🎧 Listen to Shadow of Murder first:
A murder mystery in the Scottish Highlands. A writer hidden behind more than one name. And a BBC radio drama that, more than sixty years later, has found an extraordinary new audience.
In this edition of Saturday Night Theatre Companion, we return to Shadow of Murder, the atmospheric BBC adaptation of a novel by Charity Blackstock—one of the pen names of the nearly forgotten British writer Ursula Torday.
From the Little Station on Commercial Street in Atchison, Kansas, we explore the mystery itself, its Highland setting, the craft that makes it work so well on radio, and the fascinating woman behind the story.
Torday’s life takes us well beyond detective fiction. We look at her multiple literary identities, her postwar work on behalf of Jewish refugee and Holocaust-survivor children, and the unusual path that eventually led to The Shadow of Murder—published in America under the striking title All Men Are Murderers.
Then, after a clear spoiler warning, we go inside the mystery: its characters, clues, suspicions, revelations and ending.
Why does a largely forgotten BBC radio play still hold listeners today?
Perhaps because good radio never really disappears. It simply waits for someone to turn it on again.
Saturday Night Theatre Companion is part of the growing Chesterton Radio world of classic radio, literature, original stories, cultural deep dives and new audio drama.
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