Protection - John Wainwright - BBC Saturday Night Theatre
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- Опубликовано: 24 авг 2024
- John William Wainwright was a British crime novelist and author of 83 books, four of which have been published under the pen name Jack Ripley. He also wrote some short stories (mostly uncollected in book format), 7 radio plays, and an indefinite amount of magazine articles and newspaper columns.
Wainwright was born in Hunslet, an area of inner-city south Leeds, in 1921. He left school at fifteen and served as a rear gunner in Lancaster bombers during the Second World War. In 1947 he joined the West Riding Constabulary as a Police Constable. While serving as a policeman, he went back to studying in his spare time - earning himself a law degree in 1956 - and in 1965 he tried writing a crime novel, which was accepted by George Hardinge, the editor of Collins Crime Club, and published as Death in a Sleeping City. In 1966 Wainwright left the force and became a full-time novelist. In 1968 Hardinge became senior editor at Macmillan Publishers, taking Wainwright's contract with him. Wainwright died in Blackpool in 1995, a few months after the publication of his last novel, The Life and Times of Christmas Calvert... Assassin.
An extremely prolific author - from 1966 to 1984 he kept an average of three books a year - Wainwright published 78 crime novels, a short-story collection and four non-fiction works, including two autobiographical volumes, Tail-End Charlie and Wainwright's Beat; a career guide, Shall I Be a Policeman? (1967), and a home security handbook, Guard Your Castle (1973; new edition, 1983).
One of his most popular novels is Brainwash (1977), upon which the movies Garde à vue and Under Suspicion are based. Cul-de-sac (1984) was also very well received in its days, mainly thanks to a warm endorsement by fellow writer Georges Simenon, who defined it "an unforgettable novel".
Most of his novels fall into the police procedural category, but Wainwright also tried his hand at the suspense thriller (Square Dance, 1975; Portrait in Shadows, 1986), the serial killer novel (A Ripple of Murders, 1978), the spy novel (The Crystallized Carbon Pig, 1966; Cause for a Killing, 1974), and the legal thriller (The Jury People, 1978; Man of Law, 1980), with a couple of forays into the classical whodunit and the locked room mystery (High-Class Kill, 1973). His novel All on a Summer's Day (1981), which chronicles twenty-four hours in the life of a Police station in the north of England, is quite similar in conception to Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novel Hail, Hail the Gang's All Here (1971). Wainwright was also a passionate traditional jazz and swing music fan, and some of his novels have a strong jazz background, particularly the black comedy Do Nothin' till You Hear from Me (1977).
In an interview given to the Italian periodical Il Giallo Mondadori in 1975, Wainwright cited Raymond Chandler, Ed McBain and Ian Fleming as his favourite authors.
Originally Broadcast 7/6/1968
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The 50's in Birmingham (UK) - Sat Eve BBC Radio brought us Saturday Night Theatre - Sunday morning at 11 - Church and round and round and round we'd go - for better or worse this molded part of my development and I'm so grateful. As an older man I live in Palm Springs CA - .and Birmingham and the BBC rare tucked safely as a part of me, Thank you!
Exactly Don! I still live in Birmingham (age now 76) and your 1950s weekend radio routine resonates with me. I also associate the “Bells on Sunday” broadcasts with that more leisurely era.
Enjoy these plays so much. Because I’m not glued to a video screen, my imagine is stoked.
Thank you.
Hi thanks very much for these excellent Saturday night theatre plays. Paragraph I remember are used to listen to these in say from September 68 up until very sadly Saturday in the art theatre was discontinued. Also used to enjoy the Monday play and the Friday play as well BBC Radio 4 at that time had a lot of very good dramas so thanks for putting these on there and they are always enjoyable regards, keep up the good work it is certainly a valuable service cheers from Ron
Absolutely one of the best, most entertaining plays of this genre in a while. And funny!!! Thanks so much for posting.
No sorry l don’t agree. Boring. Perhaps I’m spoilt!
I loved this it had actual substance.
Just excellent and how id love to hear this and others of the same ilk on the radio now or like this one on a Saturday!!
@Ashton Jason never heard of flixzone, I'll give that a go? Is that an American source or channel or app?
Thank you. Good work
Thanks, good one. No foul language is appreciated. Nowadays every other word is f or s etc., especially American made programs.
I’m an American who enjoyed the International Chidlren’s Film Festivals on tv back in the day. Never cared for Hollyweird movies. Now I watch foreign films on closed caption & listen to these BBC audio plays. Life is Good.
Thank you
All that but no short synopsis??!
Excellent.
Wonderful dialogue, loved it !
Thank you posting these plays,I enjoy them very much.
This was excellent, thank you.
I love the swing'n music. I enjoyed this. I wonder if it was true was was said at the end about the young Police Officer.
Source: BBC Genome Project:
'This isn't Chicago, in the mid-thirties! It isn't even London! A Northern provincial city in 1968. That's all. The Capone era's dead and buried - and it isn't having the kiss of life on my patch!'
Yorkshire, 1968. The protection racket. The Mutual Trust and Accident Prevention Insurance Society; Southerners as criminals.
Listeners may remember a year or so ago meeting Det. Chief Supt. Lewis, Div. Supt. Collins, and Det.-Insp. Raff in John Wainwright's last play for Saturday-Night Theatre, Death in a Sleeping City. In this, Lewis attempted an almost fatal one-man vendetta against two hired Mafia killers who brought violence and vengeance to his 'patch.' In tonight's play it is again outsiders who cause trouble.
Contributors
Writer:John Wainwright
Producer:Alan Ayckbourn
Det. Chief Supt. Lewis:David Mahlowe
Div. Supt. Collins:Bob Grant
Det-Insp. Raff:Roger Rowland
Romney:Douglas Fielding
Darkie Hall:Frank Singuineau
Gibbs:Christopher Godwin
Chief Constable:Robert Wallace
Desk Sergeant:Graham Rigby
Caldwell:Ralph Lawton
Mrs Caldwell:Elizabeth Ashton
Rowena:Nicolette Lee
Evans:Brian Miller
Kaye:Robert Peck
Takes us back to more straightforward times, when crooks were crooks, villains were villains and the police spent their time fighting crime and catching criminals, and anyone with a skin that wasn't white was affectionately called "Darkie" (53:00) and adults could be bribed with a £1 note (1:05:00). How quaint.
Fast forward to today, when the police spend much of their time filling in the gaps in society as quasi social workers, and crime on a global level (the subprime banking scandal) goes unpunished, and many of us receive scam phone calls aimed at defrauding us on a daily basis, that could be prevented by telecomms companies, but aren't because it's not in their commercial interests. We ourselves, by ticking on "OK" when we download a "free" app, not realising we have become the product, allow our personal data to be used by companies that pay no tax to covertly target us with targeted information designed to relieve us of our cash and replace the local high street.
Meantime, despite acres of legislation designed to bring racial, disabity and health discrimination to an end, we find in reality although there may be a law for all of this, the reality is little has changed in practice. If we want to enforce our rights, we find that legal aid has been massively curtailed and that to fund a judicial review requires very deep pockets, and human rights lawyers are very thin on the ground.
Try asking people with non-white skin if the term "Darkie" was or is affectionate to them. I bet you are a Brit. Ignorant!!
@@paschalmcdonnell3029 I do believe Roger S was being facetious about that particular part of his comment👃
A great little crime story w plenty of overinflated egos & headbutting.
Brill-i-ant!
Very good. I had never heard of Wainwright or Jack Ripley. It was very hard-edged, even more so than, say, Z-Cars, although that was reckoned to be pretty hard-edged in its day.
I was amused by the disparaging reference to Regional Crime Squads near the beginning of the play. I remember there was a Z-Cars spin-off ("Softly Softly"???) about Regional Crime Squads which I guess were fashionable at one point. I presume this represents the attitude of Wainwright himself as a policeman.
Similarly the "CID vs Uniformed branch" that ran all the way through. I wonder which side he was on...?
Many thanks for uploading it.
Cracking story!
A somewhat hurried and unsatisfactory ending.
It built up like a slow fused rocket, we were all expecting the great flash of fireworks, then it fizzled... Not the sort of ending that Peter Whalley would have done..
ego's, nothing more than ego's
The cheesy 1960s go-go music was way too pervasive. Enjoyable story, though.
My mind quickly goes to a go-go scene with fringed shirt skirts, hairspray hairdos, black cleopatra eyeliner, big round glasses & those cool white go-go boots!! 😂😆
P
Ending sucked the rest did not.
I know what you mean I think. A bit unsatisfying.
Excellent.