Episode 103, December 21, 2024 - Christmas Special - Airchecks

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to air checks. In this episode we have more
Christmas specials, including Hercule Quiros Christmas, A Christmas, Carol Marley
Was Dead and The Night Before Christmas. But first, the
year is nineteen thirty eight. Simeon Lee is a monster
to all around him and especially his family, but someone
has planned to seek revenge on this particular Christmas Eve.

(00:44):
Here is Hercule Quiros Christmas as broadcasted on from the
BBC Radio four FM on December twenty fourth, nineteen eighty six,
at seven thirty pm.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
We present Peter Sallas as Acute Quaro in Acute Quarrow's
Christmas by Agatha Christie, dramatized for radio by Michael Bakewell.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
The year is nineteen thirty eight.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
Thank you very much, madam. And happy Christmas too. Oh,
thank you very much, sir.

Speaker 5 (01:21):
Happy Christmas.

Speaker 6 (01:21):
Happy Christmas porters out. Can I help you?

Speaker 7 (01:25):
Yes, yes, you certainly can.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
Which trains I want?

Speaker 7 (01:27):
The Adelesfield train.

Speaker 8 (01:28):
Oh, we'd better be pretty smart men Number seven, sir,
he's pretty crowded.

Speaker 5 (01:39):
Not a seat.

Speaker 8 (01:39):
Anywhere, sir, I'll have to put you in the corridor.

Speaker 6 (01:41):
I'm afraid that's all right.

Speaker 8 (01:44):
Lisa's a pretty girl for you to look at in
that compartment.

Speaker 9 (01:49):
Oh, thank you, sir.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
Very Christmas.

Speaker 10 (02:02):
First love, take your feet from first lunch.

Speaker 11 (02:05):
You're taking lunch, sir.

Speaker 10 (02:06):
No, first lunch places take seeds from first.

Speaker 7 (02:14):
You might if I sittling here while.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
They're owning a dining car.

Speaker 12 (02:17):
No, not at all.

Speaker 7 (02:21):
You're not taking lunch.

Speaker 13 (02:22):
No, I'm not hungry.

Speaker 7 (02:24):
Trade is pretty crowded.

Speaker 14 (02:25):
Oh yes, the people go away from London.

Speaker 15 (02:28):
I suppose to go to their families for Christmas.

Speaker 16 (02:31):
London's rather a terrible place.

Speaker 17 (02:32):
Isn't it.

Speaker 15 (02:33):
Yes, I do not like it at all.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
You are not English.

Speaker 7 (02:37):
I'm British, but I come from South Africa. Have you
just come from abroad?

Speaker 15 (02:42):
I come from Spain, but my mother was English.

Speaker 18 (02:45):
This must be a terrible time for Spain. The news
of the war seems to get worse every day.

Speaker 15 (02:50):
It is very terribly yes.

Speaker 7 (02:52):
Is that why you came to this country?

Speaker 14 (02:54):
Yes? I am going to stay with my relations, with
my English relations.

Speaker 17 (02:59):
I see.

Speaker 19 (03:02):
Tickets, please, thank you, madam.

Speaker 4 (03:08):
Sir. It's the third class.

Speaker 20 (03:10):
Tickets are up.

Speaker 7 (03:11):
I only came in here to sit down.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Molly were taking lunch.

Speaker 21 (03:14):
I'm sorry, sir, but you can't stay here this is
the first class compartment.

Speaker 22 (03:24):
They're the children from the village, yes, the second time today,
so the football would seated them.

Speaker 21 (03:29):
You mustn't let the seasonal spirit get out of hand.
But I do want this to be a real family
Christmas Drazilian. Indeed, I can't look forward to many more admired.
I want to see all my children around me, and
I fancy that may mean a few unpleasant surprises for
some of them. Has mister David said when they are arriving,

(03:50):
I believe not. So must be years since he last
set foot in this place. Always got on my nerves
with his art and his music and his dreamy moonstruck
that he was his mother's darling. I couldn't stand him
any more than I could stand her.

Speaker 23 (04:09):
I just can't bear the thought of going back there,
that great, gloomy, unforgiving house. I hated every moment I
spent there. When I think of all that mother such Yes,
she was so patient, Hilda, lying in pain but enduring everything.

Speaker 16 (04:21):
And when I think of my father bringing.

Speaker 23 (04:22):
All that misery into her life, humiliating her, boasting of
his love affairs, unfaithful to her time and time again,
and never even troubling to conceal it.

Speaker 16 (04:29):
He broke her heart, he killed her. I decided then
I couldn't go on living under his room.

Speaker 15 (04:33):
Don't sure you did, right, David.

Speaker 23 (04:34):
I can't think how Alfred stams it, how he has
stood it all these years.

Speaker 16 (04:38):
But father could always twist him around his little finger.

Speaker 10 (04:40):
You're risky.

Speaker 23 (04:41):
I escaped, and now he wants us to go back
there for a family Christmas.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
What's he up to?

Speaker 15 (04:47):
Does he have to be up to anything? Your father's
growing old, David.

Speaker 24 (04:51):
He's a lonely old man who's beginning to feel sentimental
about his family.

Speaker 21 (04:57):
At any rate, David didn't go and marry a girl
twenty years younger than himself like that.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Full George.

Speaker 21 (05:02):
When's mister George coming to Silian We have not yet
heard Old before his time, nothing but a pompous windbag.
I have thought there were enough like him in parliament,
the honorable Member for Westingham. God save us well.

Speaker 25 (05:19):
I think it is my duty to go Magdalen.

Speaker 26 (05:21):
Oh, Darling, there'll be a hypocrite, it'll be perfectly ghast.

Speaker 27 (05:25):
Moreover, it will enable us to put the servants on
board wages. Christmas is always expensive, and we need the money.

Speaker 15 (05:30):
Oh, George, do fast? So you're always worrying about money.

Speaker 25 (05:34):
Someone is to worry.

Speaker 28 (05:36):
I'll turn that dancing alf.

Speaker 26 (05:38):
It's absurd to pinch and scrape in all these little ways.

Speaker 15 (05:42):
Why don't you get more money out of your father?

Speaker 25 (05:44):
He does give me a very handsome alloanswer, George.

Speaker 26 (05:46):
You're not a child, you're middle aged. You ought to
settle some money on your outright.

Speaker 25 (05:51):
No, that's not his way of doing things.

Speaker 15 (05:52):
But he's a millionaire twice over. What's going to happen man?

Speaker 27 (05:55):
He dies, well, I should imagine that the bulk of
it will go to Elfred, myself and your brother.

Speaker 25 (06:00):
No, father all said he would cut him out of
his will. And of course as.

Speaker 26 (06:03):
Harry am Harry who sorry, ah, my brother.

Speaker 15 (06:08):
I never knew you had another brother.

Speaker 25 (06:10):
We never mentioned him. He was a tunoughly bed lot.
What is it, bet?

Speaker 3 (06:14):
What you laughing at?

Speaker 15 (06:16):
That's any thinking?

Speaker 26 (06:16):
How funny it was that you, of all people, should
have a disreputable brother. You're so respectable, I should hope.
So your father isn't respectable?

Speaker 29 (06:24):
Is he?

Speaker 5 (06:25):
Well?

Speaker 15 (06:26):
Sometimes the things he says make me feel quite uncomfortable.

Speaker 21 (06:30):
And you, if I were a few years younger, I'd
certainly take a lively interest in that young woman. We're
our friend Lydia. They are on the terrace, pretty cold
day to be out on the terrace side.

Speaker 22 (06:41):
I thought missus Lee is attending to her gardens, her gardens. Yes,
she has constructed miniature gardens in the old Stone sinks.
There's an Italian garden i think, and a rather pretty
little Japanese one, and all where the bridges made out
of plasticy good God, I.

Speaker 21 (06:59):
Thought he was supposed to be a woman of breeding.
Well I've got a little surprised for that precious pair.
Send hawbery to me.

Speaker 30 (07:09):
And this is a new one, isn't it. What's it
supposed to be?

Speaker 15 (07:12):
It's a dead sea, Alfred?

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Do you like it?

Speaker 30 (07:14):
It's rather aried, isn't it?

Speaker 31 (07:16):
Well it's dead after all. It's my contribution to our
sentimental family.

Speaker 15 (07:20):
Christmas. God knows why your father is insisting.

Speaker 31 (07:23):
On dragging all these people down here. It'll only cause trouble.
Why do you have to give in to him all
the time.

Speaker 30 (07:29):
He expects to have his own way.

Speaker 15 (07:31):
Naturally, since he always has had it.

Speaker 30 (07:32):
The father expects to come first. He's very good to us.

Speaker 15 (07:35):
Remember I mean financially well.

Speaker 30 (07:36):
He never grudges this money. You can spend what you
like on clothes and on this house, and the bills
are paid without a murmurs.

Speaker 31 (07:41):
And in return he expects us to be his slaves.
We have no lives of our own, no independence.

Speaker 30 (07:46):
I wish you wouldn't talk like that, Lydia. The old
man is very fond of you.

Speaker 31 (07:49):
I'm not a tall fond of him, and he knows
perfectly well I don't like him, lyd What is it, Aubrey.

Speaker 6 (07:56):
It's mister Lee, Madam.

Speaker 32 (07:57):
He asked me to tell you that there will be
two more guests arriving for Christmas, and would you have
rooms prepared for them?

Speaker 15 (08:03):
Two more guests, yes, madam, another.

Speaker 32 (08:04):
Gentleman and a young lady. Young lady, that's what mister
Lee says.

Speaker 15 (08:08):
Sir tell him, we'll be up to see him directly very.

Speaker 32 (08:11):
Well, Madam, Oh, I dislike that man.

Speaker 31 (08:15):
It creeps about the house like a cat when it
a hears him coming or going to.

Speaker 28 (08:18):
Tell the truth.

Speaker 30 (08:19):
I don't like him much either, but it's not so
easy to get a good male nurse, and father likes him.
That's the main thing.

Speaker 15 (08:24):
Do you know what I think?

Speaker 31 (08:25):
Alfred, I think your father's been bored lately, and I
think he's planning a little diversion for himself.

Speaker 21 (08:31):
No, guess who's coming for Christmas. I'll bet you a
fiver you won't get the answer.

Speaker 15 (08:35):
Aby said you expected a young lady, and.

Speaker 21 (08:37):
That intrigued you. Yes, I daresay it did. Pila will
be arriving in a minute now. I gave orders for
the car to meet her. Pila, Pila Estravadas, the child
Jennifer had by that frightful Spanish artist. Now that Jennifer's dead,
I want to see my only grandchild. She's my flesh
and blood, and she's coming to live in my house.

(08:59):
Oh it's going to be a grand Christmas.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
All my children around me.

Speaker 21 (09:04):
But there's their clue to the other visitor, Alfred, all
my children. Guess boy Harry. Of course your brother Harry.
I thought he was dead, noughty alive and kicking. You're
having him back here, Ah, the prodigal son. Hey, yes,
you're right. We must kill the fat at carp Alfred.
We must give him a great welcome.

Speaker 30 (09:23):
But he treated us all disgracefully. If he hadn't got
us all into such a mess, i'd have been able
to go into the army.

Speaker 21 (09:29):
Christmas is the season of forgiveness, Alfred.

Speaker 30 (09:32):
I've never dreamt that he'd come within these walls again.

Speaker 21 (09:35):
I rather fancy you'll be in them for some time.
He's coming home to stay. What but we must let
bygones be bygones, mustn't we?

Speaker 17 (09:43):
Lydia?

Speaker 31 (09:45):
I see you've thought a good deal about Christmas this year?

Speaker 33 (10:02):
Yes, sir, can I.

Speaker 6 (10:04):
Help you less?

Speaker 17 (10:05):
If it is a Priscillian?

Speaker 6 (10:06):
How are you off for all these years?

Speaker 11 (10:08):
Why?

Speaker 5 (10:09):
Mister, that's as how I've given you quite a shock.

Speaker 6 (10:13):
What's called out here? I'm expected?

Speaker 17 (10:15):
Oh?

Speaker 33 (10:16):
Yes, indeed, come in, mister.

Speaker 19 (10:20):
Doesn't say miggly old mansion still standing there? That's the
main thing. How's my father Trisilian?

Speaker 28 (10:26):
He will lead.

Speaker 22 (10:27):
Something of an invalid, you know, so he keeps to
his room and can't get a barg bunch.

Speaker 33 (10:31):
But do you say wonderfully well considering the eld sinner?

Speaker 34 (10:34):
And how's my dear brother Alfred? Or he's very well,
saying looking forward to seeing me?

Speaker 33 (10:40):
Eh I expect, so I don't be.

Speaker 19 (10:42):
It's given him a nasty jolt my turning up.

Speaker 22 (10:45):
Well, if you will just come into the drawing, m sir,
I will see if I can find missus alf That's
fine by me.

Speaker 34 (10:51):
Well exhibits in that place, I see.

Speaker 19 (10:53):
I believe anything has changed as I went away twenty
years ago.

Speaker 34 (10:57):
Good lord, you my father's seventh and most beautiful wife.

Speaker 14 (11:03):
I am Pila Estravados and you must be my uncle, Harry,
my mother's brother.

Speaker 19 (11:08):
Oh, so that's who you are, Jenny's daughter.

Speaker 14 (11:11):
Why did you ask me if I was your father's
seventh wife?

Speaker 15 (11:14):
Has he really had six wives?

Speaker 34 (11:16):
No, he's only had one official one, though quite a
lot else on the side. Well, Pilar really gives me
quite a turn to see something.

Speaker 19 (11:24):
Like you blooming in this mausoleum.

Speaker 15 (11:26):
How do you do, Harry? I'm Lydia, Alfred's wife.

Speaker 6 (11:29):
Ah, how do you do, Lydia?

Speaker 15 (11:32):
How does it look after all these years?

Speaker 11 (11:33):
Oh?

Speaker 19 (11:34):
Pretty much the same. And the rest of the family
are they Well?

Speaker 15 (11:37):
Didn't you know they're all coming here for Christmas?

Speaker 34 (11:40):
Regular family reunion? What's come over the old man? He
must have changed?

Speaker 6 (11:44):
Perhaps?

Speaker 19 (11:45):
Why if it isn't, Alfred? Hello, Harry, funny to be
here again, I expect.

Speaker 30 (11:51):
So, Yes, a good many years since you were got out?

Speaker 19 (11:55):
Yes, Alfred I'm glad I've come home.

Speaker 21 (12:00):
Yes, I suppose you could say I've been a very
wicked man.

Speaker 14 (12:05):
All men are wicked, you, Nancy so, and that is
why one has.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
To pray for them.

Speaker 21 (12:10):
They say you repent when you get old. That's funcom
I don't repent, and I tell you I've done most things.
I've treated and stolen and lied. And women, oh, always women.
Someone told me the other day of an Arab chief
who had a bodyguard of forty of his son's all
roughly of the same age. I don't know about forty,

(12:31):
but I bet I could produce a very fair bodyguard
if I went about looking for the brats. Now, what
do you think of that pillar?

Speaker 3 (12:37):
You shocked?

Speaker 15 (12:38):
Why should I be shocked?

Speaker 14 (12:40):
Men always desire women.

Speaker 35 (12:41):
My father too.

Speaker 14 (12:43):
That is why wise are so often unhappy, and why
they go to church and pray.

Speaker 21 (12:49):
I've had a good life, a very good life. But
it's a long time since I've seen anything so young
and beautiful. I want to show you something. You help
me up, something I bet you've never seen in your
life before. I'll just get them out of the safe. No,

(13:14):
do you know what they are?

Speaker 36 (13:16):
M hm, diamonds child diamonds, but they are little, that
is their uncut diamonds.

Speaker 21 (13:24):
That's how they are when they're found.

Speaker 15 (13:26):
Why do you not have him cut and made beautiful?

Speaker 21 (13:28):
Because I prefer them like this. They take me back
to the old days in South Africa, old far Who
can that be too early for George?

Speaker 28 (13:39):
Surely?

Speaker 33 (13:49):
Yes, sir, can I help you all?

Speaker 7 (13:51):
Is this where mister Simeon Lee is? Yes, yes, I'd
like to see.

Speaker 4 (13:55):
Him for me.

Speaker 22 (13:56):
Well, mister Lee is an invillage. He doesn't see men
many people now.

Speaker 7 (14:01):
Still, I'd be grateful if you could tell him I'm here.
Could you give him this letter?

Speaker 21 (14:07):
So you're a first boy. Just a minute ago I
was thinking about him, remembering the old day.

Speaker 18 (14:14):
He told me you were partners out in Kimberly and
if I ever came over here, I was to look
you up.

Speaker 21 (14:18):
Quite right, mister Varr, good to see you.

Speaker 28 (14:21):
Now.

Speaker 21 (14:21):
This is my granddaughter, Pila Estravadas.

Speaker 15 (14:27):
How do you do.

Speaker 4 (14:28):
I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Estravardo.

Speaker 21 (14:32):
Now sit down, tell me all about yourself. Are you
in England for long?

Speaker 3 (14:36):
I shall hurry myself now I've got here quite right.

Speaker 21 (14:39):
You must spend Christmas with us, unless you've got other plans.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
Well, no I haven't, but I don't like it.

Speaker 21 (14:45):
All nonsense. You're one of the family, my boy.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
Think of yourself as that.

Speaker 13 (14:58):
I've been looking for you.

Speaker 15 (14:59):
Ever, What are you doing all by yourself in here?

Speaker 16 (15:05):
This was her piano's cool in this room. That's her chair,
the chair she always set in just the same.

Speaker 15 (15:13):
Do come out of here, David.

Speaker 16 (15:14):
It's so cold, it's still perfectly tuned.

Speaker 20 (15:29):
What is say it?

Speaker 10 (15:30):
You seem to know it.

Speaker 16 (15:31):
I haven't played it for years. It's one of Mendelssohn's
songs without words.

Speaker 7 (15:37):
She used to play it.

Speaker 15 (15:39):
Oh, play some motor too.

Speaker 16 (15:41):
No, this was a particular favorite of hers.

Speaker 21 (15:50):
He listen, hawbray. I want the whole family to come
up here after lunch. Everybody, Yes, sir, And when you
bring them along, make plenty of noise. I want to
know when they're coming. And leave this door open.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
What is this?

Speaker 4 (16:07):
Horrible? Heaven?

Speaker 10 (16:08):
It canceled.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
Mister Lee was very emphatic.

Speaker 7 (16:11):
You should all be here.

Speaker 21 (16:12):
Hello, is that Charlton, Hoskins and Bruce Come in, all
of you and sit yourselves down shop in a minute, now,
is that you?

Speaker 28 (16:23):
Chardon sim Lee?

Speaker 21 (16:25):
Making no, no, I wanted you to make a new
will for me. Sometimes since I made the other, circumstances
have altered.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
No, no, no, no, hurry, I.

Speaker 21 (16:37):
Don't plan to die just yet. Well you're all looking
very glum.

Speaker 6 (16:41):
What's the matter you sent for?

Speaker 11 (16:43):
Oh?

Speaker 21 (16:44):
Nothing portentous about it. No, no, I'm just rather tired today,
that's all. None of you need come up after dinner,
let's go to bed. I want to be pressed for
Christmas day, good old institution. Christmas promote solidarity of feeling.
What do you think, Magdalene, my dear, Oh yes, now

(17:07):
let me see before George, you lived with a retired
naval officer, your father, I think you said. I don't
suppose you made much of Christmas. Then it needs a
big family for there.

Speaker 15 (17:23):
Well, yes, perhaps, well I.

Speaker 21 (17:26):
Don't want to talk about anything unpleasant at this time
of year. But you know, George, I'm afraid I'll have
to cut down your alarance a bit. My establishment's going
to cost me a bit more in future.

Speaker 6 (17:37):
Look here, father, you can't do less, but I can't.

Speaker 27 (17:41):
Little ready as it is, I don't know how I
make defense met.

Speaker 21 (17:44):
We'll let your wife do a bit. I'm sure she
can work out some way to supplement your income. And
she could say by making her own clothes. My wife,
I remember, was clever with her needle, but all she
was clever with a good woman, but deadly dull.

Speaker 7 (17:57):
Could you dare sell against you?

Speaker 21 (17:59):
Said you knock something over? My mother was Your mother
had the brains of a LUTs and it seems to
me she's transmitted her brains to her children. Do not
want a penny piece any of you? I'm saying of you.
All call yourself sons of mine. You're not men. You're
a set of nambipenbi weeklings. Pilar's worth any two of
you put together. I swear to Heaven I've got a

(18:20):
better son somewhere in the world than of you, even
if you were born the right side of the blanking.

Speaker 5 (18:25):
Oh god father, that's a bit thick.

Speaker 21 (18:27):
The same goes for you, Harry. What have you ever done?
Wind me for money from all over the world. I
tell you, I'm saying the sight of you all, go on,
get out, get.

Speaker 15 (18:36):
Out, all of here coming here again?

Speaker 4 (18:44):
Well?

Speaker 21 (18:45):
And what is keeping you, Hilda? Why haven't you gone
and out with the rest of them?

Speaker 24 (18:50):
When your letter came, I believed what you said that
you wanted your family around you for Christmas?

Speaker 3 (18:55):
I persuaded David to come, Well, what of it?

Speaker 24 (18:58):
You wanted your family rhyme you so that you could
abuse them and set them over by the ears? God
help you if that's your idea of fun.

Speaker 21 (19:07):
I always did ever specialized sense of humor. What's the matter.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
I'm afraid afraid of me, not of you.

Speaker 5 (19:19):
I'm afraid for you.

Speaker 33 (19:29):
Sudden. Oh, now what can we do for you?

Speaker 37 (19:33):
I can't see mister Lee a beat contribution to the
police Orphanage.

Speaker 22 (19:37):
He is expecting me. Well, then I'll take you up there, sir,
who was that at the door as the police?

Speaker 33 (19:48):
Mind what you're doing?

Speaker 22 (19:50):
All these years, I've had the washing of those cups
and never one broken?

Speaker 33 (19:54):
And now what do you do? You come along.

Speaker 22 (19:56):
Touching things you're not businesses? That's touch and look what happened.

Speaker 32 (19:59):
I'm sorry, mister Cilia. I don't know how it happened.
What does the police.

Speaker 33 (20:02):
Want collecting for the police Orphanage?

Speaker 38 (20:06):
Nothing but big in this time of the year.

Speaker 32 (20:08):
Well, by now, mister Tricillian, I'm after the pictures I see.

Speaker 33 (20:12):
Well, enjoy yourself.

Speaker 38 (20:14):
Anything be better than looking after that gloomy lot. Right,
Merry Christmas?

Speaker 28 (20:17):
There going away?

Speaker 6 (20:25):
All well, Wesley was generous and cautious as ever. Goodn't sir?

Speaker 33 (20:35):
Is everything in order?

Speaker 3 (20:36):
Will he?

Speaker 7 (20:36):
They've all gone in, mister Trizilian?

Speaker 33 (20:39):
Right, well, we'll serve dinner.

Speaker 4 (20:44):
Well, I don't know, mister Trizilian.

Speaker 5 (20:45):
It's more like a funeral than Christmas Eve.

Speaker 7 (20:47):
None of them speaking a word all through dinner.

Speaker 29 (20:50):
Everyone on edge? What's up with them?

Speaker 17 (20:52):
All?

Speaker 22 (20:52):
I thank you not to criticize your betters, will he?
And I don't want to see you dropping fruit out
of the bottle.

Speaker 38 (20:58):
Again, No, mister Trizilian.

Speaker 33 (21:00):
Yes, well, now I better collect the coffee cups.

Speaker 5 (21:03):
That'll be mister David.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
It's not a very jolly tune for Christmas, is it.

Speaker 33 (21:07):
That's the dead March? Really, that's what that is? What's
the Master doing?

Speaker 3 (21:15):
I've never heard anything more?

Speaker 33 (21:17):
What's happening up there?

Speaker 7 (21:23):
Locked?

Speaker 4 (21:25):
Let me try it? Tada over the door.

Speaker 39 (21:29):
You've gotta break the door down. Oh my god, the
meals of God grind slowly.

Speaker 40 (21:43):
The old man who have had so much blood in him.

Speaker 10 (21:54):
Take the Lord. You've come, superintendent.

Speaker 5 (21:56):
I was just ringing for the police.

Speaker 6 (21:57):
Why wouldn't anyone open the door. What's going on here?

Speaker 10 (22:01):
He told mister Lie. Superintendents, he's been done in.

Speaker 28 (22:06):
Nothing must be touched.

Speaker 27 (22:07):
I remember that touch nothing to the police arrived, that's
most important.

Speaker 7 (22:11):
Excuse me, sir, if I could just.

Speaker 30 (22:13):
Come through, say pretendent, thank god you've got here so quickly.

Speaker 6 (22:16):
What's happened?

Speaker 30 (22:16):
And my father has been killed?

Speaker 29 (22:18):
Murder?

Speaker 37 (22:20):
Will everybody kind of leave the room except mister Alfred and.

Speaker 6 (22:24):
Mister George Lee.

Speaker 25 (22:25):
That's right, superintendent.

Speaker 6 (22:27):
Excuse me, miss nothing has been touched or disturbed.

Speaker 7 (22:30):
Of course not. She understands that.

Speaker 6 (22:31):
I speaking to the ladies.

Speaker 4 (22:32):
Sir.

Speaker 37 (22:33):
You picked up something from the floor as I came in. Jimmis, yes,
I saw you, so please give it to me.

Speaker 6 (22:39):
It's in your hand now here, thank you.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
So no oh.

Speaker 28 (22:49):
Thanks, Oh it's good to see you here, Polo, particularly
when we have nothing to do with ourselves in front
of a blazing log fire. I think like a wood fire,
I oversay, yes, at any rate, we should be safe
from crime during our stay.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
Oh come girdle even my detain.

Speaker 28 (23:09):
No no quaro. Christmas time the season of peace, good
cheer and good will.

Speaker 5 (23:14):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
The British, they are so sentimental.

Speaker 28 (23:17):
What if we are, what if we do like the
old days, the old traditional festivities.

Speaker 41 (23:22):
What's the harm?

Speaker 3 (23:23):
There is no harm. But let us for a moment
examine the facts. At Christmas, families who have been separated
through the year assemble once more together. People who do
not feel amiable are putting great pressure on themselves to
appear amiable. If you damn the stream of natural behavior monomy,

(23:45):
sooner or later the dam bursts and a tactaclysm occurs.

Speaker 28 (23:49):
I never know when you're serious and when you're pulling
my leg quaro.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
I am not serious, Not in the least am I serious.
But all the same, it is true what I say.
Artificial conditions bring about their natural reaction.

Speaker 28 (24:05):
Oh, excuse me, yes, of course, yes, Johnson here, yes, Sugden,
what is it, Simeon Lee? Good lord? Yes, yes, I'll
be over straight away. Well that's made me eat my
words in a case of murder on Christmas Eve and

(24:28):
mus get over there as fast as I can.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
You wish that I should accompany.

Speaker 28 (24:31):
You, Well, it seems a shame to ask you, but
well you know how it is. Sugton's a good man, painstaking,
thoroughly sounded. But when he's not a not an imaginative chap.
I'd like the benefit of your advice.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yes, of course.

Speaker 37 (24:46):
It's murder right enough, no doubt of that. Mister Lee's
throat was cut. But there's something very odd about the
whole matter. What do you mean, Oh, I'd like you
to hear my story, Firs.

Speaker 5 (24:58):
Sir.

Speaker 37 (24:59):
This afternoon, at about five o'clock I was rung up
by mister lea adams Field police station. He seemed a
bit hard over the phone. He asked me to come
over and see him at eight o'clock this evening made
a special point at the time. Moreover, he instructed me
to say to the butler that I was collecting for
the police orphanage.

Speaker 28 (25:18):
He wanted some plausible pretext to get you into the house.

Speaker 6 (25:21):
That's right, sir.

Speaker 37 (25:23):
Mister Lee was seated by the fireplace in his room.
He asked me to sit down near. He then said,
rather hesitatingly, that he wanted to give me particulars of
a robbery. He said he had reason to believe that
uncut diamonds to the value of several thousand pounds have
been stolen from his safe diamond Eh then he said,

(25:43):
it's difficult to explain in detail. But so far as
I can see, only two persons can actually have the stones.
One of them might have done it as a joke.
If the other person took them, then they have positively
been stolen. I asked him what he wanted me to do.
He said, I want you to return here in about
an hour. At that time I shall be able to

(26:05):
tell you definitely whether I've been robbed or not. Well,
I was a little mystified, but I agreed went away.

Speaker 28 (26:12):
That's very curious.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
What do you think, bro, may I ask, Superintendent? What
conclusions you yourself drew?

Speaker 37 (26:19):
Well, various ideas occurred to me, but on the whole
I figured it out this way. He reckoned that one
of those people was a servant, the other was a
member of the family.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yes, that explains his attitude very well.

Speaker 37 (26:33):
That was why he wanted me to return later in
the interval. He meant to have an interview with the
person in question in.

Speaker 28 (26:39):
The idea who this member of the family might be.

Speaker 37 (26:43):
So I returned to the house at nine point fifteen. Precisely,
just as I was about to ring the front door bell,
I heard a scream from within the house, and then
a confused sound of general commotion. It was several minutes
before the door was answered. I found mister in a
state of wild confusion. Mister Lee was lying in front

(27:04):
of the fire in a great pool of blood. Anyone
in the room, most of the family were theirs, just
standing around. Whether the windows open or closed. One was
closed and locked. The other was open a few inches
at the bottom, but it was fixed in that position
by a burglar's crew. It's stuck fast and hasn't been
open for years.

Speaker 33 (27:24):
I say.

Speaker 37 (27:25):
Also, the wall outside is quite smooth, no ivy or creepers.
I don't see how anyone could.

Speaker 6 (27:29):
Have left that way.

Speaker 28 (27:30):
How many doors in the room?

Speaker 6 (27:32):
Just one?

Speaker 37 (27:33):
The door was locked on the inside. Nobody there except
the old man who'd been killed no more than a
few minutes previously.

Speaker 28 (27:40):
And there's no possibility of suicide.

Speaker 6 (27:43):
Where's the weapon of it?

Speaker 42 (27:44):
Were?

Speaker 28 (27:45):
But you see the door was locked from the inside.

Speaker 6 (27:47):
And here's the keys, no fingerprints. Just take a close look.

Speaker 28 (27:52):
At it, hey, Joe, Yes, I see what you mean.
Those faint scratches on the end of the barrel.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yes, yes, I see. But that means, does it not?
That the key was turned from outside? The door turned
by means of a special implement that went through the
keyhole and gripped the baron.

Speaker 28 (28:14):
Yes, but that isn't so easy to manage, It suggests
a professional to me.

Speaker 37 (28:18):
Well, following that up, it looks as though there were
a professional thief among the servants. That would explain the
diamonds being taken, and the murder would follow on logically from.

Speaker 28 (28:26):
That, Well, is there anything wrong with the theory?

Speaker 37 (28:28):
Well, it's it's it's difficult. The servants are all local
people who've been here for at least four years. The
butler's been here for close on forte. The only person
new to the house is Hawbery, mister Lee's valid attendance,
and he was out of the house.

Speaker 28 (28:42):
Still is which leaves us with the family.

Speaker 37 (28:47):
I asked them all to stay in the drawing room
until I was ready to take the statements.

Speaker 28 (28:50):
I see, well we better go upstairs and take a
look at the body.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
Extraordinary?

Speaker 28 (28:59):
What is it?

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Such a frail, shrunken old man, and yet all this
a chair and table overturned, broken glass, broken china? How
did it all happen? And such a lot of blood for.

Speaker 37 (29:15):
Ne that's what missus Alfred said. What did she say
something about? Who would have thought the old gentleman would
have had so much blood in him the.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
Words of Lady Macbeth. That is interesting.

Speaker 31 (29:31):
It has been a particular shock to my husband, to
all of us, but particularly.

Speaker 28 (29:36):
To him, a terrible, quite terrible. Won't you sit down?

Speaker 43 (29:40):
Both?

Speaker 28 (29:41):
Thank you? Let me introduce Monsieur Eptuel Paper.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
Madam.

Speaker 28 (29:46):
And Superintendent Sugdan here will be taking notes right. I'm
afraid this will be painful for you, Misterday, but I
would like an account of what happened. Of course, when,
for instance, did you last see your father? At a
quarter to six? I sat with him for a short time.
He had expressed his intention of going to bed earlier.

(30:07):
I'll go on please.

Speaker 7 (30:10):
We had our dinner at eight o'clock.

Speaker 30 (30:12):
Dinner was over, and my wife and the other ladies
had gone into the drawing room. We were sitting there
at the table. Suddenly there was the most astounding noise
overhead chairs, overturning, breaking glass and china, and then, my god,
I can hear it still, a horrible, long, drawn out scream,
the scream of a man in mortal agony.

Speaker 28 (30:30):
Who was with you when you heard that cry?

Speaker 6 (30:33):
My brother was My brother had.

Speaker 28 (30:35):
A Where were the other gentlemen. It seems so long ago.
What did happen?

Speaker 30 (30:40):
Of course, had George had gone to telephone, then we
began to talk of family matters, and Stephen Fast said
something about seeing we wanted to discuss things, and took
himself off and your brother David, David, I don't quite
know when he stepped away.

Speaker 28 (30:54):
Now there's another point. I understand your father had valuable
diamonds in his possession.

Speaker 30 (30:59):
Oh yes, so they were rough diamonds, uncut stones. Where
did he keep them in the safe in his room?
Did you know, mister Lee, that these stones had been stolen?

Speaker 28 (31:09):
What is that?

Speaker 15 (31:11):
Why he was killed for the sake of the stones?

Speaker 28 (31:13):
That's all We're going to find out. Who attended to
the room.

Speaker 15 (31:16):
Hawbury is valid. The second housemaid goes in to do
the grate and lay the fire every morning. Otherwise he
did everything.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
So Hawbery would be the person with the best opportunity.

Speaker 28 (31:26):
Yes, and where were you when the crime took place?

Speaker 34 (31:30):
In the drawing room?

Speaker 28 (31:31):
You heard the noise of the struggle.

Speaker 15 (31:32):
I think I heard something heavy fall.

Speaker 31 (31:35):
Of course, my father in law's room is over the
dining room, not the drawing room, So I wouldn't hear much.

Speaker 28 (31:39):
But you heard the cry.

Speaker 15 (31:41):
Yes, I heard that. It was quite horrible, like a
soul in hell.

Speaker 28 (31:47):
Thank you, missus Lee. It will be better perhaps if
we interview with the other members of the house party first.
The ladies may want to get to bed.

Speaker 15 (31:55):
Come Alfred, Shall I send them into you? Colonel Johnson?

Speaker 28 (31:58):
Oh, yes, thank you, one by one, if you don't mind.

Speaker 27 (32:04):
Just after dinner, I was I think in this room. Yes,
I just finished telephoning. I put a call to my
agent in Westernham at my constituency is a merchant's party.

Speaker 28 (32:11):
Business and it was just after that you heard the screen.

Speaker 27 (32:13):
Yes, died away in a kind of choke or girdle.
Terrible business. Must have been the work of a lunatic.

Speaker 28 (32:19):
Were you aware that your father kept a quantity of
valuable uncut diamonds in his bedroom.

Speaker 25 (32:23):
Yes, mess and wise procedure often told him so. He
might have been murdered for them.

Speaker 28 (32:28):
I mean that is, are you aware that the stones
have disappeared and he was murderful? He was aware of
their loss and reported it to the police some hours
before his death.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
But then I don't understand, we too, do not understand.

Speaker 4 (32:44):
The old man was delighted.

Speaker 34 (32:45):
I'd come home pretty boring room, cooped up here with Alfred.
My father had been a bit of a rip in
his time. He was looking forward to my company.

Speaker 28 (32:53):
When did you last see your father? This evening after tea, he.

Speaker 34 (32:56):
Just had a row with Alfred about your humble servant.
There was no end back with himself. He liked stirring
up trouble.

Speaker 19 (33:03):
That's why he talked.

Speaker 6 (33:03):
About altering his will.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
So your father mentioned his will.

Speaker 34 (33:07):
Yes, in front of the whole lot of us, watching
us like a cat to see how we reacted.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
What changes did he contemplate making.

Speaker 19 (33:13):
We didn't tell us that.

Speaker 6 (33:14):
I imagine, or I should say.

Speaker 34 (33:16):
I hoped that the change would be to the advantage
of your humble servant Pillar too.

Speaker 6 (33:20):
He'd taken a fancy to her.

Speaker 28 (33:23):
Well, he's dead now.

Speaker 19 (33:25):
No wills will be altered in Pillar's favor nor mine either.

Speaker 28 (33:28):
Worse luck, where were you at the time ago father's death?

Speaker 34 (33:31):
In the dining room with brother Alfred, not a very
harmonious after dinner session. We were in the middle of
a pretty sharp argument when we heard the noise overhead,
and then poor old father screamed, it's like killing a
pig killing a pig.

Speaker 19 (33:46):
Yes, we started upstairs, but the door was locked. Had
to break it down.

Speaker 34 (33:50):
How the devil it came to be locked, I can't imagine.

Speaker 26 (33:55):
When he got up to his room, he was speaking
to his lawyers about his will, and then he told
Alfred he was looking very glum. Alfred was very upset
because of Harry coming home to live. And then mister
Lee said something about his late wife. She had the
brains of a louse, he said, And David sprang up
and looked as though he'd like to murder him.

Speaker 15 (34:13):
Oh, I didn't mean that. I didn't mean it at all.

Speaker 28 (34:17):
A figure of speech, that's all. Yes, Now, where were
you at the time of the crime?

Speaker 15 (34:24):
I think I was in the drawing room, aren't you sure?
Of course? How stupid I'd gone to telephone in here.

Speaker 26 (34:31):
Yes, it's the only telephone except the one upstairs in
my father in law's room.

Speaker 28 (34:35):
Was anyone else in here with you?

Speaker 4 (34:37):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (34:37):
No, I was quite alone, you see. And then and
then it.

Speaker 15 (34:43):
Was that awful scream. Oh, it was like a nightmare.
I shall always remember it.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
Well.

Speaker 28 (34:50):
I think that's all for the present, Thank you. Well,
we're getting at some of it now. George Lee waselephoning
when he heard the scream. His wife was telephoning when
she heard it. Which of them is lying? What do
you think something?

Speaker 37 (35:08):
I don't want to speak offensively of the lady, but
I should say that she'd be first class at getting
money out of a gentleman. But I don't think she'd
cut a gentleman's throat.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
Ah, but one never knows.

Speaker 28 (35:19):
More year, what do you think?

Speaker 3 (35:22):
I would say that the character of the late Simor
Lee begins to emerge for us. It is there. I
think that the whole importance of the case lies in
the character of the dead man.

Speaker 6 (35:36):
I don't quite understand you, mister Poyra.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
I am telling you that because Simon Lee was a
certain kind of man, he set emotion certain forces which
in the end brought about his death. So, mister David,
did your father mention his late wife at all?

Speaker 16 (35:55):
Yes, he did. He insulted her.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
Your mother has been dead for some years.

Speaker 16 (35:58):
She died when I was a boy.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
She was not perhaps very happy in.

Speaker 23 (36:02):
Her life here who could be happy with a man
like my father? My mother was a saint.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
Your father was perhaps distressed by her death.

Speaker 7 (36:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 23 (36:11):
I left home before this visit. I had not seen
my father for twenty years.

Speaker 28 (36:15):
And where were you at the time of the murder?

Speaker 23 (36:18):
I could see that Alfred and Harry were going to quarrel,
so I slipped away to the music room and played
the piano.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
Which is next to the drawing room.

Speaker 23 (36:25):
Yes, I played there for some time, and then I
heard the noise from upstairs and my father screaming like
a soul in hell.

Speaker 16 (36:31):
God, it was awful.

Speaker 28 (36:32):
Were you alone in the music room?

Speaker 16 (36:34):
No, my wife Hilda was there.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
He wanted to stare up, strive.

Speaker 5 (36:40):
Where else would he have brought us altogether?

Speaker 24 (36:42):
And why did he arrange for us to hear him
saying he was going to make a new will?

Speaker 3 (36:45):
Are you sure he did that deliberate?

Speaker 17 (36:48):
Oh?

Speaker 13 (36:48):
I'm certain of it.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
So that really he may not have meant to alter
his will at all.

Speaker 15 (36:54):
No, I think that part of it was quite genuine.

Speaker 24 (36:56):
He probably did wish to make a new will, but
he enjoyed underlie the fact.

Speaker 28 (37:00):
Now, missus Lee, I'd be gratefully if you tell us
what you were doing when the crime occurred.

Speaker 24 (37:05):
I was with my husband in the music room, and
then we had tables and chairs overturned upstairs, and then
that awful scream.

Speaker 3 (37:13):
Like a soul in hell.

Speaker 5 (37:15):
It was worse than that.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
What do you mean, madam?

Speaker 15 (37:18):
It was like someone who had no soul. It was inhuman,
like a beast.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
So you have judged him, madam.

Speaker 28 (37:28):
Had your mother spoken to you of your grandfather much
missus tevardel?

Speaker 15 (37:32):
She said he was an old deville, And what did
you think?

Speaker 14 (37:36):
Of course, she was very very old. He had to
sit in a chair and his face was all dried up.
But I liked him all the same. I think that
when he was a young man, he must have been handsome,
very handsome, like you, oh.

Speaker 28 (37:50):
Like Superintendent Sudden. Well, did your grandfather ever tell you
that he had diamonds in the safe in his room?

Speaker 15 (37:57):
Yes, he showed them to me.

Speaker 14 (37:59):
But they were not like diamonds.

Speaker 28 (38:00):
They were just like pebbills. Did you know that those
diamonds had been stolen?

Speaker 14 (38:05):
Stolen?

Speaker 6 (38:06):
Now?

Speaker 37 (38:07):
I understand that all the family came up to your
grandfather's room in the afternoon of some angry words past.

Speaker 14 (38:13):
Yes, it was great fun. Grandfather made them so angry.

Speaker 28 (38:17):
You remember what I said.

Speaker 14 (38:19):
I'm not sure grandfather said they were all no good.
He said I was better than any of them.

Speaker 28 (38:24):
Where were you when the crime occurred?

Speaker 14 (38:26):
I went up to my room to do my face.
I was going to dance again with Stephen and far
away I had a scream and everyone was running, and
I went to.

Speaker 28 (38:34):
Did you go into the room?

Speaker 5 (38:36):
Oh?

Speaker 14 (38:36):
Yes, grandfather was lying in a great pool of blood.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
Did anyone say anything?

Speaker 14 (38:42):
David said, such a funny thing, he said, the meals
of God? What does that mean?

Speaker 28 (38:48):
Oh, it's it's an English proverb, my dear. Well, I
don't think there's anything more, Miss sister.

Speaker 14 (38:53):
Vardas nothing more. Then I shall go to bed, good night,
good night, ma'am.

Speaker 28 (39:01):
The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small.
And David Lee said that who's left?

Speaker 37 (39:09):
Superintendent Stephen Farr the only one who's not family.

Speaker 18 (39:14):
After the ladies had left the dining room, I stayed
and had a glass of port. I realized that the
Lees had family business they wanted to discuss, so excused
myself and left them.

Speaker 28 (39:24):
And what did you do?

Speaker 4 (39:24):
Then?

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Well, there's a room with.

Speaker 18 (39:26):
A gramophone, sort of little ballroom. I played some dance records.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
It was possible perhaps that someone might join you there
One always hopes. Indeed, Senorita Estravadas join you there.

Speaker 18 (39:39):
I am afraid not. I was still there when I
heard the rumpers and ran helpful Heather to see what
was the matter. I helped Harry break the door down.

Speaker 28 (39:50):
And is that all you have to tell us?

Speaker 7 (39:52):
Absolutely all.

Speaker 37 (39:52):
I'm afraid you've no knowledge of anyone Sime and Lee
had done a bad turn to out in Africa.

Speaker 17 (39:59):
Yea.

Speaker 18 (40:00):
Enemies, of course must have had, but I don't know
of any specific case.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
Except perhaps yourself. Mister Parr.

Speaker 18 (40:08):
You think I came to revenge some injury against my father, Well,
there's nothing doing there.

Speaker 7 (40:13):
Simon and Epodeza had nothing against each.

Speaker 28 (40:15):
Other, and we're not accusing you of anything, mister Pharr,
I did.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
Much care for the turn of mister Pollo's voice. That
is unfortunate.

Speaker 28 (40:21):
Thank you. That'll be all for the present. You will,
of course not leave the house.

Speaker 7 (40:26):
Well, it's nowhere much to go, and tomorrow's Christmas Day.

Speaker 28 (40:32):
Hmm, there goes x the unknown quantity. His story seems
straightforward enough, but that gramophone out the why isn't too good.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
My dear friend. Compare the physique of Stephen Farr with
that of simior Le Simiorly couldn't possibly have put up
a fight against him. Can you imagine that that frail
old man and that magnificent specimen of humanity struggled for
some minutes, overturning furnish and breaking china.

Speaker 6 (41:01):
You mean that it was a weak man who killed
simeon Le or a woman.

Speaker 28 (41:07):
Ah well, there's nothing much more that I can do here.
You've got things well in hands, Sugton. We ought to
see that old butler fellow, just to confirm that everyone
was where they said they were at the time of
the murder.

Speaker 22 (41:22):
Such a violent thing to happen, sir, in this house
where everything has always gone on so quietly.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
You know, it was a well ordered house, but not
a happy one.

Speaker 33 (41:33):
I wouldn't like to say that, sir.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
In the days when the family was at home it
was happy there.

Speaker 22 (41:40):
It wasn't perhaps what moment called very harmonious.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
And mister Harry, what was he like?

Speaker 30 (41:47):
All?

Speaker 33 (41:47):
It was rather a wild young gentleman, said, good hearted,
you know. Gave me quite a turn.

Speaker 22 (41:52):
It did when the bell rang, and then again so impatiently,
and I opened the door and there was a strange man,
and then mister his voice said, hello, Sicilian still here, eh,
just the same as ever.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
It must have been a strange feeling.

Speaker 22 (42:06):
It seems sometimes as though the past isn't the past,
you know, the feeling that comes over here as though
you've done it all before. It just seems to me
as though the bell rings and I go to Anstred
and there's mister Hanry, even if it should be mister
Farr or some other person. I'm just saying to myself,
you see that I've done this before.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
That is interesting, very interesting.

Speaker 28 (42:29):
I just want to get the various times checked correctly.

Speaker 17 (42:32):
Now.

Speaker 28 (42:33):
When the noise started, I understand that only mister Alfred
Lee and mister Harry Lee were in the dining room.
Is that so?

Speaker 33 (42:39):
I really couldn't tell you, sir.

Speaker 22 (42:40):
All the gentlemen were there when I serve coffee to them,
but that would be about a quarter of a nur earlier.

Speaker 28 (42:46):
Mister George Ley was telephoning.

Speaker 22 (42:48):
Now, can you confirm that I think somebody did telephone?

Speaker 34 (42:51):
Sir?

Speaker 22 (42:51):
The bell rings in my pantry, and when anybody takes
the receiver off to call a number, there's a faint
noise on the bell. I do remember hearing that.

Speaker 28 (43:00):
You don't know where anyone else was.

Speaker 22 (43:02):
Mister David I think was playing the pianoforte in the music.

Speaker 28 (43:06):
You heard him?

Speaker 22 (43:07):
Oh, yes, sir, yes, it was like a sign, says,
and I felt afterwards it was the Dead March he
was playing.

Speaker 28 (43:13):
Hmm.

Speaker 33 (43:14):
Even at the time, I remember it gave me the creeps.

Speaker 17 (43:16):
It is curious.

Speaker 28 (43:17):
Yes, now about this fellow Hawbery at the valet, are
you definitely prepared to swear that he was out of
the house by eight o'clock?

Speaker 5 (43:26):
Oh?

Speaker 22 (43:26):
Yes, yes, it was just after mister Sugden he had arrived.
I remember, particularly because he broke a coffee cup.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Hawbery broke a coffee cup.

Speaker 22 (43:35):
Yes, their one of the old Worcester ones. He no
business to have been handling it at all. He was
holding it up, admirring it. And I happened to mention
that mister Sugden had called and he dropped it.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
Did you say, mister Sugdom or did you mention the police?

Speaker 22 (43:51):
I come to think of it, sir, I mentioned that
the police superintendent had called.

Speaker 28 (43:55):
Did Hawbury ask any questions about the superintendent's visit?

Speaker 22 (43:59):
Yes, sir, yes, he he told me he'd come collecting
for the police.

Speaker 33 (44:02):
Orphanage.

Speaker 28 (44:02):
And did Hawby seem relieved when you said that?

Speaker 33 (44:05):
Do you know, sir, now you mentioned it, he certainly didn't.

Speaker 22 (44:08):
And then he left, Yes, sir, Yes, he passed through
the kitchen where they cook, and the kitchen maid saw him,
and through the back door.

Speaker 28 (44:14):
This really means by which Hawbury could return to the
house without anyone seeing him.

Speaker 22 (44:19):
Oh, I don't see how he could have done. All
the doors are locked and bolted on the inside. It
how does he get him when he comes? Oh, he
has a key to the back door, but he could
return that way then not without passing through the kitchen.
And the kitchen you see, would be occupied till well
after half past night.

Speaker 11 (44:36):
Hm.

Speaker 28 (44:36):
That seems conclusive. Thank you, Trisilin.

Speaker 17 (44:39):
Thank you.

Speaker 28 (44:40):
So has Hawbury returned yet?

Speaker 33 (44:42):
Do you know he came in just as you called me?

Speaker 28 (44:45):
Good and we'll have him in.

Speaker 32 (44:48):
I let the house just before eight, son, I went
to the electric sir. It's within easy walking distance. Love
in old Seville was the.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
Picture, sir.

Speaker 28 (44:56):
Anyone who's saw you?

Speaker 32 (44:56):
Then the young lady in the box office, sir, she
knows me. And as a matter of fact, I was
with a young lady, so I met her there by
appointment Doris Buckle, Sir, she works in the Combined dairies.

Speaker 28 (45:08):
I can give all those particulars to mister Sugden later.
What I want to know is this, at what time
did you last see mister Lee this evening?

Speaker 32 (45:15):
It was about half past seven, So I went in
to take away his supper tray and to put out
the sherry and two glasses on the bureau.

Speaker 28 (45:21):
Why did you do that?

Speaker 32 (45:22):
Mister Lee's orders was as usual sometimes it was the
rule that none of the family came in to see
mister Lee in the evening unless he invited them.

Speaker 28 (45:29):
And had he invited any one this evening.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
I don't know, Sir.

Speaker 32 (45:32):
He hadn't sent me a message by me, but he
might have asked one of them personally.

Speaker 28 (45:37):
Now there's something more we want to know, Howbred, What
can you tell us about the diamonds mister Lee kept
in his safe time and so on?

Speaker 16 (45:45):
If he saw any diamonds.

Speaker 28 (45:46):
Mister Lee kept a quantity of uncut stones there. You
must have seen him handling them.

Speaker 32 (45:50):
Oh, those funny little Pebblesyes, I did see him with
them once or twice, but I didn't know there were
diamonds he was showing them to the foreign young lady.

Speaker 28 (45:57):
Those stones have been stolen.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
No, hope, you don't think so that I had anything
to do with it.

Speaker 28 (46:02):
That remains to be seen. That'll do someone you again tonight.

Speaker 7 (46:07):
Yes, sir, Good night, sir, Thank you, sir.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
And I'm prepossessing.

Speaker 28 (46:14):
The question is what do we think of his evidence?

Speaker 37 (46:16):
Well, say you took the diamonds gathered from the old
man's moth that he was suspected, made his plans accordingly,
went out ostentatiously at eight o'clock and cooked up an
alibi easy.

Speaker 6 (46:27):
Enough to slip out of a cinema, and turned here.

Speaker 33 (46:29):
Noticed.

Speaker 28 (46:31):
Well, I think we'll call it tonight.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
Ah, good morning, missus Lee.

Speaker 26 (46:44):
It scarcely seems appropriate to say Merry Christmas, does it.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
I'm not here at any rate.

Speaker 15 (46:49):
Well, they at least don't seem very concerned. Pillar and
mister Farr walking down by the lake. She seems extraordinarily
self possessed. It's all very old.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
What is odd, madam, the way she turned up here
after the blue. I believe that mister Lee had been
searching for her for some time. He had been in
correspondence with the Vice Consulate Aricara, where her mother dies.

Speaker 15 (47:13):
You know, Mossie Pero.

Speaker 26 (47:15):
There's some story connected with Jennifer's husband Estravados, something about
him stabbing a man in a cafe and a brawl
over a woman.

Speaker 15 (47:23):
He died quite soon afterwards.

Speaker 26 (47:25):
George feels the family ought to have been told more
about the girl's antecedents. After all, if her father was
a criminal and the Spanish are cruel, aren't.

Speaker 15 (47:34):
They all those bullfights?

Speaker 3 (47:36):
You are saying that, in your opinion, Senorita Estravados cut
her grandfather's throat.

Speaker 15 (47:42):
Oh no, monsieur Pero, I never said anything of the kind.

Speaker 26 (47:45):
Well, perhaps you did not, but I do think that
she is well a suspicious person in the furtive way.

Speaker 15 (47:54):
She picked up something from the floor of the room
last night, for instance.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
She picked up something from the floor.

Speaker 26 (47:58):
Yes, as soon as we got into the she gave
a quick glance round to see if anyone was looking,
and then pounced on it. But the superintendent saw, I'm
glad to say, and made her give it up.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
What was it she picked up? Do you know, madam?

Speaker 26 (48:09):
No, I wasn't near enough to see. It was quite small.
Oh but here's mister Sudden, he'll be able to tell you.
I better see if I can help Lydia in any way.
I suppose we must make some attempt at Christmas lunch.

Speaker 37 (48:23):
Why, mister ware huh, I I won't say Merry Christmas?

Speaker 3 (48:28):
No, please? Are you making any progress?

Speaker 6 (48:32):
Aubrey's alleguy is holing Water.

Speaker 37 (48:34):
The commissioner at the cinema saw him go in with
the girl and saw him come out with her at
the end of the performance, and seemed positive he couldn't
have left and returned during the performance. The girl swears
he was with her in the cinema all the time.
I hardly see then what there is to say. Well,
that's just it. It brings us right back to the
people in the house. Clearly one of them did it.
But which you have no new data? Yes, I've checked

(48:58):
up on the telephone, cause mister George put through a
call to Westingham at two minutes to nine. That call
lasted on the six minutes.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Ah, just so.

Speaker 37 (49:08):
Moreover, no other call was put through to Westingham or
anywhere else.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
A very interesting is mister George Lee says that he
has just finished telephoning when he hears the noise overhead,
But actually he had finished telephoning nearly ten minutes before that.
Missus George Leeve says that she was telephoning, but actually
she never put through a call at all. Now what

(49:33):
were they doing?

Speaker 6 (49:34):
I noticed you talking to her just now a.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Haha ah you I know, m I was not talking
to her. She was talking to me.

Speaker 6 (49:42):
Ha ha ha ah. And what does she have to say?

Speaker 3 (49:46):
She wanted to draw my attention to the own englishness
of the crime and possibly criminal nature of the father
of Senorita Estravadas, and the fact that she had furtively
picked something up from the floor last night.

Speaker 6 (50:00):
She told you that, did she?

Speaker 17 (50:01):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (50:03):
What was it she picked up?

Speaker 37 (50:05):
If you can make anything out of it, I'll retire
from the police force. They you are a piece of
rubber and a small wooden peg.

Speaker 6 (50:14):
What do you make of it?

Speaker 3 (50:15):
This little piece of stuff might have been cut from
a spongebag.

Speaker 37 (50:19):
It was It comes from a spongebag in mister Lee's rum.
Somebody cut a small triangular piece out of it. Mister
Lee might have done it himself, for all I know.

Speaker 6 (50:28):
That's with a peg. It's just rough wood whittled out.
A bit of deal.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
I'd say most remarkable.

Speaker 37 (50:35):
They don't mean anything at all to you, I must
conface nothing whatever.

Speaker 6 (50:41):
Well, let's get down to the fact. To begin with,
there are.

Speaker 37 (50:45):
The people who couldn't have done it, and they are
Alfred and Harry Lee. They've got a definite alibi. And
the others, well, I've made out a list. At the
time of the crime. David Lee was playing the piano
in the music confirmed by his wife. Missus David Lee
was in the music room, confirmed by her husband. Miss

(51:07):
Estra Vardas was in her bedroom.

Speaker 6 (51:09):
No confirmation.

Speaker 37 (51:10):
Seven far was playing records in the ballroom, confirmed by
three of the staff who could hear the music in
the servants hall. And mister and Missus George Lee are
simply true question marks. So much for opportunity. Now let's
consider motive. There again, we can wash out certain people.
Miss Estra Vardas, for one, As the will stands, she

(51:33):
doesn't gain anything at all. It seems unlikely therefore, that
she has anything to do with the crime, except that
you might argue that the cut a man's throat is
an un English sort of thing to do. As your friend,
Missus George put it, do not.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
Call her my friend, or I shall speak on your
friend Miss Estravados, who finds you such a handsome man
in steady. Honest, it is true, It is true. Your
most is super Tell me, tell me do you use
for it a special pomard?

Speaker 6 (52:07):
Good Lord? No, just crows.

Speaker 3 (52:10):
You are favored by nature. Every night I have to
use the pomarde.

Speaker 11 (52:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 37 (52:17):
Well, now, Harry Lee had every opportunity for keeping the
old men alive in the hope that he'd.

Speaker 6 (52:24):
Make a new will. You see we're getting on true.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
Very soon there will be nobody left.

Speaker 37 (52:29):
We've still got George Lee and his wife, and miss
and missus David Lee.

Speaker 6 (52:34):
They all benefit by the death.

Speaker 37 (52:35):
And George Lee, from all I can make out, is
grasping about money. Moreover, his father was threatening to cut
down supplies. So we've got George Lee with motive and opportunity,
and David Lee. Why he doesn't strike me as the
mercenary type. As I see it, there are three possible
motives for this murder, the diamond complication, the will, and

(52:58):
there's well just plain night.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
Ah. You see that, do you?

Speaker 37 (53:04):
If David Lee killed his father, it might explain the well,
the blood letting.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
So much blood. It takes me back to ancient rituals,
to blood sacrifice. To the anointing with the blood of
the sacrifice.

Speaker 6 (53:22):
Well, I'm going back to the house. You coming, mister Para?

Speaker 3 (53:26):
Oh no, no, not for the moments, Superintendent. I shall
walk for a while on the terrace.

Speaker 6 (53:37):
There's no doubt about it.

Speaker 33 (53:38):
They're the diamond's all right.

Speaker 6 (53:40):
See if it's house?

Speaker 28 (53:41):
And where did you save from them?

Speaker 17 (53:42):
Para?

Speaker 3 (53:43):
In one of the small gardens on the terrace, constructed
by missus Alfred Lee.

Speaker 6 (53:48):
She's Alfred. Doesn't seem like.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
One will not easily believe her a thief.

Speaker 6 (53:53):
No, anybody could have hidden them there.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
That is true. It was convenient that in that particular
guy up and the dead sea, there happened to be
pepples very similar in shape and appearance. It was an
ideal place for whoever took the diamonds.

Speaker 28 (54:09):
What we better get on anything fresh to report something.

Speaker 37 (54:12):
There's some new information about Hawbrey, a reason why he
might be scared of the police. What's that extorting money
under threats, modified blackmail. The case couldn't be proved, so
he got off. But I rather fancy he's got away
with a thing or two in that line. That's why
he got the wind up. When Drassilian mentioned the police
officer on the night of the murder.

Speaker 28 (54:30):
So much for Hawbury anything else.

Speaker 37 (54:34):
Missus George Lee, So we've we've got a line on
her before a marriage. Was living with the Commander Jones
Pastors his daughter, but she was and his daughter. I
think from what we've been told that old mister Lee
summed her up pretty correctly and was just amusing himself
by taking a shot in.

Speaker 6 (54:54):
The dark, and he got her on the raw.

Speaker 28 (54:56):
That gives her another possible motive. She may have thought
he knew someth definite and was going to give her
away to her husband.

Speaker 37 (55:03):
Why not have them in together and get that telephone
business trade?

Speaker 28 (55:06):
Yeah, good idea.

Speaker 6 (55:10):
You put through a call to Westringham, I think you said,
mister Lee.

Speaker 25 (55:13):
Yes, I did, to my agent to the constituency. I
can refer you to him.

Speaker 6 (55:16):
We're not disputing the point.

Speaker 37 (55:18):
Your call went through at eight fifty nine exactly, and
it was terminated at nine to four. Your father, mister Lee,
was killed about nine point fifteen. I must ask you
once more for an account.

Speaker 33 (55:31):
Of your movement.

Speaker 5 (55:32):
I told you I was telephoning.

Speaker 6 (55:33):
No, mister Lee, you weren't well.

Speaker 25 (55:36):
I just finished and I was wondering that we make
another call.

Speaker 6 (55:39):
You could hardly debate whether or not to make a
telephone call for ten minutes.

Speaker 27 (55:42):
So you've got in my word, the word of a
man in my position, Colonel johnson' you countenance this attitude
in a.

Speaker 28 (55:46):
Murder case, mister Lee, these questions must be asked an answer.

Speaker 25 (55:49):
Well, I have answered.

Speaker 28 (55:51):
I was debating a further call, and you were in
this room when the alarm was raised.

Speaker 30 (55:54):
I was, yes, I was.

Speaker 28 (55:56):
I think, Missus Lee, that you stated that you were
telephoning when the alarm broke out, and that at the
time you were alone in this room.

Speaker 15 (56:02):
I don't know. I don't remember what I said.

Speaker 3 (56:06):
I was so upset.

Speaker 6 (56:08):
We've got it all written down.

Speaker 15 (56:09):
You know, of course I telephoned. I just can't be sure.

Speaker 25 (56:13):
We're where did you telephone from? Not in here?

Speaker 6 (56:15):
I suggest, missus Leady, you didn't telephone at all.

Speaker 15 (56:19):
Short, don't let them bully me.

Speaker 34 (56:22):
You know what said?

Speaker 15 (56:23):
Okay, when anyone goes on to me and frightens me,
I can't remember anything at all.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
So it's disgraceful.

Speaker 25 (56:31):
I went to my life bullet I'm taking out of
my Life's.

Speaker 4 (56:33):
A question asked? My answer policemen.

Speaker 10 (56:35):
It's disgraceful.

Speaker 6 (56:39):
We've got them going properly. She'll be back in a
minute when she decided what to say.

Speaker 28 (56:44):
It certainly looks very fishy. What's another brother seeing a ghost?

Speaker 3 (56:50):
You know, I'm not sure that I have not done
just exactly that.

Speaker 10 (56:59):
Excuselemen?

Speaker 17 (57:01):
What did I say?

Speaker 28 (57:02):
Come in, my dear thank you.

Speaker 26 (57:07):
My husband thinks I've gone to my room. Colonel Johnson,
if I tell you the truth, you will keep quiet
about it, won't you. I mean you don't have to
make everything public, do you?

Speaker 28 (57:16):
You mean something that has no connection with the crime.

Speaker 15 (57:18):
Yes, no connection at all, just something in my.

Speaker 5 (57:23):
Private life.

Speaker 28 (57:24):
You tell me what you have to say, and I'll
be the judge.

Speaker 15 (57:28):
You see, It's like this.

Speaker 26 (57:30):
There's somebody I wanted to telephone somebody last night, a man,
a friend of mine, and I didn't want George to
know about it. So I went to the telephone after
dinner when I thought George would be safely in the
dining room.

Speaker 15 (57:43):
But when I got here, I heard him telephoning.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
So I waited, Where did you wait, madame? Well, there's a.

Speaker 15 (57:48):
Place for coats and things behind the stairs.

Speaker 26 (57:50):
I slipped back there where I could see George come
out of this room, but he didn't come out, and
then all the noise happened and mister Lee screamed and
I ran upstairs.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
So your husband did not leave this room until the
moment of the murdener.

Speaker 28 (58:03):
And you yourself, from nine o'clock to nine fifteen were
waiting in the recess behind the sets.

Speaker 15 (58:07):
Yes, but I couldn't say so. You see, it's been very,
very awkward for me.

Speaker 28 (58:12):
You do see that, don't youse. It was certainly awkward.

Speaker 19 (58:17):
I'm so relieved to.

Speaker 7 (58:18):
Have told you the truth.

Speaker 15 (58:20):
And you won't tell my husband, will you. I'm sure
I can trust all of you.

Speaker 28 (58:28):
Well, it might have been like that. It's a perfectly
plausible story. On the other hand, might not.

Speaker 6 (58:35):
Well, you just don't know, sir.

Speaker 7 (58:44):
There's something I've meaning to ask you.

Speaker 17 (58:45):
What is it?

Speaker 3 (58:47):
When I first came here, when I saw you, we'd
see me in drome. Why didn't you mentioned.

Speaker 15 (58:54):
Because I did not know why you would come here.
I thought perhaps you had come to see me.

Speaker 3 (59:02):
In his own phone, his own You are disturbing my concentration.

Speaker 14 (59:08):
I wanted to dance to the gramophone, but Stephen said
it was wrong for a house of morning.

Speaker 18 (59:12):
It sounded so strange, but we tried to muffle it
as best we could with a scarf and a pair
of stockings.

Speaker 15 (59:17):
It is silly to pretend to be sad.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
Come out into the gallery. I want to show you something.
You see a porporate of Simeon Lee when he was
a young man.

Speaker 14 (59:33):
But how very different he looks like Harry might have
been ten years ago.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
And now here here is Madam your grandmother, very blond hair,
mild blue eyes like David the heredity. It is very interesting.
And you you see here this lady with golden hair
and blue eyes.

Speaker 17 (59:59):
My mother.

Speaker 15 (01:00:00):
I have her portrait here in my market.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
M And is that your father?

Speaker 9 (01:00:06):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
What beautiful blue eyes. Few Spaniards have the blue eyes,
I think, Senory sometimes.

Speaker 15 (01:00:14):
Besides, my father's mother was Irish.

Speaker 5 (01:00:17):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
Yes, and that reminds me, Senorita, your passport. It is
needed by my friend the superintendent. These tiresome police regulation.

Speaker 15 (01:00:26):
I will go up and get it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
Mister Farrer, there is something I wish to discuss with you.
Will you come along with me to the scene of
the cry is, of course well, these two statues standing
just by seme On Lee's door. They seem to have
a particular regard for their virtue. You see how they
clasp their draperies to their breasts. I noticed them two

(01:00:53):
nights ago when we all dashed up to the old
man's room.

Speaker 7 (01:00:55):
But I thought there were three then.

Speaker 33 (01:00:58):
That must have been a trick of the light.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
In the law. Cats are gray in the dark, Ah,
Superintendent mister yes, I would be grateful if you would
do me a small favor. Senorita Estravadas has gone to
her room to get her passport for you.

Speaker 17 (01:01:13):
Could you go there to receive it?

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
And it doesn't make sure the rest of the family
are somewhere nearby. You remember our little arrangement.

Speaker 6 (01:01:21):
Oh, I haven't gone.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
Come, mister Farr, let us go.

Speaker 18 (01:01:28):
You have the memories, yes, ah, the memories, mister Puaro.
Only two days ago. He was sitting in that chair.
But I don't imagine you brought me here to talk
about my memories in a way.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
You were in the little ball room. I think when
mister Lee was killed, that's right. You did not hear
the scream, I think you said. I don't think I did.
Somebody did cry out, but that may have been somebody downstairs.
You did not hear a noise like this. Ah, what
do you think you're doing?

Speaker 7 (01:02:01):
Do you want to scare the whole house? They'll think
somebody else has been killed.

Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
It's just.

Speaker 3 (01:02:07):
It's just a little experiment, mister Farr. But let us continue.
You were I think the first person to arrive on
the scene that night was I.

Speaker 7 (01:02:19):
I don't remember. No, I think one of the ladies
was here before me.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
Which lady one of the wives, George's wife or David's.
It is nothing, nothing, Do not be alarmed, a little
experiment that what's going on? You were with the senior eater, Yes,
and you did not hear me scream. That is all
I wanted to know.

Speaker 27 (01:02:42):
You may all go now, these chaps from a course,
the channel quite unstable.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
Oh, madam Lee, could I have a little word?

Speaker 28 (01:02:52):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (01:02:52):
What is it?

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
Tell me?

Speaker 33 (01:02:54):
Huh?

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
Is there a shop in Attlesfield where one can buy
how you said, fancy dress? Weak spards us?

Speaker 4 (01:03:02):
Miss there is what is it?

Speaker 15 (01:03:04):
You're looking for.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
Something to surprise you all with, madame?

Speaker 5 (01:03:08):
That is all.

Speaker 4 (01:03:12):
Pillar what's the matter they have had the.

Speaker 21 (01:03:15):
Reading of the will?

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
I've got nothing, nothing at all.

Speaker 14 (01:03:19):
It was a wheel made many years ago. My grandfather
left money to my mother, but because she is dead,
it does not go to me, but goes back to them.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
That seems rather hard.

Speaker 15 (01:03:28):
Lines that fat George. He was very pleased.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Oh, I'm sure that Alfred and Lydia will look after you.

Speaker 14 (01:03:33):
That would not be amusing.

Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
Oh it is also dreary.

Speaker 14 (01:03:38):
And I came here because I have been told that
at Christmas or the English enjoy.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
Themselves blood if they got a little matter like a
murder to cope.

Speaker 18 (01:03:45):
But here, here, here, you see these are all the
things that Lydia was bringing out for Christmas.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
Gold and silver balls or a tree, boxes.

Speaker 15 (01:03:52):
Of crackers, balloons, saloons.

Speaker 14 (01:03:55):
I love balloons.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
Can we blowing up?

Speaker 15 (01:03:58):
Lydia would not mind?

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
Here we go.

Speaker 15 (01:04:02):
You look so funny with your chief pada.

Speaker 10 (01:04:19):
So you play at It is pretty that it.

Speaker 15 (01:04:24):
Is gone for a balloon.

Speaker 14 (01:04:28):
So that is what I picked up on my grandfather's floor.
He too had a balloon, only this was a pink one.

Speaker 15 (01:04:35):
What does he matters?

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
Nothing, senor eating nothing at all?

Speaker 10 (01:04:39):
Lunch.

Speaker 31 (01:04:39):
He's just ready, mister parr oh pilla, my dear, everything
has been settled quite satisfactorily.

Speaker 15 (01:04:46):
Alfred will explain the exact details to you after lunch.

Speaker 10 (01:04:50):
Shall we go in.

Speaker 6 (01:04:53):
I'd like a quiet word.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
With you, of course, Superintendent.

Speaker 37 (01:04:56):
I've received a cable from the South African place. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:01):
Jpanza Far's only son died two years ago, so now
we know. Oh, indeed we do. But one thing I
beg you do not question mister Farr until I give
you the word. There is one more thing I need to.

Speaker 29 (01:05:15):
Do, Lydia.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
I have to talk to you.

Speaker 5 (01:05:20):
It's the matter, my child.

Speaker 15 (01:05:21):
I will not take that money.

Speaker 14 (01:05:23):
I am going away at once.

Speaker 31 (01:05:24):
My dear Alfred must have explained it very badly. It's
not in the least a matter of charity, if that's
what's troubling you. It's a plain matter of right and wrong.
In the ordinary course of events, your mother would have
inherited this money and you would have come into it
from her.

Speaker 15 (01:05:37):
It's you right, your blood wrong.

Speaker 14 (01:05:38):
That is why I cannot take it.

Speaker 15 (01:05:40):
I enjoyed coming here.

Speaker 14 (01:05:42):
It was an adventure, but night has been spoilt. I
am going away at once.

Speaker 3 (01:05:46):
No one is going anywhere at the moment, Mademoiselle.

Speaker 6 (01:05:50):
There are a few questions that mister Koyra and I
have to put to you.

Speaker 4 (01:05:53):
Drissillian said, you wanted to speak to me.

Speaker 5 (01:05:55):
What is it?

Speaker 6 (01:05:56):
Said down, mister Farr. We'll get to you in a moment.

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
Send you're going to Estravadas. I would like you to
tell us where you were at the time of the murder.

Speaker 37 (01:06:03):
I have told you I was in my room, yes,
but you were speaking of the truth when you told
us that you could not have heard the scream from
your room.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
That was the point of my little experiment. I will
tell you where I think you were, Senorita. You were
in the recess with the statues of the nymphs, quite
close to your grandfather's door. How did you know, mister
Farre saw you there.

Speaker 5 (01:06:24):
I never saw any such thing, I ask your pardon,
mister Farr.

Speaker 3 (01:06:27):
But you did see her. Remember your impression that there
were three statues in the recess, not two, Senorita Estravadis
was the third statue you saw?

Speaker 28 (01:06:36):
Is that not so?

Speaker 44 (01:06:37):
Yes, it is true.

Speaker 3 (01:06:39):
So now you will tell us what you were doing there.

Speaker 14 (01:06:44):
After dinner, I thought I would go up to see
my grandfather. But when I turned into the passage, I
saw someone else at the door. I did not want
to be seen, because my grandfather had said he did
not want to see anyone at night.

Speaker 15 (01:06:56):
So I hit myself with these statues.

Speaker 6 (01:06:58):
Who was as you say you saw the door, I.

Speaker 15 (01:07:00):
Don't know who it was. There was not enough lie
to see, but it was a woman.

Speaker 3 (01:07:05):
Very well, Senora, to sit down. The rest of the
family will be here in a moment. We are going
to have a little confidence. Please be seated, everyone. It
won't take luck.

Speaker 6 (01:07:24):
This is very regular, Aquirra, getting everyone together like this.

Speaker 3 (01:07:28):
It is a little idea of mine. I wish to
share with everyone the knowledge that I have acquired. I
shall then invite their collaboration, and so we shall get
at the truth. Now to begin with, Superintendent, you have
an explanation to ask of mister Farr.

Speaker 6 (01:07:47):
I should have preferred a less public moment.

Speaker 37 (01:07:49):
However, mister Parr, we received this cable from South Africa
a little while ago.

Speaker 6 (01:07:56):
Perhaps you can explain it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:59):
And see what you mean.

Speaker 7 (01:08:00):
It's pretty damning, isn't it.

Speaker 6 (01:08:03):
Is that all you got to say. You understand there's
no obligation.

Speaker 18 (01:08:06):
You needn't caution me, Superintendent. I'll give you an explanation.
It's not a very good one.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
But it's the truth. Please enlighten us.

Speaker 18 (01:08:14):
I'm not ebeneze a Far's son, but I did know
both son and father quite well. My name is actually
Stephen Grant. I arrived in this country the other day.
For the first time in my life, I knew this
was where Simeon Lee lived and that he had been
Ebenezer Far's partner. Gone well, the idea occurred to me

(01:08:35):
to come here and pretend I was eb Son.

Speaker 7 (01:08:37):
As you now know, he had died two years ago.

Speaker 18 (01:08:39):
But I remembered old Ebb saying he had not heard
from Simeon Lee for many years.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
So I thought I'd risk it.

Speaker 7 (01:08:45):
It worked like a charm, and I got to know
Senorita Lees face.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
You can goble to South Africa, check on and me
you can find.

Speaker 7 (01:08:54):
I'm a perfectly respectable citizen.

Speaker 33 (01:08:55):
I'm not a crook or a jewel thief.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
I never believe you were. Now I think miss Estravados
has something to say.

Speaker 14 (01:09:04):
I would never have told you, but for Lidia any money,
to come here and pretend an actor a part, that
was fun. But when Lydia said I should have the money,
that was different.

Speaker 4 (01:09:15):
It was not fun any longer.

Speaker 15 (01:09:17):
It was cheating.

Speaker 30 (01:09:18):
My dear young lady, What on earth are you talking about?

Speaker 14 (01:09:20):
Pila Estravados was killed when I was traveling with her
in a car in Spain.

Speaker 15 (01:09:25):
I was not touched. I did not know her very well,
but she had told me all.

Speaker 14 (01:09:30):
About herself and how her grandfather had sent for her
to go to England, and that he was very rich.
I had no money, and I was suddenly why should
I not take Pilla's passport and go to England and
become very rich?

Speaker 3 (01:09:45):
But how did you find out, mister part mademoiselle. If
you have studied the laws of Nantel, you would know
that two blue eyed people are not likely to have
a brown eyed child.

Speaker 6 (01:09:56):
I think that's a good deal more you haven't told us.

Speaker 37 (01:09:58):
I suggest that it was you who had solen the diamonds,
and that your grandfather has sent for you.

Speaker 6 (01:10:04):
He accused you of the theft. Perhaps he tumbled the
fact that he weren't his granddaughter. You slashed at him
with a noise.

Speaker 13 (01:10:08):
It's not true.

Speaker 15 (01:10:09):
I did not steal diamonds.

Speaker 12 (01:10:10):
I did not kill him.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
Of course killed him.

Speaker 27 (01:10:13):
I always sudden outside of killed my father. It is
preposterous to pretend that one of the family would do
a thing like that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
And yes, that is what did happen. What Signor Lee
was killed by his own flesh and blood for what
seemed to the murderer to be a very good and
sufficient reason. That is a case against every person here. You,

(01:10:38):
mister George Lee, you had no love for your father,
but he had threatened to cut your alarms. That very
dam Your wife too had a motive. She is I
think indead, and the tone of certain of your father's
remarks may may have caused her uneasiness. She said she
went to telephone, but we know that she did not

(01:10:58):
do so. And then there is mister David here. He
did not forget or forgive the way his father had
treated his mother. He is supposed to have been playing
the piano at the time of the murder, the Dead March.
But suppose somebody else was playing the Dead March, somebody
who knew what he was going to do and approved
his action.

Speaker 15 (01:11:19):
That is an infous suggestion.

Speaker 34 (01:11:20):
All right, monsieur, What about Alfred and me? We were
together in the dining room at the time of the murder.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
Suppose it is all part of a clever plot. One
of you remains in the dining room talking and quarreling aloud,
as though there were two of you. While the other
goes upstairs and kills the old man.

Speaker 4 (01:11:40):
This is preposterous.

Speaker 7 (01:11:41):
You really need to tell you.

Speaker 3 (01:11:42):
I have to show you the possibilities. These are the
things that might have happened. Then there are the circumstances
of the crime itself. A heavy table and a heavy
chair are overturned in a struggle involving a frail old man.

Speaker 6 (01:11:58):
He was fighting for his life.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
Ah, there are so many things which did not fit.
Why was the door locked from the outside. What was
the meaning of the piece of rubber and the pig
found on the floor. Why did Simeon le first report
the theft and then ask the superintendent to return later?
Why not simply ask him to wake downstairs? And I
say to myself, this is all wrong. We are looking

(01:12:23):
at it from the angle the murderer wants us too quarrel.

Speaker 19 (01:12:29):
How much longer do we have to sit here while
you air your theory?

Speaker 3 (01:12:32):
Not much longer, my friend, for at this stage I
got my first glimmer of light. Missus Alfred Lee quoted
a line of Macbeth. Who would have thought the old
man to have so much blood in him? And there
was too much blood? A crime of blood? It is

(01:12:53):
Simony's own blood that rises up against him. The second
valuable clue came from Tresillian. You remember what you said
about answering the door.

Speaker 33 (01:13:06):
That it had all happened before.

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):
Now, Yes, why did you have that feeling? Look at
mister Harry Lee and Stephen Farr and you will see
why they are astoundingly alike. That was why opening the
door to Stephen Farr was just like opening the door
to Harry Lee. Now you remember that outburst of Simon

(01:13:32):
Lee that he would swear he had better sons born
the wrong side of the blanket. Simon Le had not
only his legitimate family in his house, but an unacknowledged
and unrecognized son of his own blood. That was your
real reason for coming here, wasn't it.

Speaker 17 (01:13:52):
Eh?

Speaker 3 (01:13:53):
You were coming to see what kind of a man
your father was.

Speaker 18 (01:13:57):
Yes, I've always wondered. Mother spoke about him sometimes it
grew into a kind of obsession with me.

Speaker 7 (01:14:07):
I wasn't going to let him know who I was.
I just wanted to see the man who was my father.

Speaker 37 (01:14:12):
Nor I've been dying. I can see it now. So
miss Estravardas or whatever her real name is, was lying.
It wasn't a woman she saw standing outside the door.
It was you, and she didn't want to give you away.

Speaker 5 (01:14:24):
No, you're wrong, it was me.

Speaker 3 (01:14:28):
She saw your mad Yes, I thought so.

Speaker 24 (01:14:31):
I was frightened, David playing the dead marcher. I knew
I shouldn't have insisted on her coming here. I meant
to go and tell mister Lee that we were going
to leave at once. I went up to his room
and knocked on the door, and I heard a sound
inside the room, tables and chairs overturned, and that one
last horrible cry.

Speaker 15 (01:14:51):
I couldn't move. And then the others came along, and
they broke the door down and found mister Lee. But
there was no one else there, and no one had
come out of the room.

Speaker 3 (01:15:01):
And all this time you have said nothing.

Speaker 15 (01:15:04):
I thought you'd think it was I who killed him.

Speaker 3 (01:15:06):
No, you did not kill him. His son killed him.

Speaker 7 (01:15:12):
God I never fasted, not you.

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
He had other sons.

Speaker 17 (01:15:17):
What are you crying?

Speaker 3 (01:15:18):
No wonder Poor Tressilian felt confused when he answered the door,
not to two, but to three men who resembled each
other closely, who at a little distance could pass for
each other. Yet the similarity was not always easy to see. Four,
the third man had a mustache.

Speaker 14 (01:15:38):
But apart from you, mister Parle, the only man who
has a.

Speaker 44 (01:15:43):
Mustache is.

Speaker 3 (01:15:48):
All your life. Stan, you've resented the wrong your father,
did you? I think you determined in long ago to
kill him. A police super attendant has a grand opportunity
of committing a murder and getting away with it.

Speaker 6 (01:16:06):
You are mad.

Speaker 17 (01:16:09):
When he was killed.

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
No, you killed him before you left the house the
first time. It was you who rang him up and
spoke vaguely about an attempt at robbery. You came here
and told him a tale about substituted diamonds. He opened
his safe to show you the real diamonds were still
in his possession. You cut his throat, holding your hand

(01:16:32):
to his mouth so that he wouldn't cry out child's
play to a man of your phsy.

Speaker 15 (01:16:37):
But I heard the struggle.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
I heard him screaming, Ah. It was all part of
a carefully planned ilusion. You piled up tables and chairs,
lamps and glasses, and twined a very thin cord in
and out between them. Then you passed the two ends
of the cord out through the narrow slit at the
bottom of the window and let them hang down the wall.

(01:16:59):
You had with you a bottle of some freshly killed
animal's blood, to which you had added a quantity of
sodium seatrate. You sprinkled this about freely, because to satisfy
some primitive instinct, you wanted the murder to look like
a ritual sacrifice.

Speaker 30 (01:17:17):
So when we all sat down to dinner, father was
already dead.

Speaker 3 (01:17:20):
Exactly you hit the diamonds in Lydia's dead Sea garden.
A little before nine point fifteen you returned, and going
up to the wall, you pulled on the cord that
dislodged the furniture and the china, which fell with a crash.
You pulled one end of the cord and rewound it
round your body under your coat.

Speaker 15 (01:17:42):
But I distinctly heard him scream.

Speaker 3 (01:17:44):
I liked the cry of someone, you said, who had
no soul inhuman, like a beast. But it was Harry
Lee who came nearest to the truth. It sounded like
killing a pig, just so. Do you know those law
bladders with faces on them called dying pigs. As the

(01:18:05):
air rushes out, they give forth an inhuman way. You
arrange one in the room and stop the mouth of
it with a peg connected to the cords so on
top of the falling furniture came the scream of a
dying pig. Thought yes, But after the Superintendent took the
remains of the bladder from you, he substituted a piece

(01:18:27):
cut from mister Lee's spongebag. It answered to the same description.
And it was not until you were playing with a
balloon the burst and you said that it must have
been a burst balloon you had picked up from Simeon's
room that I saw the truth.

Speaker 15 (01:18:41):
And all because I played with a balloon.

Speaker 3 (01:18:44):
Yes, senoritur. But you must already have given the superintendent
one very nasty moment. Do you remember when you said
of Simior Lee, he must have been a very good
looking man when he was young, And you turned to
Sudden and said, like you you meant it quite literally.

Speaker 6 (01:19:04):
When will you show up?

Speaker 33 (01:19:05):
Wara?

Speaker 3 (01:19:07):
You remember, missus Lee, that I asked you if you
knew of a fancy dresser. Yes, mister Paro, and I
wanted to buy a false mustache to try on Simon
Lee's picture. When I did so, Superintendent, the face that
looked at.

Speaker 5 (01:19:23):
Me was you.

Speaker 6 (01:19:30):
Card rott is soul in hell. Oh, I'm glad I
did it.

Speaker 28 (01:19:40):
God bless my soul, my best man. What's the police
coming to?

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
Even policemen have private lives. Sugden was a very proud
man and a very patient one. He must have nursed
his vengeance for a long time.

Speaker 28 (01:19:56):
Well, at least one good thing came out of it, Pila,
he is going to marry Stephen. That rounds things off nicely.

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
The triumph of love.

Speaker 28 (01:20:05):
Yes, But there is one thing that still puzzles me.
What was George Lee doing after he telephoned? Why wouldn't
he tell.

Speaker 3 (01:20:12):
Us he was having a look through his brother Alfred's papers.
He was trying to find out how he stood financially.

Speaker 28 (01:20:18):
God, bless my sir. The fire's going well. I always say,
nothing like a wood fire.

Speaker 3 (01:20:28):
For why every time the central heating.

Speaker 2 (01:20:40):
Peter sallis played Hercule Pooro in Hercule Paro's Christmas by
Agatha Christie, dramatized for radio by Michael Bakewell. Superintendent Sudden
was Edward de Susa, Colonel Johnson Manning Wilson and Simeon Lee,
Syah Luckham, Alfred Richard Durdon, Lydia, Rachel Gurney, George Gordon, Reed,
Magdalene Avel Clarke, David George Parsons, Hilda Sila grand And

(01:21:03):
Harry Nicki Henson, Stephen Fahr, James good Pillar, Estravados, Deborah Makepeace, Hawbrey,
the Manservant, Stuart Olgan, Willie the Footman, David Goodland and Priscillian.
The Butler was Derek Geiler. The play was directed by
Enid Williams.

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
That was Hercule Poirot's Christmas As broadcasted on from the
BBC Radio four FM on December twenty fourth, nineteen eighty six.
The classic Campbell Playhouse dramatization of a Christmas Carol by
Charles Dickens, narrated by Orson Wells and starring Lionel Barrymore,
was the second at Christmas Carol. This was broadcast on
CBS on December twenty fourth, nineteen thirty nine.

Speaker 45 (01:22:05):
The Makers of Campbell Suits present the Campbell Playhouse Orson Wells, Producer.

Speaker 46 (01:22:35):
Good Evening, Missus Awson Wells. There are clearly a number
of ways in which a Christmas Carol could be introduced. Myself,
I am most struck by the happy fortune that enables
us on this Christmas Eve to present mister Lionel Barrymore
the best loved actor of our time in the world's

(01:22:57):
best loved.

Speaker 47 (01:22:58):
Christmas story, a Christmas Carol.

Speaker 46 (01:23:02):
It is the American way, as we know, to establish
traditions quickly where popular instinct and sentiment pronounce them sound.
And so it is that to day actually only the
fifth anniversary of mister Lionel Barrimore's first playing of the
part of Ebenezer Scrooge for the Campbell playofse there is,
I think, in all America, nothing more eagerly awaited, more

(01:23:24):
firmly rooted in the hearts of the radio family that
numbers millions, that this yearly performance of a Christmas Carol.
A Christmas Carol, as Charles Dickens wrote, it has by
common consent long been a classic. Mister Lionel Barrmore's appearance
in it is rapidly becoming one. And now just before

(01:23:45):
a Christmas Carol, Ernest Chappel has a special Christmas greeting
from the makers of Campbell Soups mister Chapple.

Speaker 45 (01:23:52):
Like your's andwells. As the old year draws toward its close,
we of Campbell's feel a bond of warmth and gratitude
towards each of you. Are friends for you see in
homes everywhere throughout the land. Campbell's soups have been welcome
day by day and week by week. You have placed
confidence in us and in the foods we make. And

(01:24:14):
there isn't anything we appreciate more deeply than the fact
that so many of you have elected to let Campbell's
make your soups for you. And so when Christmas comes,
we look about to find some way to show our appreciation,
some Christmas present by which to say thank you. The
gift we chose five Christmases ago and have chosen each
year since has become a part of Christmas to many

(01:24:36):
and many a family, it has become a Christmas custom
to gather round the radio to hear and to enjoy
a Christmas Carol. And since it is Christmas Eve, we
hope too that the younger members of the family are
permitted to stay up and listen. Before dreams and visit
of Santa. We get a great deal of pleasure planning
and preparing this Christmas gift. And now it's ready. Off

(01:25:00):
come the wrappings, off come the tags that say please
do not open till Christmas.

Speaker 17 (01:25:05):
Out comes the card to you from Campbell's.

Speaker 46 (01:25:10):
And here is the gift herself. Marley was dead to

(01:25:43):
begin with. There's no doubt whatever about that. The register
of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk,
the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it, and
Scrooge's name was good upon change for anything he chose
to put his hand to. Old was as dead as
a door nail. Scrooge knew he was dead, of course

(01:26:05):
he did. Scrooge and Marley were partners for I don't
know how many years. Oh, but he was a tight
fisted hand at the grindstone. Was Scrooge a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping,
clutching cover.

Speaker 47 (01:26:19):
To so Oulstiner, once upon a time.

Speaker 46 (01:26:25):
Of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve,
Old Scrooge sat busy in his counting house, a grim,
cheerless place, if ever there was one. The door of
Scrooge's counting house was open, that he might keep his
eye upon his clock. Bob Cratchitt, who in a cold
and dismal little cell beyond, worked at his ledgers.

Speaker 17 (01:26:47):
Twenty one twenty two.

Speaker 5 (01:26:50):
Marry gentlemen that not see you Dismay twenty six, say.

Speaker 38 (01:27:01):
Eleven thirteen seventeen seven.

Speaker 33 (01:27:02):
Carry one.

Speaker 48 (01:27:04):
Oh, let me see, I'm practicing, Yes, mister Scrooge, stop
patting fannel cattle warling, Yes.

Speaker 17 (01:27:11):
Sir nine fifteen seventeen twenty nine, carry.

Speaker 48 (01:27:14):
Limpids, singing their ind the artic Christmas cattles, and my
very jaw. Go somewhere else and fellow your blasted cattles,
or I'll give you in charge.

Speaker 17 (01:27:30):
Yes, and I don't want any of your own customs.
Take your fellow fools and go away. Christmas blah right there, sir.

Speaker 29 (01:27:43):
Merry Christmas, Uncle, Merry Christmas.

Speaker 10 (01:27:45):
Ball, Merry Christmas, mister bread God.

Speaker 4 (01:27:47):
Save your uncle.

Speaker 5 (01:27:49):
Humbug Christmas a humbug uncle.

Speaker 17 (01:27:51):
No, I'm sure you don't mean that. I mean just
that exactly that, Merry Christmas.

Speaker 29 (01:27:58):
What right have you to be?

Speaker 17 (01:28:00):
What reason have you? You're bored enough? Well?

Speaker 49 (01:28:03):
What right have you to be dismal about Christmas?

Speaker 50 (01:28:05):
Uncle?

Speaker 17 (01:28:05):
You're rich enough? Now? Uncle, don't be cross? Well?

Speaker 48 (01:28:09):
What else can I be when I live in such
a world of fools? What's Christmas to you but the
time for paying bills without money? Merry Christmas a time
for finding yourself a year older and not an hour richer.

Speaker 17 (01:28:24):
If I could work my will, every idiot who.

Speaker 48 (01:28:27):
Goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips to be
boiled with his own pudding and buried with the stake
of holly.

Speaker 17 (01:28:35):
Through his heart.

Speaker 48 (01:28:36):
He should Uncle, have you keep your Christmas in your
own way, and let me keep it in mind?

Speaker 43 (01:28:43):
Keep it.

Speaker 17 (01:28:44):
But you don't keep it, Uncle, well, let me leave
it alone. Then what do you want Christmas gift?

Speaker 51 (01:28:50):
I've no doubt I came to wish you a merry Christmas, Uncle, Merry.

Speaker 17 (01:28:54):
Christmas, much good? May Christmas do you much good?

Speaker 51 (01:28:58):
It ever has done you many things from which I derived,
good by which I have not profited materially, I dare say, Uncle,
Christmas among the rest. But I have always thought of
Christmas time as a good time, a kind for giving, charitable,
pleasant time. And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put
a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I
believe it has done me good and will do me good.

Speaker 48 (01:29:18):
And I say God, bless it, God bless Christmas.

Speaker 10 (01:29:22):
Hurrah.

Speaker 48 (01:29:22):
Let me hear another sound out of you there, Bob Cretchett,
And you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation.

Speaker 51 (01:29:31):
Ast you, nephew. One day you don't go into parliament.
You talk enough nonsense. Don't be angry, uncle. I want
nothing from you.

Speaker 45 (01:29:39):
I ask nothing of you.

Speaker 17 (01:29:40):
Why can't we be friend?

Speaker 29 (01:29:41):
Good afternoon?

Speaker 11 (01:29:42):
Oh I'm sorry you.

Speaker 17 (01:29:43):
Feel that way.

Speaker 11 (01:29:44):
I've tried a merry.

Speaker 4 (01:29:46):
Christmas to your uncle.

Speaker 48 (01:29:47):
Good afternoon, and a happy new Year too, I'm bug.

Speaker 52 (01:29:51):
And a merry Christmas to you, Bob and the missus
as a tiny tim thank you, miss your bread.

Speaker 10 (01:29:55):
Say to you, sir, good gay, sir, good day.

Speaker 38 (01:29:57):
Bob nonsense.

Speaker 17 (01:30:03):
Talking of Christmas and not two sixpences to.

Speaker 48 (01:30:05):
Jingle together in his trousers pocket.

Speaker 17 (01:30:10):
You there, Bob cretchit, come here? What are you doing there?
I was only putting a bit more.

Speaker 48 (01:30:16):
Coal on the fire, mister Scrooge, seeing itself cold in there,
so well you put that coal back into the scruttler.
A fire A fire, Indeed, I can tell you if
you use coal at that rate, JU and I'll soon
be parting company. Bob dretch it you understand that there's
many a young fellow like your situation. You know, I'm

(01:30:37):
sorry some of my fingers were getting a little stiff
with the cold.

Speaker 17 (01:30:40):
And put on your mittens. There's someone at the door.

Speaker 51 (01:30:44):
See what it is, yes, sir, good afternoon, sir, could
have to know if this is a firm of Scrooge
in the Mary.

Speaker 5 (01:30:50):
Yes, sir, I should like to see the head of
the firm, if I may, or.

Speaker 17 (01:30:52):
Very good said, what is it a gentleman to see
mister Scrooge.

Speaker 5 (01:30:57):
By the pleasure of addressing mister Scrooge or mister.

Speaker 48 (01:30:59):
Morley, my alls been dead these seven years tonight, I'm true.

Speaker 17 (01:31:04):
Now, mister Scrooge.

Speaker 51 (01:31:05):
At the season of the year, it's only fitting that
we who are more fortunate should raise a fund to
buy the poors and meat and drink and means of warmth.
You may not believe it, sir, but many thousands are
now in what of common necessities? And hundreds of thousands
are in what of the simplest comfort?

Speaker 17 (01:31:20):
Sir. Ooh, are there no prisoners? There are plenty of prisons, sir.
And the workhouses they're still in operation. They dress. I
wish I could say they are not, but they are, sir.
The treadmill and the pool lall are in full vigor.
Then both very busy, sir. Well, I'm very glad to.

Speaker 48 (01:31:38):
Hear that I was afraid from what you said at
first that something had occurred to stop them in their
useful call.

Speaker 51 (01:31:44):
They'll show all these institutions that you mention are flourishing.
But it's nevertheless true that some additional provision for the
poor and the destitute must be made.

Speaker 53 (01:31:52):
A few of us, upon change, are endeavoring to raise.

Speaker 3 (01:31:54):
Such a fund.

Speaker 51 (01:31:55):
You see, And what shall I put you down for nothing?
I see you wish to be anonymous, sir.

Speaker 17 (01:32:02):
I wish to be let roll.

Speaker 48 (01:32:05):
I don't make marry myself at Christmas time, and I
can't afford to keep a lot of.

Speaker 17 (01:32:10):
Idle people and make them merry.

Speaker 48 (01:32:13):
I help support the establishments that take care of the poor.

Speaker 17 (01:32:17):
They cost enough. Let those who badly off go there.

Speaker 51 (01:32:21):
And he can't go there, sir, And many would rather
die well.

Speaker 48 (01:32:25):
And my advice to them is to do so and
decrease the surplus population. Besides, I've only your word for it.

Speaker 28 (01:32:32):
There.

Speaker 17 (01:32:32):
All this is soul truth, mister Scrooge. I shall be it.
Then it's not my business.

Speaker 48 (01:32:37):
It's enough for a man to understand his own business
and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly,
good afternoons. I quite understand, mister Scruge, right, it show
this gentleman out, yes, sir, at this white place, Sir,
I couldn't help overhearing I should like to contribute trumpings.

Speaker 17 (01:33:00):
Yes, sir, it isn't much, but it's all I can afford.
But there are This is worse situation than I.

Speaker 51 (01:33:05):
You're a generous fellow. I wish I might say so
if you're employer. Yes, sir, good afternoon, sir, good afternoon.

Speaker 17 (01:33:12):
Merry Christmas.

Speaker 48 (01:33:13):
Merry Christmas, yes, sir, merry Christmas.

Speaker 4 (01:33:18):
Close it all, yes, sir, I have.

Speaker 54 (01:33:21):
Closed it, sir, twenty four thirty one one, and carry
three a new scholar tipet for tiny tim nicomb for
Martha thirty three three, and carry three hare rhybon for
Belinda four seven twelve fifteen.

Speaker 48 (01:33:38):
I suppose you want the entire day tomorrow if it's
quite convenience, Sir.

Speaker 17 (01:33:42):
It's not convenient and it's not fair, But I suppose
I can't do anything about it.

Speaker 48 (01:33:49):
If I wish to stop half a crown of your wages,
you'd think yourself very ill used.

Speaker 17 (01:33:53):
I'd be bound well, sir.

Speaker 51 (01:33:55):
I And yet you don't think me will used when
I pay a day's wages for no, it's only once
a year, sir, once a year, once a year, indeed,
a fine excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty
fifth of December.

Speaker 48 (01:34:09):
But I suppose it's no good talking. You must have
the whole day. Well, see that you're here all the
earlier the next morning.

Speaker 17 (01:34:17):
Do you understand?

Speaker 21 (01:34:18):
Why?

Speaker 29 (01:34:18):
Will sir?

Speaker 17 (01:34:19):
I will, sir? Indeed, good night, sir, and Merry Christmas,
Merry Christmas.

Speaker 29 (01:34:23):
Ah.

Speaker 46 (01:34:35):
The office was closed in a twinkling, and Bob Cratchett,
with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below
his waist, for he boasted no greatcoat, went down a
slide on corn Hill twenty times in honor of its
being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to Camden Town
as hard as he could pelt to play with his
family at blind Man's buff And Scrooge, on the other hand,

(01:35:00):
his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern, having read
all the newspapers and spent the rest of the evening
with his banker's book, went to his dismal house.

Speaker 47 (01:35:12):
Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge likes it.

Speaker 46 (01:35:17):
The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew
it's every stone, had to grope with his hands through
the fog and the frost to find the door. Scrooge
walked through his rooms to see that all was right.
Sitting room, bedroom, lumber room.

Speaker 47 (01:35:35):
All as they should be.

Speaker 46 (01:35:37):
Nobody under the table, Nobody under the sofa, nobody on
the bed, nobody in the closet.

Speaker 17 (01:35:42):
Closed the door, locked himself in, double locked himself in,
and took.

Speaker 46 (01:35:47):
Off his cravat, put on his dressing gown and slippers,
in his nightcap, and sat down before the fire to
take his gruel.

Speaker 48 (01:36:02):
Molly, Molly, Molly, I could have sworn I saw, Oh,
h humbug.

Speaker 17 (01:36:12):
Moley's been dead these seven years. Humbug. It's all humbug.
What I need is a good night watch? What's that?
Someone's in the plain celler? What your door locking? Double locked?

Speaker 48 (01:36:35):
Something's it's it's kind something h that's coming close eye
outside my door.

Speaker 17 (01:36:43):
I won't believe it. There's humbug still.

Speaker 38 (01:36:47):
A scooch, Ebany is a Scrooge.

Speaker 17 (01:36:52):
Oh no, what do you want with me?

Speaker 38 (01:36:55):
I want much of your webbonys Uh?

Speaker 17 (01:36:59):
Why you ask me who I was? You aready particular
for a ghost? All right? Who were you then?

Speaker 12 (01:37:10):
In life?

Speaker 38 (01:37:11):
I was your partner Jacob, Molly, shake of moley.

Speaker 48 (01:37:17):
But your date you died seven years ago, seven years ago?

Speaker 38 (01:37:22):
This very nice?

Speaker 17 (01:37:24):
You are a ghosting? What's wrong?

Speaker 38 (01:37:28):
Ebaniezer. Don't you believe in me? I do not you
doubt your senses?

Speaker 48 (01:37:35):
Ebaneza, Yes, because the little thing affects them, the slight
disorder of the stomach makes them cheats.

Speaker 17 (01:37:44):
You can't be a ghost.

Speaker 4 (01:37:46):
You.

Speaker 48 (01:37:46):
You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot
of mustard with crumb of cheese, a fragment of an
underdone potato. It may be more gravy than grave about you.
Whatever you are, humbug, I tell you, humbug. Excuse me, Jacob,

(01:38:10):
excuse me.

Speaker 17 (01:38:11):
I do believe in you. You are the ghost, Jacob,
Thank you? That's what. Why do you walk the earth?

Speaker 29 (01:38:20):
Jacob?

Speaker 17 (01:38:21):
Why do you come to me?

Speaker 55 (01:38:23):
It is required of every man that the spirit within
him should walk abroad among his fellow men, and travel
far and wide to witness what it cannot share but
might have shared on earth and turned to happiness.

Speaker 48 (01:38:40):
Oh tell me, Jacob, what is that chain you wear
around you? I wear the chain I forged in life.
I made it link by link and yard by yard
by my.

Speaker 38 (01:38:53):
Own free will is its patterns strange to you?

Speaker 48 (01:38:57):
Webonezer, catch a key, tad bluffs, legd pursy.

Speaker 38 (01:39:04):
Yours was as heavy.

Speaker 56 (01:39:06):
And as long as this seven years ago, and you
have labored on it since.

Speaker 17 (01:39:12):
Oh Jacob, speak comfort to me.

Speaker 38 (01:39:17):
Comfort I have none to give.

Speaker 56 (01:39:21):
I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger.

Speaker 38 (01:39:25):
Weary journeys lie before me.

Speaker 17 (01:39:28):
You travel five.

Speaker 38 (01:39:29):
Yeares, Ebanieza, on the wings of.

Speaker 17 (01:39:32):
The wind, seven years head and traveling all the time.

Speaker 57 (01:39:37):
Seven years evenis a seven years of remorse, Eveniza, do
you know that no space of regret can make amends
for one life's opportunities misused?

Speaker 17 (01:39:51):
But you were always a good man of business.

Speaker 38 (01:39:54):
Jake to business mankind was my business? Chat say mercy, Beenevers.
They were all my business.

Speaker 56 (01:40:04):
The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water,
and the comprehensive ocean.

Speaker 38 (01:40:09):
Of my business.

Speaker 17 (01:40:11):
Oh Jacob, don't take on, So.

Speaker 38 (01:40:14):
Jacob, listen to me, Ebeneza, I listen to.

Speaker 17 (01:40:18):
You, Jacob, go on, Jacob, speak to me. But don't
be so flowered, Ebenezer.

Speaker 56 (01:40:24):
I am here to warn you that you have yet
a chance and hope of escaping my fate.

Speaker 38 (01:40:30):
Do you hear that, Ebenezer.

Speaker 17 (01:40:32):
Yes, Jacob, you always were a good friend to me. Jacob,
Thank you, Jacob.

Speaker 4 (01:40:37):
But go on, go on, go on?

Speaker 3 (01:40:41):
How shall I escape?

Speaker 4 (01:40:43):
Oh?

Speaker 17 (01:40:43):
I'm afraid, Jacob.

Speaker 38 (01:40:45):
You will be haunted by free spirits?

Speaker 17 (01:40:48):
Is that the only chance? And hope?

Speaker 48 (01:40:51):
Jacob, it is your only chance and hope, And I
think I'd rather not without their visits.

Speaker 56 (01:40:57):
You cannot hope to shun the path eye tread. Expect
the first tomorrow when the bell tolls.

Speaker 17 (01:41:05):
One couldn't I jacom all at once and have it
over Jacob.

Speaker 56 (01:41:09):
Ever, Liza, look that for your own sake, you remember
what has passed between us, And remember.

Speaker 38 (01:41:17):
When the bell tolls, one look for the first spirit.

Speaker 17 (01:41:23):
Molly jem.

Speaker 46 (01:41:37):
Scrooge awoke. He was lying on his bed, fully dressed.
Suddenly the curtains of his bed were drawn aside. Scrooge
found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who
drew them as close to it as I am now
to you, and I am standing in the spirit at
your elbow. It was a string figure, like a child,

(01:42:03):
yet not so like a child. It's like an old man.

Speaker 4 (01:42:08):
Screw.

Speaker 29 (01:42:10):
Who who is that, Ebeneze?

Speaker 17 (01:42:13):
Are screwed.

Speaker 29 (01:42:15):
I have come for you.

Speaker 17 (01:42:17):
You you are the spirit, sir, who's coming whis foretold me.

Speaker 29 (01:42:23):
I am that spirit?

Speaker 17 (01:42:25):
Oh what are you?

Speaker 29 (01:42:27):
I am the ghost of Christmas past, long past?

Speaker 4 (01:42:32):
No, your past?

Speaker 17 (01:42:34):
But oh, what do you want of me? What brings
you here to haunt me?

Speaker 29 (01:42:40):
Your welfare? Ebenezer screw Rise and walk with me.

Speaker 17 (01:42:46):
Oh no, will no, no, you're not out of the willow.

Speaker 16 (01:42:49):
I can't do that.

Speaker 48 (01:42:51):
I'll fall down. I'm not a spirit. I'm mortal. I'll
fall there.

Speaker 43 (01:42:56):
But a touch of my hand upon your heart and
you shall be upheld in more than this.

Speaker 29 (01:43:02):
Come follow me, raw.

Speaker 48 (01:43:13):
What's become of the city? And there's snow upon the
ground where round me?

Speaker 43 (01:43:18):
These are the shadows of the things that have been
You recognize this countryside?

Speaker 11 (01:43:24):
Do oh?

Speaker 17 (01:43:27):
I know every inch of it, every rock, every tree,
and that.

Speaker 29 (01:43:32):
Bleak building over there?

Speaker 17 (01:43:33):
Er that building?

Speaker 48 (01:43:35):
I was a boy there, Yes, I went to school
in that horrible place.

Speaker 29 (01:43:41):
Do you recollect that path?

Speaker 17 (01:43:43):
I could walk it blindfold?

Speaker 29 (01:43:45):
Strange you forgot it so many years. Come.

Speaker 43 (01:43:50):
Let us go closer. Look through the window into that cold,
barren room. What do you see, Ebenezer Scrooge, I see
a boy, a solitary child, neglected by his family alone.

Speaker 17 (01:44:06):
Yes, yes, I see, I know that boy. Uh, I
was so lonely. Poor boy.

Speaker 29 (01:44:15):
Your lip is trembling, Scrooge.

Speaker 17 (01:44:18):
And what is that on your cheek? Is nothing? Nothing?
Nothing at all? I wish I Uh, it's too late
for that now.

Speaker 29 (01:44:27):
What's the matter?

Speaker 28 (01:44:29):
Nothing?

Speaker 29 (01:44:30):
Nothing? The weights came to.

Speaker 48 (01:44:31):
My door singing Christmas Carol last night. It was a
boy like that among them, a poor, thin, pale boy
in a ragged coat. I'd like to kill him something
at all?

Speaker 29 (01:44:44):
Is that all?

Speaker 43 (01:44:46):
Come, Ebenezer Scrooge, Let us see another Christmas?

Speaker 29 (01:44:51):
U Do you know this place?

Speaker 17 (01:45:05):
Seventy the schools know it, know it?

Speaker 48 (01:45:10):
Why this is the counting house where I was apprentice, listened?
Why it's my old master nurs his heart, old PHASI way,
my master alive again. And the host of one of
his Christmas pockets lead into it, rending it.

Speaker 46 (01:45:33):
Off and back up lay there.

Speaker 17 (01:45:38):
And there's Dick Wilkins or Dick dear, dear dear, Yes, and.

Speaker 48 (01:45:43):
Look there's missus Fazzie Wi yourself, looking younger than any
of 'em, And the tables all loaded with roast.

Speaker 17 (01:45:50):
And cider and min spy and beer.

Speaker 29 (01:45:54):
Oh, what a jolly time.

Speaker 43 (01:45:56):
We used to have that carefree young man with a
light hearts, the gay smiles. Do you recognize him?

Speaker 17 (01:46:03):
Yes, Merciful Heaven. How happy I was then?

Speaker 43 (01:46:08):
A small matter for old Fezziwig to make those silly
folks so full of joy?

Speaker 17 (01:46:14):
Small matter? Small?

Speaker 43 (01:46:17):
Indeed, isn't he he has spent only a few pounds
of your mortal money?

Speaker 29 (01:46:23):
Is that so much that he deserves? Praise God?

Speaker 17 (01:46:27):
Not that? That's not that spirit.

Speaker 48 (01:46:31):
Old Fezziwig has the power to make us happy or unhappy,
to make our service light or heavy.

Speaker 17 (01:46:38):
His power lies in words and.

Speaker 48 (01:46:40):
Looks, in things so Chinese impossible to count up. The
happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost.

Speaker 17 (01:46:49):
Her were What is the matter? Nothing? Nothing at all?

Speaker 29 (01:46:55):
Spir something?

Speaker 17 (01:46:56):
I think?

Speaker 48 (01:46:57):
No, No, only it's just that I should like to
be able to say a word or two the micra
bob cratchit just now, that's all.

Speaker 11 (01:47:10):
I've hire car and Critcher.

Speaker 43 (01:47:20):
My time grows short, and we have yet another journey
to make. Where now come? This is our last visit
to the past. Ebeneze Here in this little room, with
a fair young girl by your side, do you recognize yourself, Ebenezer?

Speaker 17 (01:47:42):
Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, spare me this.

Speaker 43 (01:47:45):
You are older, now, a man in the prime of life.
Your face has begun to wear the signs of care
and avarice. Your eyes are greedy, the eager, restless eyes
of a miser. Oohoo, he knows it too.

Speaker 29 (01:48:03):
That girl by your side there are tears in her eyes.

Speaker 17 (01:48:08):
It mattered little, ever.

Speaker 13 (01:48:09):
Easier to you, very little.

Speaker 58 (01:48:12):
I know that, Bell.

Speaker 17 (01:48:15):
Have I changed towards you? When we were engaged? We
were both poor? Was it better then? Better to be poor?

Speaker 59 (01:48:23):
Better at least to be happy?

Speaker 4 (01:48:25):
You're changed?

Speaker 17 (01:48:27):
You were another man then I was a boy. Do
you blame me because I grow wiser? Have I ever
tried to break our engagement? In words?

Speaker 51 (01:48:36):
No?

Speaker 52 (01:48:38):
In what?

Speaker 4 (01:48:39):
Then?

Speaker 60 (01:48:40):
In a change nature, in an altered spirit, in everything
that made my love of any value in your sight?

Speaker 4 (01:48:48):
So I release you from your promise.

Speaker 17 (01:48:50):
Belle.

Speaker 60 (01:48:50):
Oh, at first it may cause you pain to lose me,
a very brief pain. But soon it will be dim
like a half remembered dream, an unprofitable dream, and you
will be glad to be awake from such a dream.

Speaker 17 (01:49:06):
May you be happy in the life you have chosen.

Speaker 5 (01:49:09):
Ebeniza for the love of him.

Speaker 48 (01:49:12):
You once were.

Speaker 17 (01:49:15):
Spirit. It's enough, show me no more, take me all.

Speaker 43 (01:49:20):
These were shadows of the things that have been, that
they are what they are.

Speaker 29 (01:49:25):
Do not blame me no more, no more, one shadow more.

Speaker 58 (01:49:31):
Come.

Speaker 43 (01:49:36):
Do you see this man, Ebenezer Scrooge. This man might
have been you, and the woman beside him your wife.

Speaker 3 (01:49:44):
And that girl.

Speaker 43 (01:49:45):
That girl might have been your daughter, Ebenezer Scrooge. She
might have called you father. She might have been a
springtime in the haggard winter of your.

Speaker 17 (01:49:54):
Life's Please let me go, show me no more.

Speaker 29 (01:49:58):
Listen now while they speak epenes.

Speaker 4 (01:50:02):
No, I saw an old friend of yours today.

Speaker 17 (01:50:05):
Who was it? Yes? How can I? It's Oh, I know,
mister Screw.

Speaker 61 (01:50:13):
Mister Scrooge, it was. I passed his office window. It
wasn't shuttered, and there was a candle inside, so I
couldn't help seeing him. His partner Marley lies at the
point of death, I hear, And there Scrooge sat all alone,
quite alone in the world.

Speaker 33 (01:50:30):
I do believe.

Speaker 17 (01:50:32):
Spirit, Spirit, I can bear no more. Believe me, holt
me no more, Take me back, take me back.

Speaker 62 (01:50:52):
Lost.

Speaker 5 (01:50:52):
How all the east dusty and willing was no name.

Speaker 6 (01:50:58):
I love about Deep.

Speaker 38 (01:51:00):
Chris Bandy Rot.

Speaker 17 (01:51:04):
Night.

Speaker 45 (01:51:06):
You are listening to the Campbell Playhouse bringing you tonight
the fifth annual presentation of Charles Dickens, a Christmas Carol,
produced by Auson Wells and starring Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge.
This is the Columbia Broadcasting System when.

Speaker 15 (01:51:23):
The solely round about Deep and Chris Bandy.

Speaker 48 (01:51:29):
Lea last night the Cross My Screw where a poor
man came in sight caring.

Speaker 45 (01:51:44):
And now back to the Campbell Playhouse in the fifth
Annual presentation of a Christmas Carol, a Christmas present from
the makers of Campbell Soups.

Speaker 46 (01:52:04):
On the stroke of one, Scrooge awakened suddenly and sat
him bowled upright in his own bed. He remembered the
words of Marley's Ghost and wondered from which direction the
second specter would appear.

Speaker 47 (01:52:18):
At that moment.

Speaker 46 (01:52:19):
Nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished
him very much. Now being prepared for almost anything, he
was not, by any means prepared for nothing. And consequently,
when no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent
fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes quarter of an
hour went by, yet nothing came. Then, as he sat

(01:52:43):
in his bed, he became aware gradually of a great
blaze of ruddy light seemed to shine upon him from
the adjoining room. He got up softly and shuffled in
his slippers to the door. It was his own sitting room,
there was no doubt about that, but his undergone a
surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with

(01:53:06):
living green that it looked a perfect grove. And there
sat a jolly giant, glorious to see. You bore a
glowing torch in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held
it up high up to shed its light on Scrooge as.

Speaker 47 (01:53:22):
He came peeping round the corner.

Speaker 17 (01:53:25):
Come in, Come in.

Speaker 4 (01:53:26):
Nobody's a Scrooge and know me better man, You I
am the ghost of.

Speaker 29 (01:53:31):
Christmas present.

Speaker 63 (01:53:34):
Spirit.

Speaker 17 (01:53:35):
Take me where you will.

Speaker 48 (01:53:38):
Last time I went against my will and learned a
lesson which is working.

Speaker 17 (01:53:41):
Now. If you have anything to teach me, let me
profit my Touch.

Speaker 38 (01:53:47):
My robe, emories, a scrooge, touch my robe?

Speaker 17 (01:53:58):
Well?

Speaker 29 (01:53:58):
Have you brought me to a numble dwelling in an
humble street?

Speaker 17 (01:54:03):
Is miserable enough?

Speaker 29 (01:54:05):
Yet there is happiness there.

Speaker 17 (01:54:08):
Who are these people? Who's that woman? And the children?

Speaker 52 (01:54:12):
These are the family of your club, Bob Cratchit. See
his wife's dressed in a twice turned gown but brave
in ribbons, laying the table for their Christmas dinner. And
there assisting her is her daughter Belinda. And the young
men with a fork in the stuffing. That's Master Peter
Cratchitt and the two little Cratchits. Listen, Scrooge and watch.

Speaker 12 (01:54:34):
Yes, my mother, Why.

Speaker 64 (01:54:39):
Now sit you down before the fire Martin, have a
warm lord, blesh.

Speaker 41 (01:54:43):
Where's father?

Speaker 17 (01:54:44):
He's been to church with Tiny Tim.

Speaker 3 (01:54:45):
They'll be on directly.

Speaker 64 (01:54:47):
How is tiny Tim mother any better?

Speaker 42 (01:54:49):
Doors?

Speaker 64 (01:54:49):
Sometimes I think he is, and sometimes I think, oh,
dear God, if anything should happen to tiny Tim.

Speaker 65 (01:54:55):
Oh mother, you mustn't do anything.

Speaker 66 (01:54:57):
It's such a thing.

Speaker 42 (01:55:00):
Everything.

Speaker 67 (01:55:01):
Oh, Merry Christmas, father, and Jim, Merry Christmas man.

Speaker 15 (01:55:07):
Oh Kim you darling, Oh father, I'm so glad to.

Speaker 17 (01:55:11):
Be hot, and we're glad to have you.

Speaker 65 (01:55:13):
And how did little Tim behave in church?

Speaker 17 (01:55:15):
Bo as good as gold and better? I like church, mother.

Speaker 41 (01:55:19):
Oh, they sang the nicest songs.

Speaker 67 (01:55:21):
I hope people saw me there, saw you there, and
why Tim, Well, don't you see? Because I'm lame, and
if they saw my crutch, it might be pleasant for
them to remember on Christmas.

Speaker 15 (01:55:34):
Who it was made lame beggars walk and blind men.

Speaker 13 (01:55:38):
See.

Speaker 17 (01:55:39):
Bless you, my son, Are you ready to father?

Speaker 64 (01:55:43):
You're already come and wait.

Speaker 15 (01:55:47):
Plenty of stopping and dressing and plum pudding for.

Speaker 17 (01:55:49):
All of you.

Speaker 65 (01:55:50):
Martha, take care of tiny Tim and.

Speaker 17 (01:55:52):
See that he eats plenty.

Speaker 62 (01:55:53):
He must get strong and well.

Speaker 17 (01:55:54):
Now sit down, my DearS.

Speaker 52 (01:55:59):
I see a vacant seat in the fortumney corner, and
the crust without an owner carefully preserved.

Speaker 17 (01:56:08):
Say he'll be spared. Say live.

Speaker 52 (01:56:11):
If these shadows remain unaltered by the future Ebonza, the
child will die.

Speaker 38 (01:56:19):
And to praise the name.

Speaker 47 (01:56:23):
Amen.

Speaker 48 (01:56:24):
Amen, And now, my DearS, with such a dinner, a toast,
A merry Christmas to us all, and God.

Speaker 29 (01:56:30):
Bless me, blessure everyone.

Speaker 48 (01:56:33):
And now to mister Scrooge. I'll give you a toast
of mister Scrooge, the founder of.

Speaker 64 (01:56:38):
The feast, the founder of the feast, indeed, who pays
you all of fifteen shillings a week. I wish I
had him here. I'd give him a piece of my
mind to feast on, and I hope you'd have good
appetite for.

Speaker 10 (01:56:49):
Dear the children Christmas Day.

Speaker 5 (01:56:51):
It should be Christmas Day.

Speaker 64 (01:56:52):
I'm sure on which one drinks the health of such
an odious, stingy, unfeeling man as mister Scrooge.

Speaker 11 (01:56:57):
You know he is Bob.

Speaker 5 (01:56:58):
Nobody knows it better than you.

Speaker 11 (01:57:00):
Dear Christmas Day, I'll drink.

Speaker 62 (01:57:03):
His health for your sake, and the days not for
his long life. To him, a merry Christmas and a
happy New Year. He'll be very merry and very happy.

Speaker 67 (01:57:13):
I have no doubt, and I say God bless him
to mother and everyone.

Speaker 46 (01:57:19):
Yeah, there was nothing of high mark in all this.

(01:57:51):
They were not a handsome family, these crotchets. They were
not well dressed, Their shoes were far from being waterproof,
their clothes were scanty and had known, very likely the
insides of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy, grateful, pleased

(01:58:13):
with one another, and contented with a time. And when
at last they faded, Scrooge had his eye upon them,
and especially on tiny Tim, until the last many calls
Scrooge made that night, with a ghost of Christmas present.

Speaker 47 (01:58:34):
Down among the miners.

Speaker 46 (01:58:35):
They went to labor in the bowels of the earth,
and out to sea among the sailors at their watch,
dark ghostly figures in their several stations. Much they saw,
and far they went, and many places they visited, but
always with.

Speaker 47 (01:58:53):
A happy end.

Speaker 46 (01:58:55):
The spirits stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful
on foreign land, and they were close at home by poverty.

Speaker 17 (01:59:03):
And it was rich.

Speaker 46 (01:59:05):
In armshouse, hospital and jail. Where a vain man, in
his little brief authority had not made fast the door
and barred the spirit out.

Speaker 47 (01:59:18):
The spirit left his blessing. It was a long night,
It was only a night.

Speaker 17 (01:59:28):
And it was strange too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered
in his outward form, the ghost grew older, clearly older.

Speaker 52 (01:59:40):
Wild life upon this globe is very brief, Eboniza. It
ends tonight, tonight, tonight at midnight. Ah, the hours come.

Speaker 17 (01:59:52):
Oh nund yet lund Chet. There's still more things I
wish to learn.

Speaker 52 (01:59:58):
These you will learn from still another spirit, still another spirit.

Speaker 46 (02:00:03):
Ebenezer Scrooge looked about him for the ghost that had vanished.
He found himself once more in his bed, in his
dressing gun and.

Speaker 17 (02:00:16):
His nightcap, he'd heard the clock strike, and then.

Speaker 46 (02:00:23):
He remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting
up his eyes, beheld the Third Spirit, a solemn phantom,
shrouded in black, draped and hooded, coming towards him, slowly

(02:00:47):
and silently, like a mist along the ground.

Speaker 42 (02:00:52):
I know you.

Speaker 48 (02:00:55):
You, you heard the ghost of Christmas yet to come.
You will show me the shadows of things that have
not happened, but will happen in the time before us. Handsomely, Spirit,
Ghost to the future.

Speaker 17 (02:01:10):
Oh, I fear you more than any specter I've seen.

Speaker 48 (02:01:15):
And yet as I know your purpose is to do
me good, and as I hope you live to be
another man from what I was laid on, laid on,
the night is wading fast.

Speaker 17 (02:01:29):
Time is precious Spirit?

Speaker 48 (02:01:36):
Why have you brought me here again? He had to
bob cratchits home. Wy, it's not to say.

Speaker 5 (02:01:43):
Why is it so quiet?

Speaker 17 (02:01:45):
So very quiet?

Speaker 43 (02:01:46):
Here?

Speaker 11 (02:01:52):
Mother?

Speaker 29 (02:01:52):
Clean my problem? My little.

Speaker 60 (02:01:59):
T t know I loved him so mother, dear, you mustn't.
It's almost time for father to be homey. Don't let
him see you crying.

Speaker 65 (02:02:10):
Yes, y, yes, mother, he's late tonight. He walks slower
than he used to yet I've known him to walk
very first, indeed, with Tiny Tim on his shoulder, so
have I mother. But he was light to carry, and
his father loved him so that it was no trouble,

(02:02:33):
no trouble at all.

Speaker 46 (02:02:35):
Bob.

Speaker 17 (02:02:37):
Good evening, my dear, you're late, Bob.

Speaker 48 (02:02:40):
I'm sorry, my dear. I I went to the churchyard today.
I wish you could have gone with me. It would
have done your heart good to see how sweet and
green a price it is. He'll see it often, I
promised him. I promised Tiny Tim we'd walk there on Sunday.

Speaker 60 (02:02:56):
Oh, father, dear, it's God's will, Bob.

Speaker 17 (02:02:59):
I trying to understand it, My dear, my son, my
little son, Tiny Tim, and I loved him so.

Speaker 29 (02:03:14):
Oh, that's cruel, cruel, Spirit.

Speaker 48 (02:03:19):
Can't you give me wondery of hope that I may
change all, that the tiny Tim may live? Where are

(02:03:46):
we now, oh mast forever churchyard, overrun by grass and weeds,
choked with too much betting, desolate, lonely, crumbling gravestone.

Speaker 17 (02:04:01):
Spirit, Now before I'd drawn nearer to that.

Speaker 48 (02:04:04):
Gravestone, answer me one question. Are these are the shadows
of things that we will be? Or are they the
shadows of things that maybe only.

Speaker 17 (02:04:16):
Would you not speak to me? Spirs, what is that
grave to wish? You point? Oh? Now I see there's.

Speaker 48 (02:04:25):
Writing on that stone. The name on the gravestone is Hibbens.

Speaker 17 (02:04:33):
Schools Screws oo oo oh. Spirit, No, no, no, Spirit.

Speaker 34 (02:04:43):
Hear me.

Speaker 17 (02:04:45):
I'm not the man I was. Why show me this?
If I'm past.

Speaker 36 (02:04:50):
All hope, tell me that I may change these grateful
shadows that have come that you've shown me by an
altered life.

Speaker 48 (02:05:02):
I'm on a Christmas in my heart and I'll try
and keep it all the year. I live in the past,
the present, in the future. I will not shut out
the lessons that they teach.

Speaker 17 (02:05:14):
Tell me, Do spir it?

Speaker 48 (02:05:17):
Please tell me that I can sponge away the writing
on that stone.

Speaker 17 (02:05:22):
Spirit, I beg you spin it, Spirit, Spirit. I promise
on my knees. I promise, I promise. What's this big post?

(02:05:54):
I'm in my own bed, in my own room.

Speaker 48 (02:06:00):
You understand you and the sun, the sunshine, it's clear,
it's bright, no far Oh what a.

Speaker 17 (02:06:09):
Beautiful day, glorious glorious.

Speaker 43 (02:06:16):
Boy?

Speaker 68 (02:06:17):
Oh boy, yes, sir.

Speaker 69 (02:06:20):
E.

Speaker 17 (02:06:21):
It what's today? What's what day?

Speaker 5 (02:06:25):
Is it?

Speaker 17 (02:06:26):
My fine fella? Today why Christmas Day, Christmas Day?

Speaker 29 (02:06:32):
And I haven't missed the spirits have done it all
in one.

Speaker 17 (02:06:36):
Night, all in one night. Heaven be prayed. How sir, listen,
my dad, do you know where the poultry is? And
in the next street?

Speaker 41 (02:06:48):
I should say I do.

Speaker 48 (02:06:50):
An intelligent boy, a remarkable boy. Tell me do you
know if they've sold the prize turkey that was hanging
in the window as.

Speaker 3 (02:07:00):
Big as me?

Speaker 17 (02:07:03):
What a delightful boy.

Speaker 48 (02:07:05):
It's a pleasure to talk to you, Yes, my buck man, sir, Oh,
that's wonderful. Now go around, will you and tell him
to send it to Bob Cratchett and his family on
Broad Street.

Speaker 17 (02:07:19):
And mind you, they're not to know who paid for it.

Speaker 48 (02:07:22):
Hurry along, may and you hear it's half a crown
for your trouble.

Speaker 41 (02:07:27):
Yes, sir, Yes, I had as ha.

Speaker 17 (02:07:29):
And a merry Christmas to you too, my boy. I
don't know what to do.

Speaker 48 (02:07:36):
I'm as light as a fellow, as happy as an angel,
I'm as married as a school boy. A merry Christmas,
A merry Christmas to everybody, A happy New Year to
all the world.

Speaker 46 (02:08:06):
Next morning, Scrooge was early at his office. He went
early for a reason, if he could only be there
first and catch Bob cratch It coming late. That was
the thing he'd set his heart upon. And he did it, Yes,
he did. The clock had struck nine, No Bob. A

(02:08:28):
quarter past No Bob. Scrooge sat with his door wide
open that he might see him come in, and at
last he came. His hat was off before he opened
the door, his comforted to he was on his stool
and Jiffy, driving away with his pen as if he
were trying to overtake nine o'clock fifteen.

Speaker 54 (02:08:45):
Carry the one, forty four, carry two thirty one, carry
four eight and six or fourteen carry the eight.

Speaker 48 (02:08:50):
Oh you cratchit, yes, sir, stip his wait cratch it,
if you please.

Speaker 17 (02:08:56):
Crach it. What do you mean by coming in at
this time of day?

Speaker 48 (02:09:01):
Oh?

Speaker 38 (02:09:01):
I'm very sorry, sir.

Speaker 17 (02:09:03):
I'm behind my time.

Speaker 59 (02:09:05):
You are?

Speaker 38 (02:09:06):
You are?

Speaker 17 (02:09:09):
Yes, I think you are.

Speaker 51 (02:09:10):
It's only once a year, mister Scrooge, but you will
not be repeated.

Speaker 48 (02:09:13):
I was making rather merry yesterday, sir. I'll tell you what,
my friend, I have not seen this sort of thing
any longer. And therefore, Bob crunch It, I'm about to
raise your salurday mister Scrooge, are you quite yourself?

Speaker 34 (02:09:31):
Sir?

Speaker 17 (02:09:32):
No, No, Thank Heaven, I am not quite myself.

Speaker 48 (02:09:36):
Marry Christmas, Bob, ha ha, Many Christmas, my good fellow,
and merrier Christmas than I've given you in many a year.

Speaker 17 (02:09:46):
I'll raise your salary.

Speaker 48 (02:09:47):
And we'll see what we can do for Tiny Tim
and the rest of your family. We'll discuss it this
very afternoon over a Christmas bowl of smoking Bishop, Bob,
make up the fire, take it up, and buy another
cool scruggle.

Speaker 17 (02:10:03):
Before you'd got another eye on.

Speaker 46 (02:10:11):
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all
and infinitely more to Tiny Tim, who did not die.
He was a second father. He became as good a friend,
as good a master, and as good a man as
the good old City knew, or any other good old
city town or borough in the good old world. Some

(02:10:34):
people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he
let them laugh, and little heeded them. His own heart laughed.
That was quite enough for him. He had no further
intercourse with spirits, but lived upon the total abstinence principle
ever afterwards. And it was always said of him that
he knew how to keep Christmas well. If any man

(02:10:57):
alive possessed the knowledge be truly said of us, all
of us, And so as tiny Tim observed, God bless
us everyone.

Speaker 45 (02:11:39):
You have just heard our annual presentation of Charles Dickens,
a Christmas Carol starring Lionel Barrymore, brought to you by
the makers of Campbell's Suits. And now here is Awson
Wells at this point in the program, Ladies and gentlemen,
it is my custom, as you know, to present to you,
with a few words of introduction, our guest of the evening.
With your consent, I shall dispense with us tonight. To

(02:12:01):
introduce tonight's guest to the Campbell Playoffs audience or to
any other American audience is an extravagant and superfluous procedure.
For if ever an actor has won for himself a
lasting place in the hearts of his fellow countrymen through
years of unsparing and inspiring service, that actress Lionel Barrimore,

(02:12:23):
it's to Lionel Paramore.

Speaker 17 (02:12:25):
Thank you orsonwell. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 48 (02:12:31):
This is the fourth year I've had the pleasure of
appearing in the Christmas Carol here in the Campbell playhouse,
and I assure you all it's a pleasure that never ties.
As long as I can remember, this has been one
of my favorite stories when we were children. It was
read to us regularly this time of year, as it

(02:12:51):
is to millions of children right now.

Speaker 17 (02:12:55):
Unlike many of them, I'm.

Speaker 48 (02:12:56):
Sure the three of us, Ethel, Jack and I, with
the aid of a sheet and some old ironware, made
a play of it.

Speaker 17 (02:13:05):
As I remember, we had three scrooges in that production.

Speaker 47 (02:13:08):
Mister Barrymore, who played Tiny Tim.

Speaker 17 (02:13:11):
I think we had three tiny Tims too. Well.

Speaker 48 (02:13:14):
Seriously, I can think of no part that I've enjoyed
playing again and again as much as I have the
part of that squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching.

Speaker 17 (02:13:28):
Covered as old sinner. Evan He's a scrooge.

Speaker 48 (02:13:32):
And I can think of no happier or more suitable
choice for the makers of Campbell Soups.

Speaker 17 (02:13:37):
To offer the people of America as.

Speaker 48 (02:13:39):
Their Christmas present each year than Charles Dickens's well beloved
story Christmas Cattle. Good Night Dawson, good night everybody, and
a merry Merry Christmas to you all.

Speaker 46 (02:13:52):
Good night, mister Barrymon Merry Christmas to your saying ladies
and gentlemen. For next Sunday night, we're happy to announce
our version a great and truly American story by a
great American novelist, Come and Get It, by Edna Fervor.
Against a background of the mighty forests of Miss Ferber's
own Wisconsin, it tells a stirring tale of the men
and women who live and die in the woods in

(02:14:15):
order that lumber may come down the rivers every spring
into the cities of the modern world. Like so many
of Miss Ferber's epic romances of American life, is made
from a best selling novel into a highly successful motion picture.
Now we bring it to you on the air, the
story of a man and his son and the girl
they both loved, Lota, played for us by one of
the loveliest and most accomplished of Hollywood's younger dramatic actresses,

(02:14:37):
Miss Francis D. And so until next week until Come
and Get It with Francis D. My sponsors, the makers
of Campbell Soups, and all of us on the Campbell
Playoffs remain as always obediently yours.

Speaker 45 (02:15:07):
The makers of Campbell's Soups join Ars and Wells in
inviting you to be with us in the Campbell Playhouse
again next Sunday evening when we bring you Edna Ferber's
Come and Get It with Miss Francis.

Speaker 33 (02:15:18):
D as our guest.

Speaker 45 (02:15:20):
Meanwhile, if you have enjoyed our fifth annual presentation of
a Christmas Carol, won't you tell your grocery store this
week when you order Campbell's soups. This is Ernest Chappell
saying thank you and Merry Christmas to you all.

Speaker 1 (02:15:59):
That was Campbell Playhouse dramatization of A Christmas Carol from
CBS on December twenty fourth, nineteen thirty nine. Marley Was
Dead as a comedy broadcast on Christmas Eve twenty ten
on BBC Radio four A Christmas Carol, but Not as
You've ever heard it before. A surprise all star cast
gathered to bring dickens timeless classic to life, introduced by
Jonathan Dimbleby.

Speaker 4 (02:16:21):
Good evening.

Speaker 70 (02:16:23):
I'm standing here in the balcony of this magnificent, packed
out church right in the heart of London, for this
much anticipated adaptation of Dickens's magical allegory. There's a great
deal of excitement here in the audience below me, the
BBC Symphony Orchestra fills the chances awaiting the arrival of
Sir Simon Rattle, on leave from the Berlin Philharmonic to

(02:16:44):
conduct this special performance. And what a line up of
British acting talent are about to take to the stage
this Christmas Eve. Sir Ian mckelln a Scrooge, Sir Patrick's
Stewart as Marley, David Tennant as Cratchett, Sir Michael Gambon
Christmas Present, Emma Watson has bell and where they come

(02:17:05):
now to hue applaud us to sign a rattle, closely
followed by the cast Sally Harkins there who will be
playing Christmas path, A lot of smiles, a row of excitement.
And so as the casts take their places, we await
the utterance of that most famous of opening lines, Marley
was Dead. A Christmas carol has of course become synonymous

(02:17:25):
with the very concept of Christmas, not only as a
well loved seasonal tale, but carrying with it an enduring
and judicious message for all of us. As we reflect
on the past year and prepare for the next. And
I think we're now ready to begin.

Speaker 71 (02:17:44):
Marley was Dead to begin with, there is no doubt
whatever about that the red Burials.

Speaker 4 (02:17:52):
By that they would rather die brase and decrease.

Speaker 5 (02:17:55):
Another art has replaced me.

Speaker 58 (02:17:56):
Ever, Nea, I do apologize for the interruption to the
current broadcast. We will be returning to a Christmas Carol
in just one moment.

Speaker 4 (02:18:09):
I'm still living now here.

Speaker 58 (02:18:10):
Now look at this, I'm afraid we seem to have
temporarily lost connection with our current broadcast. I assure you
we're doing everything we can here to rectify the situation.
In the meantime, however, we're going to play you a
little bit of music. Why wasn't this play And it's something.

Speaker 72 (02:18:30):
More absorbing than your boss, Richard, he went for the
cocktail glasses.

Speaker 5 (02:18:37):
Please stay tuned while we just overcome this little problem.
Let's get this party started.

Speaker 4 (02:18:44):
It's not every Christmas your wife announce that she's leaving you.

Speaker 5 (02:18:48):
Oh my, there was a small spill it so have
you don't Richard, It wasn't my fault.

Speaker 4 (02:18:53):
I was just putting the jag on the shell. Look,
I don't work here. I don't know the rules.

Speaker 5 (02:19:00):
See they have shouted in Spain, don't they.

Speaker 4 (02:19:02):
And jugs not a thing of Sangria.

Speaker 58 (02:19:05):
Maybe we will be returning to Saint Martin in the
field just as soon as we can.

Speaker 4 (02:19:11):
For ones.

Speaker 5 (02:19:12):
Richard, we're live. We've lost a Christmas Carol. We've got
no audio play back options.

Speaker 4 (02:19:19):
Are we live now? It is what I'm saying now
on the radio.

Speaker 58 (02:19:22):
Yes, why do you think I've been? You're listening to
Radio four. John, play something I can't on that last
night shipping forecast.

Speaker 4 (02:19:31):
There will rebund the money not to see John just
play anything, nothing, will play Riches.

Speaker 5 (02:19:37):
Please bear with us everyone while we just try to
settle these minor technical problems.

Speaker 4 (02:19:42):
Minor I don't work in radio, but they looks great.

Speaker 5 (02:19:43):
Major.

Speaker 58 (02:19:45):
John just coming up on Radio four later this evening.
Mister schedule gone, but I think I used to to
mop up right coming up.

Speaker 72 (02:19:56):
Later Carols by Gander Light, Carol Borderman, Carol Smiley and
Carol Toucher discussed their favorite carols to.

Speaker 17 (02:20:04):
They what it was?

Speaker 4 (02:20:05):
Probably something like that. John is nothing responding.

Speaker 5 (02:20:08):
I think we need the technical person on Christmas.

Speaker 4 (02:20:11):
If there's no one here, asked in security.

Speaker 5 (02:20:13):
Can we seriously not know where I put in any audio?

Speaker 4 (02:20:16):
Hang on, I've got an idea, Carlos Antanas. Can we
put into the best to the Christmas.

Speaker 5 (02:20:25):
We can we No, I don't think it's a usp.

Speaker 4 (02:20:28):
He's got a third are we? Definitely still it's got
that as well. Radio this a listen.

Speaker 17 (02:20:34):
Christmas.

Speaker 4 (02:20:38):
Hello. Hello, I am talking into the radio for microphone,
and my voice is.

Speaker 73 (02:20:45):
Coming out of my phone simultaneously. Afimative, we are brought
cut into the nation.

Speaker 4 (02:20:51):
Okay, I've lost all the screens.

Speaker 74 (02:20:52):
Now we too, Hang on, John, I'm guiding the cornlord
makes some fo Okay, this isn't good, is it?

Speaker 17 (02:21:01):
No?

Speaker 4 (02:21:01):
It's terribly, terribly bad. I should never have come in.
It was an accident, that's true. And you and Richard
did invide me.

Speaker 5 (02:21:08):
It's not our fault. You shouldn't really have been drinking
on the job, but you're the one that spelt it.

Speaker 72 (02:21:13):
Yes, I'm not denying responsibility, but I am like a
child in your care.

Speaker 58 (02:21:17):
Do you know what You're like a friend who came
in and spilled two leasters of eggnog? I have on
thousands of pounds worth of BBC studio equipment.

Speaker 72 (02:21:23):
The price of greatness is responsibility. Winston Churchill, What is
that my Christmas present to myself?

Speaker 5 (02:21:31):
The Little Book of Wisdom and inspiration. Try it.

Speaker 4 (02:21:33):
You turn to a page at random and it tells
you what you must need to hear.

Speaker 5 (02:21:37):
Yeah. Well, what I'm listening to here right now is
a Christmas carol.

Speaker 74 (02:21:39):
Okay, I'm just coming to the studio now anything, John, No, No,
we've got nothing.

Speaker 4 (02:21:45):
Still bod Okay, yeah you do. We don't know.

Speaker 58 (02:21:49):
Okay, I've got to announce what's happening. If you've just
joined us here on Radio four. I'm afraid we're still
experiencing some difficulties.

Speaker 4 (02:21:59):
In the meantime.

Speaker 5 (02:22:00):
And in the meantime, give us a call.

Speaker 4 (02:22:03):
What yeah, you know, like ox Sport tried to Christmas,
give us a call.

Speaker 11 (02:22:09):
Was the number here?

Speaker 4 (02:22:10):
No idea, it was the phone number.

Speaker 17 (02:22:12):
Okay.

Speaker 58 (02:22:13):
The number to call is to seven nine four six
double O, double O. Cool that number again, seven nine
fall six double O.

Speaker 4 (02:22:24):
What are you doing? We're discussing Christmas there on Radio four.
Give us a call. Tell us about your experiences of
delebl Christmases.

Speaker 5 (02:22:31):
Oh, we're still live.

Speaker 4 (02:22:32):
Yes, they've gotta come in plass in red. Wait does
that come happen?

Speaker 5 (02:22:35):
We have to stop broadcast the Hello.

Speaker 13 (02:22:41):
From the future wife in reception already up.

Speaker 5 (02:22:46):
Yeah, no, I'll come down, Richard, come back here.

Speaker 4 (02:22:49):
You're not going anywhere.

Speaker 9 (02:22:50):
Save her up?

Speaker 4 (02:22:52):
Where's clear here for the car?

Speaker 5 (02:22:54):
So she really is taking the kids to her mom's Richard,
Come to try repeating again.

Speaker 58 (02:23:00):
We're discussing a Christmas Carol here on Radio four. I
understand the story has quite a special place in your heart,
have you?

Speaker 4 (02:23:07):
That was actually quite personally in for Amatia and John.

Speaker 58 (02:23:11):
There have, of course been many dramatizations over the years,
the Muppets. The Muppets did one with Michael Caine Your Care,
which was surprisingly moving given that the Puppets or Muppets
is a muppet and official type of puppet.

Speaker 4 (02:23:28):
I'm not sure that's it.

Speaker 5 (02:23:30):
I am fired? And what White is leaving me? Well
Happter twenty eleven.

Speaker 4 (02:23:35):
Everyone, do you want that name? Which is another jago head?
We could step out of it. The first audio production
of a Christmas Carol, I believe.

Speaker 5 (02:23:43):
Was in nineteen thirty eight, starring Awesome.

Speaker 58 (02:23:46):
Wells Ares both narrator and Screwge, which must have been
a bit odd.

Speaker 5 (02:23:49):
Were you around in nineteen thirty eight?

Speaker 17 (02:23:51):
Did you hear it?

Speaker 4 (02:23:52):
Was it odd? Was it great?

Speaker 69 (02:23:54):
What?

Speaker 4 (02:23:54):
Or some awesome right?

Speaker 5 (02:23:57):
Or give us a call about anything else?

Speaker 4 (02:23:59):
What does a Christmas carol to you?

Speaker 58 (02:24:01):
As Jonathan dible Be suggested in his introduction back then,
the story is arguably the fictional world's most resounding and
enduring moral pointer. Have you ever had a moment of
epiphany like Scrooge? The moment you'd care to share with us?
Or maybe you haven't. If you haven't, maybe you will.
There's always hope. Do you agree with me?

Speaker 4 (02:24:19):
Give us a call on?

Speaker 5 (02:24:20):
Oh? Two O seven nine four six double low double ow, clarse?

Speaker 4 (02:24:24):
Have the daughter? Have you?

Speaker 43 (02:24:25):
No?

Speaker 5 (02:24:25):
Wait?

Speaker 4 (02:24:26):
Hi, Clare, it's Claire.

Speaker 68 (02:24:29):
We're not staying girls.

Speaker 5 (02:24:31):
Can I have the keys? Richard?

Speaker 20 (02:24:32):
Where can we talk?

Speaker 3 (02:24:33):
Not now?

Speaker 4 (02:24:34):
But can you just wait?

Speaker 20 (02:24:36):
No?

Speaker 13 (02:24:37):
We going to my parents?

Speaker 68 (02:24:38):
Is that the wrong way you were?

Speaker 12 (02:24:40):
It's quite native?

Speaker 4 (02:24:41):
Two O seven nine four six double o double o. Great,
nice to they, Clare, Just to shirch. Really like the
way you have played the bottom like a very ingenuous
and effective thank you.

Speaker 5 (02:24:52):
You're looking good yourself, thus a great day.

Speaker 4 (02:24:55):
Are you perhaps listening online in another country? Peased?

Speaker 17 (02:24:59):
Richard?

Speaker 13 (02:25:00):
Come on kids?

Speaker 5 (02:25:01):
Do we have yes?

Speaker 13 (02:25:03):
That's working?

Speaker 11 (02:25:04):
Come on?

Speaker 5 (02:25:05):
If so, what's the weather like where you are? Claire?
We can work this out. Why don't you just work
yourself out? Richard Mather Jesse, let's go. I'll call you later.

Speaker 20 (02:25:14):
Kids.

Speaker 4 (02:25:15):
Bye, die by Richard. I'm so sorry.

Speaker 5 (02:25:21):
Two seven nine four six double O, double o. If
you want to make that call right, we're shutting down transmission.

Speaker 4 (02:25:29):
I'll get that cave no cavio. Hello, ready for how
can we help you?

Speaker 10 (02:25:35):
Hello?

Speaker 5 (02:25:36):
Oh you Sonda.

Speaker 4 (02:25:37):
You may be a younger listener.

Speaker 5 (02:25:38):
What is your name, Oliver?

Speaker 4 (02:25:40):
And how old are you? Oliver? Can then still be
living in Santa Claus.

Speaker 5 (02:25:45):
Santa Claus?

Speaker 4 (02:25:46):
Yeah, clause, what just give me the phone, Give me
the phone. Hello, Oliver, is there anyone you'd like to say?
Merry Christmas too?

Speaker 75 (02:25:54):
No, just my family, but they're all downstair fighting. Are
you going to get a Christmas power back on?

Speaker 5 (02:26:02):
Well, we're certainly doing the best we can, Oliver.

Speaker 75 (02:26:04):
I try to get to listen to the story, then stop,
and then just started shouting again. I just if they
could listen to the message and the story might make
and stop.

Speaker 4 (02:26:17):
I'm really sorry to hear that, Oliver. Oliver, you keep listening.

Speaker 72 (02:26:21):
We are going to get a Christmas carol back on
for you, for your family, for certain Okay, okay, that's
a radio fall promise. Honey, ain't Santa clause he is
on his way. Keep listening. Do you think you're doing?

Speaker 4 (02:26:34):
What do you mean? What do I think I'm doing?
Did you hear that we have to get a Christmas
Carol back on? We can let that child down and
all the others like, we don't have a choice.

Speaker 5 (02:26:42):
Look, I have made a decision with shutting down. We're
getting off the air now. No, what do you mean?

Speaker 17 (02:26:46):
No?

Speaker 73 (02:26:46):
Move away from the plant. If you sat down, everyone
will stop listening. You don't understand. You don't understand not.
You don't understand understand what what.

Speaker 4 (02:26:54):
Is like to be a Knot fan.

Speaker 72 (02:26:55):
If parents tell exactly fighting and him abandoned, what the
child doesn't receive in life.

Speaker 4 (02:27:03):
He can seldom later give b D. James.

Speaker 7 (02:27:06):
There we go.

Speaker 4 (02:27:07):
What is that book?

Speaker 73 (02:27:08):
The Little Book of Wisdom and Inspiration? It tells you
what you must need to hear. Pick up it, Move
away from the plant.

Speaker 4 (02:27:14):
Look, I am talking about what Jonathan di bilibially said.
Who it doesn't matter what his deeping name is.

Speaker 73 (02:27:22):
You are really prepared to abort the message of Christ.
We don't have an alternative, Bingo you fixed it.

Speaker 58 (02:27:29):
No, I've just found an external tatmophe underneath the desk
with what looks.

Speaker 4 (02:27:33):
Like every era recorded episode of Moneybox Live. I think
we can plug it straight.

Speaker 5 (02:27:37):
Into the outputs phrase by do it? How long will
that take?

Speaker 4 (02:27:40):
Not long? Film you?

Speaker 5 (02:27:45):
Hello, this is ready for How can we help you?

Speaker 9 (02:27:48):
This is Chris Evans.

Speaker 5 (02:27:49):
Chris Evans, Yes, as in Chris Heavens, Chris Evans. Yes.

Speaker 9 (02:27:52):
Now listen to me. Do you realize how many people's
Christmases you're about to ru it?

Speaker 4 (02:27:56):
Exactly?

Speaker 9 (02:27:57):
I'll tell you a lot. Me and British Forsyth, the starters.

Speaker 4 (02:28:00):
Who's sake?

Speaker 9 (02:28:00):
He's just testing me. But more importantly, it's the rest
of the nation.

Speaker 76 (02:28:03):
It's that little girl who phoned up, it was the
boy whatever, And it's all the other families, all those
thousands of people who've tuned in tonight to hear the
true message of Christmas. Don't jump ship money Box Life.
Give me a break. You've got to find a way
of getting dickens over the airways. Have I made myself clean?

Speaker 5 (02:28:20):
We want to let you down, mister Evens who Chris Evens,
Chris Evans.

Speaker 4 (02:28:24):
That's what I said.

Speaker 9 (02:28:25):
I'm putting my faith in you.

Speaker 5 (02:28:26):
Goodbye?

Speaker 4 (02:28:29):
Did that just happen? Happened? That's what I said?

Speaker 5 (02:28:32):
And how exactly are we not going to let Chris
Evans down?

Speaker 4 (02:28:35):
Then?

Speaker 53 (02:28:35):
Have you?

Speaker 4 (02:28:36):
I don't know, but don't you see?

Speaker 5 (02:28:38):
This isn't just a simple matter of not putting on
a Christmas carrel?

Speaker 17 (02:28:42):
Yes it is.

Speaker 5 (02:28:44):
Are we ready?

Speaker 4 (02:28:45):
Moneybox lives all set to go? No, you are failing everyone?

Speaker 74 (02:28:49):
Well little change there then, So this is for everyone
I've ever failed.

Speaker 5 (02:28:53):
Claire, my children, Chris Evans.

Speaker 4 (02:28:56):
Bruce Forsyth.

Speaker 74 (02:28:57):
In fact, all the listening public have many that a
few million, hopefully not that many.

Speaker 13 (02:29:03):
I guess this is goodbye?

Speaker 4 (02:29:07):
Hello?

Speaker 77 (02:29:07):
Oh no, you don't, Richard Cats. Mainly, let's just back
up there, shall we. It's the written and you the guy.

Speaker 69 (02:29:13):
Pull yourself together.

Speaker 9 (02:29:14):
Cats.

Speaker 77 (02:29:15):
You've got a job to do, Richard. Okay, first things first,
we need some love in the room. John Hello, tell
the listeners it's all gonna be cool.

Speaker 4 (02:29:23):
It's all gonna be cool.

Speaker 69 (02:29:25):
Good have you?

Speaker 4 (02:29:26):
Hello?

Speaker 69 (02:29:26):
Give us some wisdom from the book of Inspiration.

Speaker 4 (02:29:29):
If today was perfect, there would be no need for tomorrow.

Speaker 69 (02:29:33):
Never a truer word. Who said that?

Speaker 4 (02:29:34):
Hiddler?

Speaker 51 (02:29:36):
Right?

Speaker 77 (02:29:37):
Let's move on, Richard, listen to me. What's the BBC
expecting of you right now to.

Speaker 20 (02:29:42):
Put out a Christmas Carol?

Speaker 9 (02:29:44):
And you can't because.

Speaker 5 (02:29:45):
Revenge, the studio equipment in eggnog.

Speaker 9 (02:29:48):
And your wife's leaving you.

Speaker 5 (02:29:49):
Because I have the dynamism of Corduroy.

Speaker 9 (02:29:52):
But what we need here is a man of action.

Speaker 77 (02:29:54):
It's not me, is what a man of cordroy might say.
But in these trouble times, we have to find our voices,
voices that drown out the sirens of fear. The modern
world rears inside us. Four years ago, I met a man,
a strong man, a man of action.

Speaker 4 (02:30:12):
The interview with Jeff Kate.

Speaker 77 (02:30:13):
No, I'm talking about you. You were a Maverick producer
back then, but a brilliant one. People said juggling wouldn't
work on the radio, but you made it work. You
had visions.

Speaker 5 (02:30:24):
He's right, Richard, that juggling feature nearly won a Sony Award.

Speaker 69 (02:30:27):
Where's that vision?

Speaker 5 (02:30:28):
Now?

Speaker 69 (02:30:28):
Where's the man I first met?

Speaker 5 (02:30:30):
I guess I've just lost my mojo and maybe your marriage.

Speaker 77 (02:30:34):
You have a choice, my friend. Number one, you walk
from everything, you give up. Number two, you turn things around.
But how do you know what The best thing you
ever said to me was that I loved you. No,
but you did say that, which was really nice, very
nice moment. No, you said to me madly. Radio is

(02:30:55):
an unrivaled force of creation. It's inside the heads of
a listener that the real magic takes place.

Speaker 4 (02:31:01):
Did that could go on my book?

Speaker 77 (02:31:03):
Listen, Dickens doesn't need some Martin in the fields and
big posh orchestras to make his words soar into people's arts.
He just needs voices, real voices of commitment and truth
and honesty.

Speaker 4 (02:31:16):
No, look, listen, think it through.

Speaker 9 (02:31:19):
Where are you right now the.

Speaker 4 (02:31:20):
BBC Continuity studio?

Speaker 69 (02:31:22):
And what do you have at your disposal?

Speaker 5 (02:31:23):
Every single episode of Money Box Live?

Speaker 20 (02:31:26):
No?

Speaker 5 (02:31:27):
Think what else?

Speaker 4 (02:31:29):
Full lanes exactly?

Speaker 69 (02:31:32):
And what does the nation want Christmas?

Speaker 17 (02:31:34):
Carol?

Speaker 69 (02:31:34):
So what would the old Richard Katz the Maverick do?

Speaker 4 (02:31:38):
I don't know anymore?

Speaker 69 (02:31:40):
Yeah you do?

Speaker 4 (02:31:41):
I think maybe these will help?

Speaker 72 (02:31:45):
Remember pop Gan, Tom Cruise pull himself out of that
terrible glymph, and.

Speaker 5 (02:31:50):
Mayer of self doubt and Sultan you turn that rubbish off? Havia?

Speaker 74 (02:31:58):
Are you saying that we somehow get hold of a
replacement cast get them to phone their lines in life,
recreate all the necessary atmospheres here in the studio and
basically broadcast our own production of the story.

Speaker 5 (02:32:12):
No, you're saying that, but that's completely mad.

Speaker 78 (02:32:15):
Merry Christmas, Richard, blimey, that was a bit cryptic. Wasn't
it better drowned than duffers? If not duffers want.

Speaker 4 (02:32:26):
Drown what's well as an absence?

Speaker 72 (02:32:27):
What it is the rather cunning message the children get
from their father to let them know if they're allowed
to go to the island in the bowl.

Speaker 58 (02:32:35):
Yeah, it means it's better to be drowned than be
a duffer. And if you're not a duffer, you won't
drown anyway.

Speaker 73 (02:32:41):
From Richard and Jodi is like our dad. He doesn't
want to spell it out for us, but he's saying,
do it put on our own version of a Christmas
Carol oh Man alive.

Speaker 4 (02:32:53):
Well can we do it, Richard?

Speaker 5 (02:32:56):
We can damn well try.

Speaker 4 (02:32:58):
We can do more than that. We can try and
do it domb well like you just.

Speaker 5 (02:33:04):
Said, I did you basically, Richard, John, I think we
can try.

Speaker 4 (02:33:09):
That's a double detO.

Speaker 5 (02:33:10):
Then buckle up, boys, we are sailing to that island.

Speaker 4 (02:33:16):
Hello, this is the BBC.

Speaker 69 (02:33:17):
It certainly is now stop what you're doing, walk away
from the equipment.

Speaker 4 (02:33:21):
So do you think you are the controller of radio four?

Speaker 69 (02:33:24):
Yes?

Speaker 17 (02:33:24):
This is Buinnis Williams now put on Cats.

Speaker 5 (02:33:27):
The musical Richard cat Hi uh, Guinness? How's Honolulu? Richard?

Speaker 69 (02:33:36):
I want you to listen to me very carefully.

Speaker 5 (02:33:39):
Now.

Speaker 79 (02:33:39):
I realize you're up against it and you're a great producer,
but do not, I repeat, do not even attempt what
you are about to attempt.

Speaker 5 (02:33:46):
Do you hear me?

Speaker 4 (02:33:47):
Yes?

Speaker 69 (02:33:47):
Is Moneybox Live ready to go?

Speaker 63 (02:33:49):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (02:33:50):
If we you know, if we decide.

Speaker 69 (02:33:52):
To, there's no place for any other decisions. Press play.

Speaker 59 (02:33:56):
That's a direct order.

Speaker 4 (02:33:57):
Would you hold on there?

Speaker 17 (02:33:58):
Please?

Speaker 4 (02:33:59):
Guiness?

Speaker 20 (02:34:00):
Okay, Richard?

Speaker 72 (02:34:01):
I want you to picture little Oliver sat in his
bedroom with a radio grape between his very little orphan knees.
And I want you to picture the face of your
wife who's driving to her parents because she's lost faith
in you, and the faces of your children who have
a cordreate dad.

Speaker 4 (02:34:17):
How big are your cohn is Richard? Like a bull
or like a little fussion accessory for a mouse.

Speaker 69 (02:34:23):
You'll never work at the bild again, Richard.

Speaker 4 (02:34:25):
Exactly you are going to fight him over this anyway.

Speaker 5 (02:34:27):
I didn't say that a bull or a mouse.

Speaker 79 (02:34:30):
Goodbye, going a security are already on their way now.

Speaker 5 (02:34:35):
If you don't, okay, lock the door and you probably
needed a barricade.

Speaker 4 (02:34:40):
If you are going to walk on thin ice, you
may as well done.

Speaker 5 (02:34:43):
Exactly who said that?

Speaker 4 (02:34:45):
Bambie?

Speaker 5 (02:34:46):
Have you grabbed the end of this desk?

Speaker 4 (02:34:49):
If it's for Hana, we are not coming out.

Speaker 5 (02:34:51):
Listen to me for Hannah. Now, John's is sampl studio
president income. There's nothing you can do with for Hannah.

Speaker 4 (02:34:56):
So you might as well go back to your desk.

Speaker 69 (02:34:59):
I have attraction to escort you out of there.

Speaker 4 (02:35:02):
How are you going to do that? You who haven't
even got a gun? Oh she's got a flipping gun?
Is this wood glass proof? I mean, I'll do with
this for Hannah. Listen to me. Put the gun down.

Speaker 5 (02:35:16):
I mean what you've been doing with a gun?

Speaker 69 (02:35:18):
Actually get a cap gun.

Speaker 74 (02:35:20):
That is still illegal in this country for Hannah. Now,
have you been listening to the radio. Yes, so you
want to ruin Christmas for everyone?

Speaker 17 (02:35:27):
Do you look?

Speaker 69 (02:35:28):
I am just doing my job.

Speaker 74 (02:35:30):
I understand, but I know that you more than most
knows what it means. To stand up to authority, to
fight the good fight?

Speaker 4 (02:35:37):
Am I right?

Speaker 68 (02:35:38):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (02:35:39):
So what are you going to do?

Speaker 69 (02:35:42):
I've got you out of there.

Speaker 4 (02:35:44):
Come on for Hanah. You don't have to do this.
Think of the nation. This is Christmas Eve.

Speaker 72 (02:35:51):
We need a new side, guys that's going to take action,
a collective voice that will raise up against those who
have told us they know best.

Speaker 4 (02:35:58):
Come on, comrade, how do you're with us or against us?

Speaker 69 (02:36:03):
Yep?

Speaker 9 (02:36:04):
I am not against you?

Speaker 4 (02:36:07):
Well where you think?

Speaker 5 (02:36:08):
Oh that we've got dis must save Richard.

Speaker 4 (02:36:11):
Okay, first we need a script. Okay, have you got
access to the original?

Speaker 28 (02:36:16):
No?

Speaker 5 (02:36:16):
Can't we hack into some departments?

Speaker 4 (02:36:18):
Do you know how to hack? I could have a go?

Speaker 5 (02:36:19):
Would you get far?

Speaker 61 (02:36:21):
No?

Speaker 5 (02:36:21):
Right, well, there must be an adaptation online somewhere.

Speaker 4 (02:36:24):
Have you I get to work on your phone? No problem?
What's next? Actors?

Speaker 51 (02:36:27):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (02:36:28):
Well, we start with the lead built around that.

Speaker 4 (02:36:30):
Who do you know anyone we can call? Start at
the top. Jason Donovan? Sir David? So David Donovan, I've
never heard of him, Sir David Jason?

Speaker 3 (02:36:37):
You idiots?

Speaker 4 (02:36:38):
Have you got his number?

Speaker 5 (02:36:39):
Well?

Speaker 4 (02:36:39):
Wait frohim to call?

Speaker 5 (02:36:40):
Are you mad? Maybe?

Speaker 4 (02:36:42):
But it's Christmas Eve.

Speaker 5 (02:36:44):
If miracles are ever going to happen, it's now.

Speaker 4 (02:36:47):
John read out the number.

Speaker 58 (02:36:50):
So David, if you're listening, please give us a call
now on two seven nine four six double O, double O.

Speaker 4 (02:36:59):
What's then tends your music? I uploaded that sound tracks
up onto my phone last week. Okay, that actually might
come in useful actors. Who else can we think of?
Antonio one de ask?

Speaker 5 (02:37:09):
Okay, look, this is pretty mad. We can't just name
actors at random. Hope that happens to call in.

Speaker 4 (02:37:13):
We gotta open out the casting ness a bit.

Speaker 5 (02:37:14):
Now, He's right, We just need people to call in.

Speaker 4 (02:37:16):
They say Britain's good talented. Let's see if it's true. Yeah, Haber,
it's not X factor.

Speaker 5 (02:37:21):
We're still looking for well love voice at the stage
and screen.

Speaker 72 (02:37:24):
But if the only done and you have is teaching
your dog to do the plumbing or something, keep it
to yourself.

Speaker 20 (02:37:28):
What's the horner up to?

Speaker 4 (02:37:30):
She's still doing a lot of pacing out there. I
found anotheruptation brilliant. Give out the website address.

Speaker 5 (02:37:35):
Anyone calling in can go online and then we're all
virtually linked up.

Speaker 72 (02:37:37):
The addresses plays are as dot com, slash at Christmas
garn and the number.

Speaker 58 (02:37:43):
For the phones again jump two O seven nine four
six double o double ow.

Speaker 4 (02:37:49):
So we just wait. I quite often listen to this
when I'm waiting. It helps ease the fame. By sorry,
I will be Eda. Figure.

Speaker 5 (02:38:01):
No, if you haven't spilled that agnol caveat, we wouldn't
be here in this moment.

Speaker 4 (02:38:04):
And if we weren't here in this moment, we'd be
listening to a Christmas carol. Hang on, if we can
only output live, what about the.

Speaker 5 (02:38:10):
Rest of everything that's supposed to be unbreda for later on?
We'll just have to cross that bridge when we get
to it. Here we go, Stey Hotcares Game, Judy Dench,
Martine Cutture listening positive. Hello, It is me, but Hannah,
I have decided I want to help you. Really. Look,
is this some ridiculous routes to get us open the door?

Speaker 48 (02:38:30):
No?

Speaker 80 (02:38:31):
No, no, I promise I want to support you, and
I have some acting experience.

Speaker 5 (02:38:35):
Well, God, that's more than the rest of us. Rootard
open the door.

Speaker 4 (02:38:39):
We need all the help we can.

Speaker 13 (02:38:40):
Get that one of my sister in Iran. This will
set the country alive.

Speaker 4 (02:38:49):
Maybe you're sure there then, and I'm.

Speaker 81 (02:38:51):
Afraid that police are on their way. What instructions from
the top, But don't worry. The front entrance is secure.
I disengage the list and set off the emergency staff.

Speaker 58 (02:38:58):
That will buy us some time, right, Richard, What if
and I mean only if nobody out there calls?

Speaker 4 (02:39:03):
We need an option to Okay, you play screwed me?
Worst case scenario, I'm you or have or you. I'm
happy to give me a screwge.

Speaker 5 (02:39:10):
Okay, have you a screwged?

Speaker 4 (02:39:11):
Have you a right Marley?

Speaker 5 (02:39:12):
Hey? Hang on? Say bar humbug?

Speaker 61 (02:39:14):
Have you?

Speaker 4 (02:39:14):
But handbag?

Speaker 20 (02:39:17):
Is that serious?

Speaker 4 (02:39:18):
Ready for drama outputs? But Hamburg?

Speaker 17 (02:39:20):
Not you do it? Richard?

Speaker 5 (02:39:21):
I really can't act listening to online now, But Hambug?

Speaker 29 (02:39:30):
Richard?

Speaker 20 (02:39:31):
Do you trust me?

Speaker 4 (02:39:32):
Yes? Then play screwge. You can do it. Really, I'll
be fine.

Speaker 5 (02:39:34):
For Hannah, I shouldn't touch that.

Speaker 13 (02:39:36):
Just inspecting the damage.

Speaker 4 (02:39:37):
Oh interesting, what Just just tell me.

Speaker 5 (02:39:42):
Pull this, Hannah.

Speaker 4 (02:39:44):
Look, this is I have no idea. Listen, have you?

Speaker 5 (02:39:48):
Don't you see Richard's got to play Scrooge for Claire.

Speaker 4 (02:39:52):
Claire, what does she got to do with it?

Speaker 78 (02:39:55):
She's away to her, Yes exactly, And Richard doesn't want
till blaze Scrouge.

Speaker 5 (02:40:01):
No, he doesn't want her to go. He wants to
show her he can blaze Scrooge and change.

Speaker 4 (02:40:08):
Oh so maybe if y okay, Rizard, you're playing the
scrouge not be base, all right?

Speaker 5 (02:40:18):
Okay and honor eight listen for Hannah's only just told
me she used to build pirate sound.

Speaker 4 (02:40:22):
Studios in her arm. You're joking.

Speaker 81 (02:40:25):
I might be able to isolate the transmission files and
you tore the main thing.

Speaker 4 (02:40:28):
What the hell does that mean?

Speaker 13 (02:40:29):
It means I can't repair the damage.

Speaker 81 (02:40:31):
But I think I can find a way of being
able to broadcast the rest of this evening's Radio four
scheduled outputs.

Speaker 5 (02:40:37):
Really for Hannah, If you can do that, I'm going
to I don't know what I'll do. Right, We're gonna
have to get started, and the spirit of Christmas shines
in us.

Speaker 82 (02:40:46):
John, make that announcement for Hannah. Will attempt to get
Radio four back on schedule. But what Christmas Christmas came? Well,
wait a minute, we don't even know who's playing the
other parts.

Speaker 73 (02:40:57):
We just have to play those calls come in though, Yeah,
and if they do, and we'll share the roles between
ourselves I'll do the crata and sound effect.

Speaker 13 (02:41:04):
I'll play the women. It's fine, I'll work around my line.

Speaker 74 (02:41:07):
Okay, John, your narrating beyond that, basically give a pointed
you you're on.

Speaker 4 (02:41:11):
Okay, okay, everyone.

Speaker 5 (02:41:13):
Got the script up on their phone.

Speaker 58 (02:41:14):
Yes, good luck everyone, And now here on radio for
a little later than scheduled, we present Charles Dickens.

Speaker 4 (02:41:22):
A Christmas Carol Whales song on my phone is listed.
That's hunt him atmosphere.

Speaker 58 (02:41:30):
Wiley was dead to begin with, dead as a doornail.
Scrooge and he had been partners, you see. Oh, but
he was a tight fisted old sinner Scrooge. The cold
within him froze his features.

Speaker 4 (02:41:43):
No warmth could warm him. But what did he care?
I think the terrible tailhood.

Speaker 72 (02:41:48):
I'm just saying because Dicken's kind of scared so ready,
but what we detailed children becomes.

Speaker 5 (02:41:54):
You know, can we just act?

Speaker 4 (02:41:55):
Please get the flipping whales? Okay?

Speaker 58 (02:41:59):
It was Christmas Eve. Old Screwge sat busy in his
cheerless draft accounting house.

Speaker 4 (02:42:05):
We're not on a boat.

Speaker 5 (02:42:07):
Look, this phone is not exactly spoiling me for choice.

Speaker 4 (02:42:10):
Here our are that we'll go with it.

Speaker 58 (02:42:13):
The cold and the folk of the late afternoon crept
into every chink and keyhole.

Speaker 4 (02:42:18):
That's going to be a tough one. Yeah, okay, you
don't need to do every sound effect, have you?

Speaker 58 (02:42:22):
Nobody specified Bob Cratchett, His clerk sat in a dismal
little cell beyond his only warmth offered by the globe,
with a single car.

Speaker 4 (02:42:31):
God the there's two jerely mental men. Let nothing you
dismay God. First, is that Ruckus gratch?

Speaker 61 (02:42:40):
It?

Speaker 5 (02:42:40):
Has he his played the seventeen shillings he owes me?

Speaker 4 (02:42:43):
His wife has been named mister Scrooge. Yeah, sent around
the bailiffs. That's the closest. But though I could get
and the thread.

Speaker 5 (02:42:51):
In many Christmas uncles a hand bag? What reason have
you to be merry?

Speaker 4 (02:42:56):
You're poor enough? What right of you to be the
small uncle?

Speaker 58 (02:43:00):
You're leed enough? Wise, Fred Welch, it's it's actually a
Scottish filing accent. Well more, John, distinguishing him from the narrator.

Speaker 4 (02:43:07):
Look, just do your lines.

Speaker 74 (02:43:09):
Every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his
lips should be boiled in his own pudding.

Speaker 5 (02:43:14):
Much good has he ever done you?

Speaker 4 (02:43:16):
Materially?

Speaker 5 (02:43:16):
Perhaps not uncle, but Christmas parades an opportunity for men
and women to open up their shut up hearts. And
so I believe it has done and well continued to do.
Migut as honestly, I I speak up there, enter tell
it the man.

Speaker 13 (02:43:33):
Can I do my iraqi accent? It's hilarious. Please just
give me good day?

Speaker 4 (02:43:38):
Gentlemen?

Speaker 81 (02:43:38):
Can I oblige upon your generosity to make some provision
for the poor and destitute?

Speaker 13 (02:43:43):
At this is no time? How about you, mister Scrooge.

Speaker 5 (02:43:46):
Are there no prisons?

Speaker 21 (02:43:48):
Ah?

Speaker 4 (02:43:48):
The workhouse is not in full vigor.

Speaker 13 (02:43:51):
They are there, but many can't go there, and many
would rather die than they had.

Speaker 5 (02:43:55):
Better do so and decrease the surplus population. Good afternoon, here,
says Amiga.

Speaker 4 (02:44:01):
Donation is all like an afford. I'm afraid it is
supposed to be poor. Not that's porous.

Speaker 5 (02:44:11):
Then cratch it. Stop filling that money box and get
back to work, I.

Speaker 4 (02:44:15):
Said, cratch it. It appears to be closing time, mister Scruge.
Indeed there sounds the bells of Westminster. Uncle, hang on,
there is a been on, John Spike.

Speaker 5 (02:44:27):
I'll see at first like tomorrow morning, cratch it.

Speaker 4 (02:44:30):
But tomorrow's Christmas day, sir, right quit, you're sniveling.

Speaker 5 (02:44:34):
Take the day off if you must, but be here
all the earlier the next morning.

Speaker 4 (02:44:37):
Oh thank you, mister Scrouge. I will good night.

Speaker 5 (02:44:41):
Get out of my way, everyone, Can.

Speaker 13 (02:44:45):
You just plug in that auxiliary cable? John, this one
just a small electrical buyer. Nothing to worry about it.

Speaker 4 (02:44:56):
I've got a tot.

Speaker 11 (02:45:05):
There we go.

Speaker 73 (02:45:05):
Put out quite a lot of farm these things, don't
they carry on?

Speaker 5 (02:45:08):
John?

Speaker 4 (02:45:10):
Okay, I'll read it.

Speaker 72 (02:45:13):
Meanwhile, the fog and dardness sickened, and Scrooge reached his
front door.

Speaker 5 (02:45:18):
And now let anyone explain to me how it happened that.

Speaker 72 (02:45:20):
A Scrooge saw in his door knocker, not a knocker,
but Marly's face, Marrily, his diseased business partner.

Speaker 17 (02:45:28):
This seeth.

Speaker 72 (02:45:29):
As a Scrooge gasped at this unbelievable site, the big
knockers miraculously returned to its knocker form.

Speaker 5 (02:45:36):
Is this seriously the best that that takes you we
can find?

Speaker 4 (02:45:39):
Unless you would have liked one in Japanese? Okay, leave it,
leave it. I'm fine.

Speaker 5 (02:45:42):
Now.

Speaker 58 (02:45:43):
To say that Scrooge was not startled would be untrue.
He hurried inside, bolted the door, lit the candle, and
headed straight up to his bedchamber. There he sat in
his dressing gown, slippers, and nightcap before a low fire,
and pondered with a sense.

Speaker 4 (02:45:58):
Of growing unease.

Speaker 58 (02:46:00):
Then, out of the shadows, a disused bell on the
walls suddenly started to ring, and.

Speaker 5 (02:46:08):
Then all the bells throughout the house started to ding and.

Speaker 73 (02:46:12):
Dong ms bing bing bong, bong ding.

Speaker 51 (02:46:17):
Bring.

Speaker 5 (02:46:20):
I won't believe it your imagination, But why.

Speaker 13 (02:46:23):
Don't you just use these sound effects CDs. Look, there's
a whole cover of them, and the CD play.

Speaker 4 (02:46:28):
Whats that we need? Molly, I'll do it. It's gonna
be scary. It can't be scary. You can be Spanish.
So through the CDs?

Speaker 5 (02:46:37):
What with any luck? This is on, Molly right on cue?

Speaker 4 (02:46:41):
Hello, oh my lord.

Speaker 69 (02:46:42):
So this isn't a joke.

Speaker 5 (02:46:43):
It's actually I'm sorry.

Speaker 69 (02:46:45):
I just had to call in on. He was just
saying to my wife there.

Speaker 83 (02:46:48):
This is gonna be some sort of pre recorded spoof thing,
and she was saying, I don't think it is. I've
got a website with the script up online here, and
I was saying, come on, now, how gull can you be?
And she said well, phone the number, so I did,
and well I'll have a bit more mill to her
right there, which is actually.

Speaker 69 (02:47:04):
Answering the phone and everything, Dara, Will you do Marley?

Speaker 9 (02:47:07):
Marley me?

Speaker 69 (02:47:09):
Do you mean now?

Speaker 5 (02:47:10):
Yes, you're joking.

Speaker 69 (02:47:11):
I'm three sheets to the wind.

Speaker 4 (02:47:12):
It doesn't matter. Please, we'll do anything in return.

Speaker 69 (02:47:15):
Thank You're a producer, an't you? Was only I got
the idea for a great new panel show.

Speaker 4 (02:47:19):
Another show?

Speaker 28 (02:47:21):
Come on that gob shit?

Speaker 69 (02:47:22):
David Mitch has got a bet a million.

Speaker 4 (02:47:23):
And the go what does it called?

Speaker 69 (02:47:25):
Well, I haven't really worked out all the details.

Speaker 5 (02:47:27):
Actually do that, Dara, if by any faint chance I'm
still working at the BBC after all this.

Speaker 4 (02:47:33):
I'll see what I can do.

Speaker 69 (02:47:34):
Okay, grand let's do it.

Speaker 4 (02:47:35):
It's the top of page seven.

Speaker 69 (02:47:36):
I can't believe with the act is insane?

Speaker 4 (02:47:38):
Okay, Marley's entrance riches change, dragging chains. They're coming closer?
Is that my bike chain?

Speaker 33 (02:47:47):
Might be?

Speaker 4 (02:47:48):
Someone did play on that silly player.

Speaker 20 (02:47:51):
Uh, they're coming up the stairs.

Speaker 5 (02:47:54):
They're outside my door.

Speaker 20 (02:48:00):
Now, Now what did you want with me?

Speaker 5 (02:48:03):
Go Darren much?

Speaker 69 (02:48:05):
I want much from you. Ebenezer Scrooge, This is really weird.

Speaker 5 (02:48:10):
Who are you ask me Who I was?

Speaker 4 (02:48:13):
John? Who is that?

Speaker 20 (02:48:15):
Who were you?

Speaker 5 (02:48:16):
Then?

Speaker 69 (02:48:18):
In life?

Speaker 45 (02:48:19):
I was your partner?

Speaker 20 (02:48:20):
Jacob Marley, the comedian stole the close.

Speaker 4 (02:48:24):
I can see straight through the worst man.

Speaker 69 (02:48:27):
You don't believe in me?

Speaker 5 (02:48:28):
I wish you, idiot. I don't believe in ghosts, an idiot.
There's more of grave, even grave about you. Whenever you are,
You're right, Darren, me after you're fine.

Speaker 69 (02:48:41):
That was a dead cry. It's a death cry here
in the page.

Speaker 4 (02:48:43):
Sorry, carry on?

Speaker 69 (02:48:44):
Who man of the worldly mind?

Speaker 17 (02:48:48):
Do you believe in.

Speaker 68 (02:48:49):
Me or not?

Speaker 17 (02:48:50):
I do?

Speaker 4 (02:48:51):
How dread elaboration?

Speaker 5 (02:48:53):
Why do you trouble me.

Speaker 9 (02:48:56):
Or me?

Speaker 4 (02:48:57):
Just getting the back of his hard ride.

Speaker 84 (02:48:59):
It is required every spirit in life to walk with
appreciation for fellow kinds. If that's where neglects to do
so in life, it is condemned to do so after death,
dragging behind the chain forged by.

Speaker 69 (02:49:13):
Such piteless action. This is really catholic stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:49:16):
Oh, Jacob Marley, speak some comfort to me.

Speaker 84 (02:49:21):
I am here tonight to warn you of beonezer, that
you have a chance of escaping my same fate.

Speaker 69 (02:49:28):
You will be haunted by three spirits. I expect the
first one.

Speaker 5 (02:49:32):
The bell tolls one on Christmas pass.

Speaker 17 (02:49:34):
I've got an idea.

Speaker 4 (02:49:35):
Sorry, carry on, Derek.

Speaker 69 (02:49:36):
I expect the second on the next night, at the
same hour. The third upon the next look to see me.
No more exit Marley.

Speaker 4 (02:49:46):
How was that fantastic? Really scary?

Speaker 69 (02:49:49):
I can get into the acting that, you know.

Speaker 76 (02:49:51):
Well, good of glads.

Speaker 69 (02:49:52):
I'll keep this thing, but you know, sharey away.

Speaker 5 (02:49:56):
The police said, outside the front you said the text
from my friend in the Iranian and thes quite you're
following John Jane Horricks.

Speaker 4 (02:50:04):
I played squash with her husband. Trust me.

Speaker 5 (02:50:07):
Oh hello, Nick, Hi, it's John Nicholson. John.

Speaker 59 (02:50:11):
Oh hi John, Yeah, Merry Christmas.

Speaker 17 (02:50:13):
How's it going. Are you working tonight?

Speaker 4 (02:50:15):
I am yeah. Look is Jane with you?

Speaker 3 (02:50:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 85 (02:50:19):
We're at my Christmas work party?

Speaker 4 (02:50:21):
Right. Look I couldn't have a quit word with her,
could I?

Speaker 9 (02:50:24):
What now?

Speaker 4 (02:50:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (02:50:27):
Yeah, sure, I guess Jane Jane.

Speaker 69 (02:50:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:50:31):
You know John Nicholson, the one who fills in a
Radio four.

Speaker 85 (02:50:37):
Yeah, he's on the phone.

Speaker 5 (02:50:39):
What's a quick word with you?

Speaker 74 (02:50:42):
I have no idea?

Speaker 58 (02:50:43):
Hello, Jane, Hi, I'm calling from the Radio four continuity studio.

Speaker 5 (02:50:49):
Look, we're supposed to be broadcasting a Christmas carol, but
we've lost it.

Speaker 64 (02:50:53):
Well that's karma.

Speaker 68 (02:50:54):
How it's painful for that, and then they don't less.

Speaker 58 (02:50:56):
Look, we're putting out our own version of it now
live now, Yes, in fact, we're live at this moment
you mean, And.

Speaker 5 (02:51:06):
We've just reached a bit where the ghost of Christmas
Past enters?

Speaker 17 (02:51:09):
Jane?

Speaker 5 (02:51:10):
Will you play the part if we texted your lines?

Speaker 59 (02:51:13):
Are you pulling my leg?

Speaker 4 (02:51:14):
No? I'm really not. Please?

Speaker 9 (02:51:16):
Oh what the heck?

Speaker 68 (02:51:17):
This part is born in the half of me anywhere,
and it's Christmas Eve?

Speaker 9 (02:51:21):
That'll go on?

Speaker 5 (02:51:23):
Wow, you're a total star.

Speaker 68 (02:51:25):
Hang on, let me just find some more a bit quieter.

Speaker 85 (02:51:29):
Excuse me, love?

Speaker 68 (02:51:30):
Have you finished in there?

Speaker 9 (02:51:32):
Or great?

Speaker 69 (02:51:34):
Okay, I've locked myself in the loop.

Speaker 68 (02:51:37):
I can't believe I'm doing this me a gentile and.

Speaker 5 (02:51:39):
Ahnas we've texted the lines through, Yeah, I've got them.

Speaker 4 (02:51:43):
Great? Strike the clock?

Speaker 17 (02:51:45):
Have you.

Speaker 5 (02:51:47):
There?

Speaker 4 (02:51:49):
Humbug? The hour itself and nothing else? What is this?

Speaker 5 (02:51:58):
Drawing my bed curtains apart, a floating ancient.

Speaker 4 (02:52:02):
Child with twenty legs?

Speaker 5 (02:52:04):
Are you the spirit whose coming was foretold to me?

Speaker 4 (02:52:07):
Ready?

Speaker 68 (02:52:08):
Jane, I am the ghost of Christmas Past. Come let's fly.

Speaker 5 (02:52:13):
But I am immortal and liable to fall.

Speaker 68 (02:52:16):
Bear, but a touch of my hand.

Speaker 58 (02:52:18):
As the words were spoken, they flew out through the
bedroom wall and out into the night.

Speaker 4 (02:52:25):
Spirit.

Speaker 5 (02:52:26):
What is that strange light?

Speaker 68 (02:52:28):
It is the past Eboniza.

Speaker 5 (02:52:31):
They landed into a clear, cold winter day upon the
snowy open country road. Screwge was conscious.

Speaker 58 (02:52:39):
Of a thousand odors floating in the air, each one
connected with a thousand thoughts, hopes, joys, and cares long
long forgotten, good Heavens.

Speaker 4 (02:52:51):
I was bred in this place.

Speaker 11 (02:52:53):
I was a boy.

Speaker 29 (02:52:54):
Here.

Speaker 68 (02:52:54):
Your lip is trembling, and what is that upon your cheek?

Speaker 4 (02:52:59):
Read? You recollect the way I do now I could
walk it blind fault.

Speaker 68 (02:53:06):
Strange to have discarded the memories for so many years.

Speaker 4 (02:53:13):
There are my friends, Albert Hey, Albert Edgar Bruce.

Speaker 68 (02:53:19):
These about shadows of things that have been.

Speaker 23 (02:53:22):
They have no consciousness of us, my god, boarding school,
it seems deserted, not.

Speaker 68 (02:53:28):
Quite a solitary child is left there still come see.

Speaker 4 (02:53:35):
Good heavens. It is indeed you, I look so alone,
have you? You're right? That's me. This is my childhood,
by your own volition.

Speaker 68 (02:53:49):
Ebenezer the same.

Speaker 4 (02:53:51):
But in Spain I wish, Oh, but it's too late.

Speaker 42 (02:53:55):
Now what is the matter?

Speaker 4 (02:53:57):
Nothing? Nothing. There was a boy singing outside my house
last night. I should like to have given him something.

Speaker 20 (02:54:06):
That's all.

Speaker 68 (02:54:06):
Take my hand, Ebenezer, I have more to show you.
You surely know this building here, know it?

Speaker 74 (02:54:15):
This is where I spent some of the happiest days
of my life under the apprenticeship of mister Fezziwig.

Speaker 4 (02:54:21):
Can we go in? Of course?

Speaker 86 (02:54:26):
There he is unless his herd is Fezziwig alive again.

Speaker 29 (02:54:31):
You're oh, my boys, there our has tracked seven.

Speaker 5 (02:54:35):
It is Christmas Eve and it is party time. Fill
you hole.

Speaker 13 (02:54:42):
Hello, hey, hi, hold on, we.

Speaker 4 (02:54:45):
Were in a state of sheer delight.

Speaker 5 (02:54:49):
Fezziwig had the power to render us either happy or unhappy.

Speaker 68 (02:54:55):
What are you thinking?

Speaker 4 (02:54:56):
I should like to be able to say a word
or two to my clerk. Actually, just now, come.

Speaker 5 (02:55:02):
Hither on, missus Fizzywick, my wife.

Speaker 4 (02:55:04):
You shall be the first stop to do with me
on the last down.

Speaker 5 (02:55:09):
Wait, mister Fezziwig, my husband, younger Veniezer, come here.

Speaker 4 (02:55:14):
I want to introduce you to someone Bell Mason. We
need Bell Charlotte three online.

Speaker 59 (02:55:19):
One really, Hi, I'm already if you want me.

Speaker 86 (02:55:22):
Of course, wonderful mister Scrooge, Bell Marston bel Marsden.

Speaker 4 (02:55:28):
This is one of our finest younger princes.

Speaker 5 (02:55:30):
Mister Ebaneze a Scooge.

Speaker 59 (02:55:32):
How do you do, mister Scrooge.

Speaker 4 (02:55:35):
It's really her who's playing Young Scrooge? Me, Belle. Can
I see how gordious you are? You are sounding you
should be riches? Would you get to dance, Miss Marsden?

Speaker 59 (02:55:46):
I would indeed, young mister Scrooge.

Speaker 5 (02:55:49):
That night was one of the happiest in my life.

Speaker 68 (02:55:53):
We can't linger here, ebn Eza, my time draws.

Speaker 87 (02:55:56):
To a close.

Speaker 59 (02:55:57):
Actually, Jane, before you go, I'd like to say what
a huge fan of yours I am, and I really
love the News. Life is Sweet, absolutely my favorite film
of all times. Hello, if you don't mind, we need
to Oh yes, absolutely sorry, carry on.

Speaker 68 (02:56:12):
She was so beautiful that night, yet you lost her, Ebonza.

Speaker 4 (02:56:17):
Please don't talk to me with this.

Speaker 68 (02:56:20):
The relationship lasted barely a year.

Speaker 5 (02:56:23):
Side by side in the snowy moonlight. The following Christmas
sat the young Scrooge and the irridescent Bell, eyes brimming
with tears.

Speaker 59 (02:56:33):
Another idol, a golden one, has replaced me, Ebonita. I
have watched your nobler aspirations fall off one by one
in your voracious hunger for wealth, and now I feel
that I should release you.

Speaker 4 (02:56:45):
Have I ever sought release?

Speaker 59 (02:56:48):
Not in words, perhaps, but would you choose to seek
me out and try to win me?

Speaker 5 (02:56:52):
Now?

Speaker 4 (02:56:53):
It doesn't have to be this way, I would gladly.

Speaker 59 (02:56:56):
Think otherwise if I could. May you be happy in
the life you had chosen. Goodbye, Ademiza.

Speaker 4 (02:57:01):
No like fiction and mulating reality. Except this is not
very enough of her parents in the family. Hatsburg.

Speaker 74 (02:57:08):
Wait, I have to say something to my wife, Claire,
if you are listening out there.

Speaker 5 (02:57:15):
I know I've already screwed it up, but we can
make this work.

Speaker 4 (02:57:19):
I can change, I really can.

Speaker 5 (02:57:21):
I resolved to be the person I once was when
we met.

Speaker 4 (02:57:24):
Please don't leave me.

Speaker 5 (02:57:26):
Don't go to your parents with the children for Christmas.

Speaker 59 (02:57:30):
I'm not quite sure where we are.

Speaker 51 (02:57:32):
Do I have any more?

Speaker 4 (02:57:33):
Lyne, No, you don't. Charlotte, that was fantastic, Thank you
so much.

Speaker 17 (02:57:37):
My pleasure.

Speaker 59 (02:57:38):
Oh and Richard, yes, sticking there. Eh, you sound like
a lovely guy. She'll come round. We just want to
feel loved off.

Speaker 38 (02:57:45):
Girls.

Speaker 4 (02:57:46):
I do love her, I know, but you have to
show her that if it's not too late, it.

Speaker 53 (02:57:51):
Won't be I hope not.

Speaker 59 (02:57:53):
I'll keep listening.

Speaker 86 (02:57:54):
Have to go, bye, Spirit, remove me from this place.
I cannot where it haunts me no longer.

Speaker 68 (02:58:02):
My time with you has come to an end. They're
once more attached to my hand.

Speaker 5 (02:58:08):
And before he knew it, Scrooge was back in his
own bedroom, where he sank into a heavy sleep. Game
that was brilliant.

Speaker 4 (02:58:17):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 68 (02:58:18):
It's no problem as someone really banging on the loo
door now sure.

Speaker 4 (02:58:23):
Look I can't thank you enough anytime.

Speaker 68 (02:58:25):
Bye?

Speaker 4 (02:58:28):
Hello?

Speaker 75 (02:58:29):
Can I speak to my dad?

Speaker 5 (02:58:30):
Jesse?

Speaker 4 (02:58:31):
Are you okay? Where are you?

Speaker 75 (02:58:33):
I'm in the Shoes and Services.

Speaker 4 (02:58:35):
Where's Mum?

Speaker 75 (02:58:36):
She's just got out of the car to fill up
with Petron? She was listening, Dad. Can you make it
so stand for Christmas?

Speaker 4 (02:58:43):
I don't know.

Speaker 20 (02:58:44):
I need to.

Speaker 5 (02:58:46):
I am going to try and make things right, Jesse
my life Dad.

Speaker 4 (02:58:51):
Mom's coming by, Jesse. Oh maybe I should call her.
I called Claire.

Speaker 5 (02:58:58):
I'll tell you no, Richard, not now, just play the story.

Speaker 4 (02:59:00):
I've just looked on the monitor down the wall. The
police have called in the fire brigade. What there is?
Someone called Edward Kelsey Online tool. Isn't that putting through? Hello?
I can only give you.

Speaker 85 (02:59:11):
Ten minutes or sorry, though I'm bidding for an electric to.

Speaker 69 (02:59:14):
Bobbin on eBay.

Speaker 5 (02:59:14):
It's too greedy.

Speaker 51 (02:59:15):
But if you need somebody to play Christmas Present, I've
got the script up in front of me.

Speaker 5 (02:59:19):
Does it sound an No? But I can if you like, well,
whatever work for you, Edward will be fantastic. You want
me to start now after the clock time will be great?

Speaker 59 (02:59:30):
Creol?

Speaker 5 (02:59:32):
Am I still asleep? Surely I haven't slept for I
am waiting?

Speaker 17 (02:59:37):
Where are you here behind the door.

Speaker 58 (02:59:50):
In the co of Christmas Present?

Speaker 17 (02:59:53):
Don't be shy? Come on in and no meat better
the room.

Speaker 5 (02:59:58):
Scrooge entered us, filled with a bountiful of Christmas offerings.

Speaker 9 (03:00:01):
Oil that you've never seen the lake ana before?

Speaker 69 (03:00:05):
Don't you believe all?

Speaker 5 (03:00:06):
Scrooge did so the room disappeared, and in the same instance,
they were stood on a crowded street amongst Christmas wellness.

Speaker 48 (03:00:13):
Sy Christmas, everybody, you wonderful delso foolage yeer?

Speaker 85 (03:00:20):
Anybody coming to the ball for a quick one?

Speaker 4 (03:00:22):
The bull? What's he talking about? Go off peast?

Speaker 5 (03:00:25):
He said that he sounds as he saw that feel
he thinks he's an ambridge. Get him back on track, Richards,
let us go to another place. Spirit eighty pounds worth
of buck and macco streaming?

Speaker 85 (03:00:35):
Who is this idiot?

Speaker 5 (03:00:37):
Edward?

Speaker 61 (03:00:38):
Sorry?

Speaker 9 (03:00:39):
Where are we?

Speaker 4 (03:00:40):
Middle of page twenty two.

Speaker 5 (03:00:41):
Get the home of.

Speaker 87 (03:00:43):
Right right, Let's go to the home of your clerk.

Speaker 4 (03:00:47):
Bob cratch It, good old Bob.

Speaker 5 (03:00:50):
Yes, let's see him.

Speaker 4 (03:00:51):
Mother?

Speaker 5 (03:00:52):
What are you doing?

Speaker 13 (03:00:53):
I want just reformatin some sound files?

Speaker 11 (03:00:59):
Where on earth?

Speaker 13 (03:01:00):
Has your father and tiny Tim?

Speaker 48 (03:01:02):
Got to look?

Speaker 4 (03:01:03):
They're coming now?

Speaker 66 (03:01:05):
See father in a straight beare clothes down door? Little
says no, and tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Last for
tiny Tim bears a little crutch and has his limb
supposed but unfriendly does indeed?

Speaker 4 (03:01:17):
Maybe Father, Merry Christmers, my DearS.

Speaker 13 (03:01:22):
Let me help you with your coaching, and how the
little tim behaving cheats?

Speaker 4 (03:01:25):
Bob?

Speaker 88 (03:01:26):
He said he hoped that people who saw him might
be reminded of who made Lambergger's work and blind men.

Speaker 4 (03:01:33):
See, oh Tim, come on.

Speaker 13 (03:01:36):
Sit yourselves down. Let's eat this feat.

Speaker 4 (03:01:39):
It's hardly a feast.

Speaker 73 (03:01:41):
It's so meager a toast to our family and to
my employer, mister Scrooge.

Speaker 4 (03:01:47):
Me the founder of the fist. It should be Christmas Day.

Speaker 81 (03:01:50):
I'm sure on which one drinks the health of such
an odious, unfeeling man as mister Scrooge.

Speaker 13 (03:01:58):
So I'll drink his health for you're sick.

Speaker 4 (03:02:00):
And the days I wonder who hello the grade.

Speaker 59 (03:02:09):
As all of them from earlier, the.

Speaker 4 (03:02:13):
One who was fighting. What have you got to say
for yourself?

Speaker 33 (03:02:15):
Madam?

Speaker 5 (03:02:16):
I just wanted to.

Speaker 59 (03:02:17):
Say, thank you.

Speaker 75 (03:02:20):
We'll start You're listing with Oliver now, and I just
wondered whether he might be able to do the.

Speaker 89 (03:02:25):
Tiny Tim line.

Speaker 73 (03:02:26):
You bet your life he can am Merry Christmas to us,
all my DearS, God bless us.

Speaker 4 (03:02:34):
Oliver go bad is everywhere?

Speaker 5 (03:02:40):
Who Spirit tell me if tiny.

Speaker 87 (03:02:45):
Tim will live your vacancy and a crouch without an odor,
if the shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child.

Speaker 5 (03:02:56):
Will drive kind spirit say you will be spared, be
like to die.

Speaker 87 (03:03:01):
He had better do it and decrease the surface population.
Isn't that right, Hipponsia, No Spirit.

Speaker 5 (03:03:10):
I have much I need to say to everyone. I
have been such an idiot.

Speaker 4 (03:03:15):
Claire.

Speaker 74 (03:03:16):
If you can find it in your heart to give
me another chance to show you I can change. I
mean please turn off the M for now. Maybe don't
come back on the M fort it will be very
take the M twenty five. No, just please come back
to London.

Speaker 4 (03:03:30):
Very subtle, returned.

Speaker 84 (03:03:32):
My life upon this globe is very brief.

Speaker 87 (03:03:35):
It ends upon the stroke of midnight.

Speaker 59 (03:03:40):
Hark.

Speaker 17 (03:03:41):
The time is drawing near, and.

Speaker 85 (03:03:43):
I have one more thing. Two shows you won't Oh
actually I can't.

Speaker 84 (03:03:48):
That's the grandchildren turning up.

Speaker 3 (03:03:49):
Now I'm a friend.

Speaker 4 (03:03:50):
Oh right, okay, Edward, not to worry. We were almost
there anyway. Thank you very much for your contribution.

Speaker 85 (03:03:56):
You're welcome to Americ Christmas to you all, and do you.

Speaker 58 (03:04:00):
At that moment, the midnight bell struck and Christmas Present disappeared. Then,
lifting his eyes, Scrooge beheld coming towards him like a
mist along the ground, a solemn phantom, draped and the
pudded with darkness where there would have been a face.

Speaker 4 (03:04:18):
And I, in the presence of the ghost of Christmas
yet to come. I'm going if I can just get
this coil of wires.

Speaker 5 (03:04:27):
Okay, what are you doing for them?

Speaker 4 (03:04:28):
Was I am making an echo team? Back?

Speaker 5 (03:04:30):
Yet the spirit spoke, not it just beckoned and nodded.

Speaker 4 (03:04:34):
Well, that is not good for radio?

Speaker 17 (03:04:36):
Is it.

Speaker 4 (03:04:38):
Rude?

Speaker 63 (03:04:39):
You are about to show me the shadows of the
things that are yet to come. Yes, I fear you
more than any other specter I have seen. But as
I know, your purpose is to do me good.

Speaker 4 (03:04:50):
Lead on.

Speaker 20 (03:04:54):
Wait, I recognize those men from my business world.

Speaker 4 (03:04:57):
What are they saying? All I know is he's finally dead?
When did he copied last night? What's the miser done
with his money? Why the who knows don't want to
leave it too? It's likely to be a very cheap funeral.
Then no one will go of what poor wretch? Are
they talking of?

Speaker 20 (03:05:17):
Spirit?

Speaker 4 (03:05:18):
These are fearful scenes. Say that again.

Speaker 5 (03:05:21):
Let me see some tenderness connected with this world.

Speaker 20 (03:05:27):
Let's crutch it home.

Speaker 17 (03:05:29):
Why is it so quiet?

Speaker 5 (03:05:30):
Mother? You're crying again?

Speaker 81 (03:05:32):
No, I'm fine Now, I won't show weak eyes to
your father when he comes home.

Speaker 5 (03:05:38):
I think he's walk slower than he listed this few
last evening's mother.

Speaker 44 (03:05:42):
I have known him walk with tiny team upon his shoulder,
very fast, indeed, but your father loved him so that
it was no trouble, no trouble at all. Hello, my
loves you took the wild flowers I collected Bob yes,
my dear, I placed them upon his grave.

Speaker 4 (03:05:59):
I wish you could have gone.

Speaker 88 (03:06:01):
It would have done you good to see how green
a place it is. And I know, I know that
when we recollect how patient and how mild he was,
we shall not quite easily amongst ourselves, and forget poor
tiny team in doing it.

Speaker 5 (03:06:18):
No, No, the phantom had one final place to lead, Ebenezer.

Speaker 20 (03:06:26):
City Cemetery. I fear I can predict the name upon
the grave to which you point. But before I draw,
answer me one question, specter. Are these the shadows of
the things that will be? Or are they the shadows
of the things that maybe?

Speaker 42 (03:06:43):
Only that's for you to decide? Evenissa now wipe away.
Long here lies Ebeneze.

Speaker 4 (03:06:58):
No spirit, I am not the man I was.

Speaker 86 (03:07:00):
Please assure me that I may yet change these shadows
by an altered life.

Speaker 4 (03:07:08):
Hello.

Speaker 85 (03:07:09):
Hello, it's Peter.

Speaker 4 (03:07:14):
Sorry you're cutting out and this really isn't a good time.

Speaker 85 (03:07:17):
Hello, can you hear me better?

Speaker 4 (03:07:19):
Now that's better.

Speaker 85 (03:07:21):
It's Peter Purvis. I'm calling from a small school in Hondeurs. No, no,
it's a small school run by a local charity. I'm
here as a volunteer, but.

Speaker 4 (03:07:32):
The children are forced to be there.

Speaker 59 (03:07:34):
No, look, it.

Speaker 85 (03:07:37):
Would really make their day to be on British radio.
We were thinking this might hell look satire.

Speaker 4 (03:07:43):
Okay, now, yes, carry.

Speaker 17 (03:07:48):
On, Richard.

Speaker 5 (03:07:50):
Oh tell me, I may sponge away the writing on
this stone.

Speaker 74 (03:07:53):
I will honor Christmas in my heart, try to keep
it all the year. I will live in the past
and the presence of the future. The spirits of all
three shall strive within me.

Speaker 5 (03:08:04):
I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.

Speaker 4 (03:08:08):
Ha Oh, I'm home and back.

Speaker 86 (03:08:11):
In my room, my bed, my bedposts, my windows, golden sunlight.

Speaker 5 (03:08:17):
Oh, glorious, glorious morning.

Speaker 17 (03:08:22):
Ha are you down there, boy?

Speaker 66 (03:08:25):
Boy?

Speaker 3 (03:08:26):
What day is it?

Speaker 5 (03:08:27):
Why?

Speaker 29 (03:08:27):
Christiness Day?

Speaker 5 (03:08:28):
Oh, Christmas Day? And for a man who had been
out of practice for so many years, he let out
a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh.

Speaker 4 (03:08:42):
Ha ha ha, oh, praised me.

Speaker 5 (03:08:47):
This is the first day of my life.

Speaker 4 (03:08:50):
I don't know what to do.

Speaker 5 (03:08:51):
I'm as light as a feather.

Speaker 13 (03:08:52):
As happy as an angel, as merry as a schoolboy.

Speaker 4 (03:08:56):
Have you the peeling bells?

Speaker 5 (03:08:58):
I've got a pover that was reven John's had ANNs
down the street. He's got a full team of bird ringers.
Rehearsing for Midnight mask but we're in a totally sound
prostidio with the fireball. Go Reverend Jawnes, Go Peter Purvis.

Speaker 4 (03:09:17):
What come you look, Richard? I think Claire and the
kids have just pulled out.

Speaker 5 (03:09:21):
What and there's lots of police at the broadcasting House
and the brown and a few twelve of people. Claire,
kids this way on the borsday.

Speaker 4 (03:09:31):
Come it, they're coming back for me.

Speaker 58 (03:09:35):
And a few moments later, Screwge appeared from his front door,
skipping along the streets wishing a merry Christmas to a
succession of startled onlookers.

Speaker 4 (03:09:46):
You came back, Claire. I don't know what to say, Richard.

Speaker 5 (03:09:50):
I just just say you'll let me show you I
can change.

Speaker 4 (03:09:54):
Richard.

Speaker 20 (03:09:54):
We need to carry on.

Speaker 4 (03:09:55):
You better finish the story.

Speaker 72 (03:09:57):
First quick, kids getting before the police start hitting up here.

Speaker 5 (03:10:01):
And presently Scrooge fanned himself A Bob Cratchet store, come
out here at once, cratch it?

Speaker 4 (03:10:09):
Why missus grude? What time do you confish?

Speaker 5 (03:10:12):
But missus Rude, you gave me the day of While
I was wrong to do that, I should have given
you the week off and tripled your wages. A Merry Christmas,
Cratches and Merry Christmas to everyone.

Speaker 4 (03:10:32):
We all did it. Martha.

Speaker 9 (03:10:36):
Hello for Hannah.

Speaker 4 (03:10:38):
This is President.

Speaker 87 (03:10:41):
In the Nation of Iland celebrates you tonight.

Speaker 13 (03:10:43):
Thank you, mister President.

Speaker 85 (03:10:45):
Got to go now, my bath is ready, Richard.

Speaker 13 (03:10:48):
I got the hard drive back up and running. It's
all systems go raise your foret is back on schedule.

Speaker 4 (03:10:54):
I am going to kiss you for Hanah.

Speaker 5 (03:10:56):
Just before you do, Richard, I've got Gwyneth Williams on
the line of Yes, Yes.

Speaker 4 (03:11:00):
You're fired I knew it.

Speaker 69 (03:11:02):
You didn't let me finish. You're fired up.

Speaker 79 (03:11:04):
You walk out of BBC Broadcasting House this evening with
your heads held high? What are the police come to
my office first thing Tuesday morning. I need your minds
on the future as well.

Speaker 5 (03:11:15):
You better then, So what happens now?

Speaker 4 (03:11:20):
We've got a minute to the news, Richard. Yeah, come
home after work tonight and you'll be there. Of course
we will come here. It's your kids. I love you, Claire,
I love you all so much.

Speaker 5 (03:11:36):
And John?

Speaker 13 (03:11:39):
What can I say?

Speaker 29 (03:11:40):
Dad?

Speaker 13 (03:11:41):
You're crying.

Speaker 4 (03:11:42):
I know these calls for us celebration. You're listening to
Radio four. We're just about ready for the So we
take some balls, while we.

Speaker 90 (03:12:02):
Do apologize for that temporary fault to rest asshort that
BBC Radio four is restored and back on schedule, and
that all jugs of eggnog have been safely stowed away.
Don't knock it anyway you've been listening to Marley Was
Dead by John Nicholson and Richard Katz. It starred John Nicholson,
Richard Katz and Javier Nasan for Hannah was played by
Serene Sabah, Claire by Sophie Russell, Oliver, Joshua Swimney and

(03:12:27):
Martha and Jesse Katz as themselves. Additional roles were played
by Edward Kelsey, Jane Horrocks, Star Obrien, Charlotte Green, Richard Maigley,
Peter Purvis, Gwyneth Williams, Chris Evans, and Jonathan Dimbleb. Marley
Was Dead was directed by Sasha yef Tushenko. The producer
was Stephen Canney.

Speaker 1 (03:12:46):
That was Marley Was Dead as a comedy, broadcast on
Christmas Eve twenty ten on BBC Radio four. Finally, no
Christmas is complete without The Night Before Christmas from the
NBC Radio Playhouse from December fifteenth, nineteen forty nine.

Speaker 50 (03:13:02):
The National Broadcasting Company presents Radio City Playhouse Subtraction sixty six.

(03:13:28):
Ladies and gentlemen, Here is the Director of Radio City Playhouse.

Speaker 11 (03:13:31):
Harry W.

Speaker 3 (03:13:32):
Jenkins.

Speaker 11 (03:13:33):
Thank you, Fred.

Speaker 17 (03:13:34):
Good afternoon everybody.

Speaker 35 (03:13:36):
It seems to us that there are few things more
appropriate as a Christmas gift to Radio City Playhouse listeners
than a story by the inimitable Paul Gallico. Since nineteen
thirty six, when he first entered the short story field,
he has been published regularly by Sutch magazines as The
Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, Cosmopolitan, and Esquire, and today we

(03:13:59):
welcome him to Radio City Playhouse. Here, then, with our
very best wishes, is our Christmas Day broadcast Lyles Sudro
as Perry Brown, Bernard Grant.

Speaker 17 (03:14:11):
As Al Vogel.

Speaker 35 (03:14:12):
Inwas The Night Before Christmas by Paul Gallico, Attraction sixty
six on Radio City Playhouse.

Speaker 50 (03:14:39):
It is four o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday, December
the twenty fourth, in the city room of the Daily Blade.
Almost everybody has gone home. A couple of office boys
are yawning on the call bench. Free rewrite men are
packing away at their typewriters and watching the clock. At
the head of the room text Court, the city editor,
is talking earnestly into the telephone with a hundred look

(03:15:01):
on his face. Near the door, Perry Brown, the Daily
Blade's best reporter, is chatting with Al Vogel, his photographer.
They're both about to leave for Rusty's party, when Perry's
telephone rings.

Speaker 49 (03:15:19):
Hello Perry Brown, Oh hello Rusty. Yes we're just leaving.
I'm all cleaned up the tree. Come a good no, now,
Fog sitting on my desk, will leave together. Oh honey,
I'm gonna trim that tree with diamonds, rubies and sapphires.
Run into dough, Bogel says, I'll run into dough.

Speaker 11 (03:15:42):
Huh, Oh, Darling. If you play Holy Night, I'll cry, Yes,
I will. I get very sentimental about Christmas. Bogelo cry too,
won't you out? Oh?

Speaker 49 (03:15:51):
Absolutely all right, will all cry and it'll be a
wonderful party. Oh now, Darling, don't worry about the Christmas
tree fires. They won't break out uto nine o'clock. And besides,
I quit before i'd missed the party.

Speaker 11 (03:16:03):
Okay, anything you want me to bring gus me? Okay,
I love you. Hey, why don't you marry a girl
and put her out of a misery. I'm working on
it by this time next year. Come on, now, let's
get out of here.

Speaker 91 (03:16:17):
Might find you.

Speaker 11 (03:16:18):
Let's go say Merry Christmas a text. Come on, it's
a good idea.

Speaker 5 (03:16:20):
Come on.

Speaker 49 (03:16:23):
Rusty is as excited about this Christmas party as a
five year old kids, our first real plan party.

Speaker 92 (03:16:31):
It's all I understand, and I'm sure we can take
care of it. By eleven o'clock at number three Courtney
tar your harness to the wagon.

Speaker 53 (03:16:39):
Yeah, missus pett it's all.

Speaker 11 (03:16:41):
Right, missus Pets and Paul.

Speaker 53 (03:16:42):
I'll keep in touch with you.

Speaker 11 (03:16:44):
Same to you.

Speaker 17 (03:16:45):
Bye.

Speaker 49 (03:16:47):
Al and I are just leaving text Merry Christmas and
trying to get up to Rusty's party if you can.

Speaker 11 (03:16:52):
What's the matter, Harry.

Speaker 53 (03:16:53):
I meant to let you and l Gold on something unforeseen.

Speaker 11 (03:16:57):
It no, you'll promised us to night. All you did
text I know, and you'll get to Rusty's party later.

Speaker 53 (03:17:02):
Did you hear anything of that telephone conversation I just said,
you mean missus pettin.

Speaker 92 (03:17:09):
Saw text her nephews have arrived unexpectedly from the West.

Speaker 53 (03:17:13):
She wants a Christmas present for it. Oh no, she
wishes us to secure a pair of goats for its
harness to a red wag.

Speaker 11 (03:17:21):
Oh your kid go harness to a red wag? Is
she crazy? Where can you find a couple of goats
and a red wagon on Christmas?

Speaker 5 (03:17:28):
Where can you find a couple of goats?

Speaker 29 (03:17:29):
You mean?

Speaker 53 (03:17:29):
Where can you plan?

Speaker 68 (03:17:30):
Oh?

Speaker 11 (03:17:30):
Tex No, it'll be all right if the outfit arrives
with three Courtney towers by eleven nights.

Speaker 92 (03:17:35):
I won't do it, I promised Rusty, and I promised
the wife of our editor and managing director that i'd
get her to go.

Speaker 28 (03:17:40):
All right, we quit?

Speaker 11 (03:17:41):
Oh yeah, absolutely. We told Rusty nothing would keep us
away from her first party.

Speaker 92 (03:17:44):
Listen, Perry, Well, I'm sorry, but I'm on the spot.
Do you think I got a kick out of having
my reporters used as footman?

Speaker 53 (03:17:51):
This is pettens All is a bad little girl.

Speaker 92 (03:17:54):
She's a gadfly sent to try as I'm sorry, but
it's all a part of the screwy business. And she
is the wife of our managing director. Please, very, there's
nobody else to send.

Speaker 11 (03:18:02):
Please, I can't Rusty, You'll give me the airs.

Speaker 53 (03:18:04):
She'll understand. She's a newspaper working.

Speaker 11 (03:18:07):
Oh no, no, not tonight. She isn't tonight. She's a
kid having her first Christmas party. Must be a.

Speaker 4 (03:18:12):
Little lay here.

Speaker 53 (03:18:14):
I'll give you a petty cash slip. Get upstairs and
cash her before or five? How much skys a limb?

Speaker 11 (03:18:19):
All right? The grand I said, the sky, not the stratus.
You watch your stinking goats, don't you? How do I
know what I'll run up against? I have to buy
them from the zoo.

Speaker 53 (03:18:28):
Okay, here, you need any help, call me?

Speaker 11 (03:18:32):
Oh, thank you? And you call rusty. I haven't got
the nerves. You'll think I'm drunk.

Speaker 49 (03:18:37):
All right, call her up and say you sent me
out to get two goats and a red wagon.

Speaker 11 (03:18:40):
Oh boy, she'll love you. Come on, al maybe we
can get the goats quick somehow.

Speaker 29 (03:18:46):
Where are you going?

Speaker 5 (03:18:47):
First, Perry?

Speaker 11 (03:18:47):
Where would you go to get goats? Brooklyn? M jeep Erry?

Speaker 4 (03:19:05):
It's nice driving over Brooklyn Bridge.

Speaker 48 (03:19:07):
At night and h.

Speaker 11 (03:19:09):
Ohly night? Uh I where can I find to go?
And the old bridge looks pretty tonight with all lights on?
And well how can I have uh to go?

Speaker 51 (03:19:30):
Hey?

Speaker 11 (03:19:31):
Just just look at the lights in the water. Verry
fees look, yeah, hey, Verry, look us the flames on?
He look ain't very not look for yeah, yeah, yeah,
lovely fire. Maybe it'll burn all night. Too bad. We
can't go. What do you mean we can't go? You
dear out, consider your position. We're in the service of
the rich.

Speaker 4 (03:19:50):
We're after goats.

Speaker 11 (03:19:51):
We're not reporters. Were lackeys. Missus heepnsaw would be very very.

Speaker 49 (03:19:55):
Angry if we went to a fire instead of buying
her two goats. Hun us to a red wagon every week.

Speaker 91 (03:19:59):
Got a look, it's look at the large and I'm
gonna tell I didn't grab a shot and he floats
out verry please, maybe didn't get a picture from here?

Speaker 11 (03:20:06):
No, no, no, we must let nothing turn us from
our duty. We're not reporters, we're butler's. Well I got
it anyway, and maybe that won't be the picture for.

Speaker 89 (03:20:15):
These uh first little gold we'll be silky and why
and I open give missus pettens.

Speaker 11 (03:20:34):
All by Harry Willis stop singing, No, we should the.

Speaker 49 (03:20:38):
Gun in a bought looking for cop and wellse what
you look for a goat.

Speaker 91 (03:20:46):
In ambulance but an actual look look very slowed down?
Please with you woman, She's sorry, please, err let me get.

Speaker 49 (03:20:52):
At what would missus peten saw say if she ever
found out she went around shooting a camera at people.

Speaker 63 (03:20:58):
I got it.

Speaker 11 (03:20:59):
Stop taking you know what you lost? Next one, we're
lost in Brooklyn and will be here for years. We
are not lost, and stop taking pictures.

Speaker 49 (03:21:07):
You see that we're now approaching Cypress in two hundred
and eighty third, and if our friend the bartender is correct,
we're about to get our first goat.

Speaker 11 (03:21:14):
Didn't he have any numbers? No brown shack at the
corner of Cypress and two hundred navy flairs.

Speaker 53 (03:21:20):
That must be it over there beside those signboards.

Speaker 17 (03:21:23):
Hey, what is it? A garbage stump?

Speaker 4 (03:21:25):
Was at the goats?

Speaker 17 (03:21:26):
I smell.

Speaker 11 (03:21:39):
Ah and I'll Rudolph, please see a good goat. Will
you gonna come on?

Speaker 5 (03:21:43):
What's he stopping?

Speaker 11 (03:21:44):
I don't know. Please Rudolf, We're almost at the car.
Now a little while you meet missus pettisaw you like her?
You can't pull him if they don't want her.

Speaker 49 (03:21:51):
I look, Rudolph, I've paid one hundred bucks for you.
Will you please act like one hundred dollars goat.

Speaker 11 (03:21:56):
Slipping or something on the ground? Huh yeah, very Look Perry,
it's a body.

Speaker 5 (03:22:04):
What ye in a second?

Speaker 17 (03:22:08):
A note on it.

Speaker 11 (03:22:08):
I'll give me a flashlight. Hey, Merry Christmas from the boys.

Speaker 3 (03:22:16):
W I think I know him?

Speaker 11 (03:22:19):
Flesh lightness faces Yeah, ho leak Perry. It's pro guard
at the East office. Yeah, he had his nose in
the poultry racket, isn't he?

Speaker 49 (03:22:32):
Merry Christmas from the boys? What a story? Well, too bad,
we're busy.

Speaker 11 (03:22:38):
Merry your kid. I'm not kidding business.

Speaker 49 (03:22:40):
Before pleasure with still one got shy pro gwer Let
me take a couple of pictures, okay, but make it snappy,
all right, Rudolph, I'll give you one more chance. Are
you or are you not going to get into the
car without being kicked? Stop, Rudolph, stay in the back

(03:23:09):
seat so you stop kissing me and driving.

Speaker 11 (03:23:11):
Yeah, and you should have stuck the lemonade or you
should talk while I think of it. Who did you
phone in that last turn? He offers texts, Oh, what's
you telling?

Speaker 5 (03:23:20):
Nothing?

Speaker 11 (03:23:21):
Nothing at all?

Speaker 91 (03:23:22):
He said, rusty your phone and said you needn't bother
coming to the body, no matter how well.

Speaker 11 (03:23:26):
You got through.

Speaker 4 (03:23:26):
Uh.

Speaker 11 (03:23:27):
And I just sort of casually mentioned the five and
the pro cow am I.

Speaker 49 (03:23:31):
Uh, that'll teach him to send us out after goats
where that bar tend to say we should go. Oh,
guy by the name of Constantine Guana Cassa, huh, just
a couple of blocks for well.

Speaker 11 (03:23:44):
Now, what's the matter with Rudo? I believe he is
slightly loaded. He's down the whole can of beer the
bar keep gave him. More likely it's the can he
down that doom ah ah uh, mister Buanacassa.

Speaker 49 (03:24:12):
Yes, well, my friend here and I, curious as it
may seem, are seeking the purchase a goat.

Speaker 11 (03:24:18):
Yeah, goat. Jerry, the bartender at Mike's tavern said you
had goat. You make the joke.

Speaker 12 (03:24:26):
Come on, then we got company.

Speaker 17 (03:24:27):
You're drink a glass and wine everything.

Speaker 11 (03:24:29):
She'd be all right Christmas, I've everybody she feel okay,
look any time but Christmas Eve. It might be a guy.
It's dead on a level.

Speaker 5 (03:24:36):
Brother.

Speaker 11 (03:24:36):
I gotta get another goat, now, have you got one?
We ain't kidding. This is no funny business, honest, all right,
you're coming with me? Yea, you have got goats haven?
Sure they get the good all in franchise. The man
in a wife nicer good. It's a good good. You

(03:24:58):
like a good thing?

Speaker 49 (03:25:00):
Sure, yeah, we love goats, don't we Oh yeah, yeah yeah,
especially on Christmas Eve.

Speaker 5 (03:25:04):
We love goat.

Speaker 17 (03:25:05):
Yeah he's here, his head.

Speaker 11 (03:25:09):
All friendship.

Speaker 49 (03:25:11):
Oh yeah, mister Bassa.

Speaker 11 (03:25:17):
How much for the big one? But keep it going?

Speaker 80 (03:25:19):
I tell you the name is Paula Francis because these
he's a husband and a wife.

Speaker 41 (03:25:22):
I know, sella one.

Speaker 11 (03:25:24):
You're married, man, I think you understand that. Oh forgive me,
old man. You're right. I don't know what I was
thinking about.

Speaker 49 (03:25:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it looks so pretty, Karen, Oh yeah, yeah,
look yeah sure look uh mister Bonna Cassa, I gotta
I gotta goat outside.

Speaker 11 (03:25:38):
Yes, one of goats. You ever saw Rudolf? Rudolf, he
loves everybody crazy? Yeah, what about it?

Speaker 49 (03:25:45):
Deal? I buy Paulo and Francesca. You take Rudolph and
part swapa. You can have one swell loving goat and
some cash.

Speaker 11 (03:25:51):
Everybody. She's a happy huh. I know, w when the goat? No, no,
what's the matter of have one goat? What good? He's
one of the route except to another quote except yeah, look,
mister Blana cash. It's a deal. How much and I'm
not sure I don't want much to sell now? Three

(03:26:12):
hundred dollars. I mean, I mean he's a good parlor. Francisca.
There yours, so you come in the house and we
have a some of wine. He's he's a party. We
see the songs. We leave the Sealy level a little

(03:26:39):
dun dumb. I know we shouldn't say this one of
conscious party, so long as you know it.

Speaker 89 (03:26:45):
Level all le, I'm all little dumb.

Speaker 11 (03:26:49):
Marry please, yes, I don't need to.

Speaker 5 (03:26:52):
I'm gonna die.

Speaker 11 (03:26:54):
Please please. We got the goats. We got three goats
in the back. Let's even get him up to missus
Petrosa's time.

Speaker 5 (03:26:59):
Would you shout?

Speaker 11 (03:27:00):
Stop route?

Speaker 15 (03:27:01):
You don't right yet with your fight down?

Speaker 11 (03:27:04):
Smokes up on letting go? What were gonna do with
dree goats?

Speaker 69 (03:27:07):
Perry?

Speaker 11 (03:27:07):
What are we gonna do?

Speaker 12 (03:27:11):
Mhurd, don't eat, don't Perry. I'm gonna be dead.

Speaker 91 (03:27:31):
You know something, Perry, I wouldn't have blamed that way
if he'd a sat Russian Cabby iron a dump like this.

Speaker 3 (03:27:37):
You can't do that.

Speaker 11 (03:27:40):
Oh I'm sleeping. No, please do not disturb me. Allow
me to sit here with my head in my hands
and suffer. Oh, oh, stop nudging me, al, will you
stop nudging?

Speaker 61 (03:28:00):
Good?

Speaker 41 (03:28:00):
Evening, or mind if I joined the party?

Speaker 4 (03:28:03):
Rusty?

Speaker 41 (03:28:04):
Hello, Perry, don't suppose you'd mind if I sat down?

Speaker 11 (03:28:09):
It's sore, not at all.

Speaker 41 (03:28:11):
It's been a perfect Christmas Eve.

Speaker 11 (03:28:13):
I'll just find us.

Speaker 93 (03:28:14):
Unless the trail of blind man could follow. When I
saw your car parts outside with three goats in the
back seat, I saw the figures you might.

Speaker 4 (03:28:21):
Be in here.

Speaker 17 (03:28:22):
Oh, don't be sore.

Speaker 13 (03:28:24):
Why should I be sore?

Speaker 11 (03:28:26):
What are you doing away from the party?

Speaker 12 (03:28:28):
There is no part.

Speaker 41 (03:28:32):
I'm working. Everybody's working.

Speaker 93 (03:28:35):
There's never been a Christmas like it before. Pro Gower
was murdered pro Gower of the DA's office.

Speaker 4 (03:28:42):
Oh, for goodness sake, Well, fancy that it.

Speaker 41 (03:28:46):
Also happens at Pier five forty seven Brooks Blue Up.

Speaker 11 (03:28:50):
Not really, Terry.

Speaker 41 (03:28:51):
Why do you drink?

Speaker 49 (03:28:53):
Because they sent me out on Christmas Eve? The buy
two goats and the red wagon.

Speaker 41 (03:28:58):
Oh have you got the wagon?

Speaker 17 (03:29:00):
The wagon? The wagon?

Speaker 11 (03:29:02):
Oh I haven't got the wagon? Well I have.

Speaker 41 (03:29:05):
That's one reason I'm here text to you together. Where
is it outside my car?

Speaker 11 (03:29:09):
Oh, Rusty, you're wonderful?

Speaker 42 (03:29:11):
Am I?

Speaker 11 (03:29:11):
We got one go too many?

Speaker 4 (03:29:13):
Rusty?

Speaker 41 (03:29:13):
I noticed it too, did you?

Speaker 11 (03:29:15):
Isn't missus?

Speaker 41 (03:29:16):
Tekansoll going to be surprised.

Speaker 11 (03:29:28):
What's the matter with him?

Speaker 49 (03:29:29):
Now listen, Goat, you're out of the elevator. All you
gotta do is walk down this.

Speaker 11 (03:29:34):
Nice quiet hall here. See that's it. I just walked
slowly down the hall Apartment.

Speaker 53 (03:29:38):
Three and stop kissing.

Speaker 11 (03:29:43):
Oh look, rusty Rudolph loves me.

Speaker 41 (03:29:45):
It's quarter to level. The techanals be home in fifteen minutes.

Speaker 11 (03:29:49):
All right, all right, all right, both do you take
pollow us you grab plan for you A little one
almost getting through. Rudolph, you love me?

Speaker 48 (03:30:04):
Kissing Merry Christmas, Rudolph in the sweetest little goat.

Speaker 80 (03:30:07):
And oh I whoa goody good heaven, I hear the
peten saws. Butler, I am her, and might I ask
what you are?

Speaker 48 (03:30:18):
Move over?

Speaker 11 (03:30:19):
We got goats. You got a bathroom with a sunken tub.

(03:30:41):
Normal love?

Speaker 49 (03:30:43):
Then I'll still rudolfheah, yeah, I guess you clean.

Speaker 11 (03:30:50):
They look like fluffy little lad Yeah, I have a Rudolph.

Speaker 49 (03:30:54):
Rudolph here doesn't deserve a bath ever, smashing the Petensols mirror.

Speaker 41 (03:30:58):
He couldn't help it. First time he'd ever seen himself
from that mean expression on his right.

Speaker 49 (03:31:04):
All right, Holt. Still, Rudolf, you'll be drying a minute.
That's a boy, Give me another towel, rush you.

Speaker 12 (03:31:10):
Five already looks like.

Speaker 17 (03:31:12):
A nice boy.

Speaker 11 (03:31:13):
Yeah, well you can't deliver dirty ghats to missus. Pettin saw.

Speaker 53 (03:31:17):
He's real cute when he's cleaning.

Speaker 11 (03:31:20):
What's Vulge doing and making a harness out of neck tie?

Speaker 12 (03:31:25):
Go get him harness to the wagon.

Speaker 41 (03:31:28):
Get out of here before the pets and saws arrive.

Speaker 11 (03:31:30):
Yeah, come on, Rudolf, you look swell well, come on, Russy,
open the door.

Speaker 53 (03:31:37):
Oh hey, hey, this is sure something dumb?

Speaker 11 (03:31:41):
Or how's the harness coming out?

Speaker 4 (03:31:43):
I used, mister pets soles? Neck tie?

Speaker 93 (03:31:45):
Hey, look at it swelling Now it's the nicest harness
I've ever seen.

Speaker 11 (03:31:50):
Hey, give us see a tree like that in your
whole life is never and I never will.

Speaker 41 (03:31:54):
I'll never ever have a Christmas like other people.

Speaker 11 (03:31:56):
Never. Let's get him harness.

Speaker 41 (03:32:11):
Since red wagon and all, don't they look cute?

Speaker 11 (03:32:16):
Following Francesca man and wife makes me want to cry.
What are they doing to the tree?

Speaker 41 (03:32:23):
Looks to me as if they're eating a little time.

Speaker 11 (03:32:28):
Arn you anyway, rude suffering jets, hold you come to
pet and souls in the chair.

Speaker 12 (03:32:42):
What's going on in here?

Speaker 58 (03:32:44):
Pause?

Speaker 11 (03:32:45):
Oh?

Speaker 12 (03:32:46):
Most of them? What keeps the meeting of them? Who
are you people? And then are these people from the paper?

Speaker 15 (03:32:52):
I believe they are, my dear, Get up here, all
of you.

Speaker 11 (03:32:58):
I'd like beg your pardon. We're not drunk, of.

Speaker 12 (03:33:00):
Course you're drunk. Otherwise what's the meaning of the third animal?

Speaker 11 (03:33:04):
That is a spare?

Speaker 12 (03:33:05):
A spare that's supposed to be funny? Will you please leave?

Speaker 13 (03:33:09):
Alan?

Speaker 12 (03:33:10):
I expect you to deal with these people tomorrow.

Speaker 11 (03:33:12):
Oh musty. I believe missus Pettinsaw is sore?

Speaker 5 (03:33:15):
Is she well?

Speaker 11 (03:33:17):
So am I?

Speaker 13 (03:33:18):
This is pettin Saw.

Speaker 41 (03:33:19):
You're all true with Perry Brown?

Speaker 11 (03:33:21):
How aren't you?

Speaker 12 (03:33:22):
I don't believe I know who you are. You're through
with him.

Speaker 93 (03:33:26):
He's drunk and he's dirty, and besides, he's served your purpose.
He got you what you wanted, two goats and a
red wagon on Christmas Eve. No other man in town
could have done it tonight or would have Get out
of here. You've been losing our office and our staff
to do your dirty work for the last five years
with runner and setch and carry fix things for your plane,
airplaye to you. Well, that's out as far as we're concerned.

(03:33:48):
And when you replace us, I suggest you go to
an employment agency that furnishes train servant. It'll be nice
to know you can call up the office when you
need extra Butler, Come on, boys, come on.

Speaker 12 (03:33:57):
Rudel, let's get out of here. I can smell something
that has nothing to do with.

Speaker 91 (03:34:03):
My dear good night, mister Gan, miss Brown, mis Vogel.

Speaker 12 (03:34:07):
Come on, let's get out.

Speaker 41 (03:34:24):
We got rid of out now, if we could only
get rid of Rudolph.

Speaker 25 (03:34:30):
I call it the zoo.

Speaker 11 (03:34:31):
Well they didn't want to go. Oh, I call it
the Metropolitan Museum of Art two. I don't know. I
thought maybe because it was Christmas Eve, they might make
him accept.

Speaker 49 (03:34:47):
What do we do with him, honey, I don't know,
but I'm not going to abandon Rudolph on some col
vacant lot.

Speaker 11 (03:34:53):
He's got a rite to Christmas too.

Speaker 12 (03:34:56):
Well, where'll we take him?

Speaker 17 (03:34:57):
I don't know.

Speaker 49 (03:35:00):
I guess we'll just wander around Brooklyn with him until
we die of old age.

Speaker 11 (03:35:05):
However, now, no, no, don't kiss me when I'm driving Rudolf.
He loves me, Rusty, I know I do too. Do you.

Speaker 84 (03:35:19):
A stake.

Speaker 41 (03:35:19):
Let's get some coffee. I'm perishing with a cold parry.
Look think it and stop.

Speaker 11 (03:35:24):
Alright, alright, I do you think you love me as
much as Rudolf loves me?

Speaker 53 (03:35:28):
M I think?

Speaker 11 (03:35:29):
Okay, then I'll buy some coffee.

Speaker 49 (03:35:33):
Alright now, I get uh Rudolph out on your side
in the Rudolph got a right to his Christmas too,
I had, but go on, Rudolph, would rusty as your fella?

Speaker 12 (03:35:44):
Come on, Rudolf would old Rudolf.

Speaker 49 (03:35:50):
Oh, rust the honey. I just couldn't leave Rudolph without
a home on Christmas Eve.

Speaker 11 (03:35:55):
It wouldn't be human, I know.

Speaker 41 (03:35:58):
Do you suppose we'll have to keep you forever?

Speaker 11 (03:36:00):
No a, all right, now, sit down, Rudolf, sit down
beside this and shut up.

Speaker 17 (03:36:10):
Hey, misstake.

Speaker 53 (03:36:12):
You can bring that coat?

Speaker 11 (03:36:13):
Oh yes we can. It's Christmas Eve. Coffee and donute
for two, and some weak biscuits for Rudolph.

Speaker 49 (03:36:18):
Yeah yeah, just one of the things. No leading in
the box, that's right. Yeah, you'll eat the box and off.

Speaker 11 (03:36:23):
You'll be hysterical when he hits the biscuits after all
that cardboard. Yeah, thanks here, Rudolph. Now don't let me
hear a sound out of you.

Speaker 53 (03:36:33):
I've seen everything.

Speaker 11 (03:36:34):
Huh, don't let some coffee coming up? You unhappy kid fairy.

Speaker 41 (03:36:40):
I'm in awful sake. I've loved every minute of it,
no fooling. I was mad because you wouldn't take me
with you.

Speaker 49 (03:36:48):
Oh it's a lousy racket, but we love it. I
guess we're out of it now, though we haven't got
a job rushing.

Speaker 41 (03:36:54):
Oh I think we have. Remember when mister Pekansall say
good night?

Speaker 11 (03:36:59):
Yeah, he winked at me, No kidding.

Speaker 41 (03:37:03):
He's been wanting to tell her off for years.

Speaker 11 (03:37:05):
Oh, I'll bet Terry.

Speaker 41 (03:37:08):
Can't you remember anything that happened tonight?

Speaker 17 (03:37:10):
Oh?

Speaker 33 (03:37:11):
Some of it?

Speaker 41 (03:37:12):
Well, you know, there's a bonus waiting for you at
the office.

Speaker 11 (03:37:16):
A bonus what for for.

Speaker 41 (03:37:18):
Your work on the Pier five forty seven explosion. Volga
took a picture of it.

Speaker 4 (03:37:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 68 (03:37:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 93 (03:37:23):
He also took a picture of the death of some
Brooklyn Alderman's wife in a taxi accident and a half
a dozen of progourist bodies.

Speaker 11 (03:37:31):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 41 (03:37:32):
Vogel phoned the office around six. He said, if we
would go to an address he gave us and look
behind some signboards, there'd be something for us.

Speaker 33 (03:37:39):
Huh.

Speaker 53 (03:37:40):
There was.

Speaker 41 (03:37:41):
On top of Proger's body were half a dozen plates
and a note from Fogo with the captions on him.
They're all over page one.

Speaker 11 (03:37:49):
Well it'll be good, old Bogel.

Speaker 49 (03:37:51):
I tried to make an honest flunky out of him,
but I guess he's just a newspaper man at high.

Speaker 13 (03:37:56):
So you think everything's all right?

Speaker 11 (03:37:57):
Yeah, yeah, I guess it is.

Speaker 41 (03:38:00):
If we could only just get rid of Rudolph.

Speaker 11 (03:38:02):
Yeah, and little took us to go.

Speaker 17 (03:38:07):
Rusty.

Speaker 11 (03:38:07):
Look that kid, Hey, Sonny, Sonny come here, will you?

Speaker 29 (03:38:15):
Holla?

Speaker 41 (03:38:16):
Hi, Sonny, come mister, Hi, Marry.

Speaker 11 (03:38:18):
Christmas, Merry Christmas. To you say, how would you like
to go for Christmas?

Speaker 68 (03:38:25):
Huh?

Speaker 11 (03:38:26):
Him, honest, honest, just tase right now.

Speaker 17 (03:38:31):
You want him?

Speaker 11 (03:38:32):
She do? Gosh, call him Rudolph, She says.

Speaker 12 (03:38:36):
Mister, Hay's a lot.

Speaker 11 (03:38:42):
Well we've done it, Rusty, we've done it. Rudolph has
a home, Darling, Merry Christmas, Verry.

Speaker 12 (03:38:57):
Hey, he cut off that kittens.

Speaker 29 (03:39:00):
Now if I runner, respectable.

Speaker 50 (03:39:01):
Joy, you have just heard Twas The Night Before Christmas

(03:39:26):
by Paul Gallagho, starring Lyle Sudrow as Terry Brown, Bernard Grant,
was Al Vogel, and other members of the cast included
Ross Martin, Frank Mullano, Loi Van Rosen, Connie Lamke, Butch
Caval and Grace Kenry. The special music was composed and
conducted by Doctor Roy Shield. Twas The Night Before Christmas
was adapted for radio by Harry W.

Speaker 3 (03:39:46):
Jenkins.

Speaker 11 (03:39:46):
W also directed the entire production.

Speaker 35 (03:40:08):
This is Harry jonkon again Next week on Radio City Playhouse.
Jan Minor gives vitality and charm to the role of
Anne Stratton in a tender and beautiful love story called Reflection.
That's next week Reflection Attraction sixty seven on Radio City Playhouse.
Merry Christmas, Everybody, and Good Afternoons.

Speaker 50 (03:40:52):
What's on NBC tonight There's a Christmas Stocking full of entertainment.
As a holiday specials, Theater Guild on the Air will
present Wallet Goddard and Sir Ciedrey Hardwick in that perennial favorite,
The Passing of the Third Floor. Back here this special
Christmas program, Wallet Goddard and Sir Cidrey Hadwick on Theater
Guild on the Air. You'll find the Merry Christmas all

(03:41:14):
day long on NBC Brad Collins speaking Now, stay tuned
for James Melton and Harvest of Stars on NBC.

Speaker 1 (03:41:29):
That was the Night Before Christmas from the NBC Radio
Playhouse from December fifteenth, nineteen forty nine. Merry Christmas. Well
that's it for air Checks for this week. Next week
will be on the New Year Celebrations. Air Checks is
normally a three hour podcast uploaded every Saturday and broadcasts
on the k TI Radio network every Sunday. See you
at the same time and same channel

Speaker 5 (03:42:01):
That

All Episodes

Episode 103, December 21, 2024 - Christmas Special

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Fudd Around And Find Out

Crime Junkie

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 103, December 21, 2024 - Christmas Special