Episode 1: The Guest in the House, by Hugh Walpole

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Drama: Crime

Episode 1

Episode 1: The Guest in the House, by Hugh Walpole

The Guest in the House, by Hugh Walpole

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Behind the Screen, The Guest in the House, by Hugh WalpoleSearch BBC

Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers contribute to a 1930s whodunit.

Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers contribute to the 1930s whodunit by members of the Detection Club. Read by Michael Jayston. From August 2015.

Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers in a collaborative detective serial written by six members of the Detection Club.

Something strange has befallen the Ellis household. Things have never been the same since City worker, Paul Dudden, came to lodge with them. When Amy Ellis's fiancé, medical student Wilfred Hope, visits them one wet and stormy evening, the atmosphere in the house seems more peculiar than ever. Wilfred has no idea what can be going on - until he takes a look behind the screen in the parlour.... 

Read by Michael Jayston 
First broadcast weekly on the BBC National Programme in 1930, with each author:  Hugh Walpole, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, EC Bentley and Father Ronald Knox reading their own part of the story. 

To reflect the changes of storyteller, we have a different reader for each part of this new version: 

When first broadcast, some listeners were puzzled by the method employed in planning a collaborative detective story. If the whole thing were indeed to be written like a game of consequences, with each new writer picking up where the last one left off, how could any consistency be achieved, and how could a satisfactory plot be managed and concluded? 

Lord Peter Wimsey creator, Dorothy L Sayers, who co-ordinated the different contributions, explained the process: "The first three authors carried the story along according to their own several fancies; while the last three used their wits, in consultation, to unravel the clues presented to them by the first three." 

Abridged by John Peacock 
Producer David Blount 
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Pier Productions.

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Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers contribute to the 1930s whodunit

Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers contribute to the 1930s whodunit by members of the Detection Club

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