Francis Durbridge
Francis Henry Durbridge was an English playwright and author, best known for the creation of the character Paul Temple, the detective who first appeared in highly popular BBC multi-part radio serials from 1938 onward.
Biography
Durbridge was born in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, and educated at Bradford Grammar School, where he was encouraged to write by his English teacher. He continued to do so while studying English at the University of Birmingham. After graduating in 1933, he worked for a short time as a stockbroker's clerk before selling a radio play, Promotion, to the BBC at the age of 21.Durbridge created the character of Paul Temple, a crime novelist and detective, in the 1930s. With Steve Trent, a Fleet Street journalist who would later become his wife, Temple solved numerous crimes in the glamorous world of the leisured middle classes, first on radio, then in films and, from 1969 to 1971, in a television series. In addition to the Paul Temple series, Durbridge wrote other mysteries for radio and television, many of which were also produced for Dutch, German and Italian television and radio.
In the Netherlands Temple was known as Paul Vlaanderen.
Durbridge also forged a successful career as a writer for the stage with seven plays, the last of which, Sweet Revenge, was written in 1991. He also wrote forty-three novels, many of which were adapted from his scripts, sometimes with the help of others.
Work for radio
''Paul Temple'' in the United Kingdom
Durbridge wrote twenty Paul Temple serials for radio. The first was Send for Paul Temple, broadcast in eight episodes on the BBC Midland Regional Programme from 8 April 1938. Hugh Morton played Paul, and Steve was played by Bernadette Hodgson. Carl Bernard took over the part of Paul in 1939. After the war the character was played by a succession of different actors: Barry Morse, Howard Marion-Crawford and Kim Peacock. Peter Coke took over the part from the 1954 serial, Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case, onwards.Marjorie Westbury took over the part of Steve from the fifth serial, Send for Paul Temple Again, although she had a small part in the fourth serial, Paul Temple Intervenes. She remained as Steve for the rest of the radio run. To many people, Coke and Westbury are most firmly identified with Paul and Steve.
, London, in 2015
The original signature tune was taken from Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov, with incidental music taken from the works of other composers, including Tintagel by Sir Arnold Bax. The signature tune was later changed to Coronation Scot by Vivian Ellis. The BBC licensed the serials to broadcasters in Commonwealth countries, where they were transmitted long after their original runs in the UK.
Repeating the recordings on the BBC7 digital speech channel revived interest in the serials in the early 2000s. BBC Worldwide then released all the complete recordings known to have survived on CDs and cassettes.
On Monday 7 August 2006, BBC Radio 4 broadcast the first episode of a new production of Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery, a lost 1947-produced serial. The re-creation used the original 1947 script, vintage sound effects, music and microphones, and carefully reproduced 1940s upper-class accents. Paul Temple was played by Crawford Logan and Steve by Gerda Stevenson. This production was repeated on Radio 4 from mid-June 2007.
''Paul Temple'' in Germany
In the 1960s, German radio adapted twelve Paul Temple serials. Like the BBC originals, each part ended with a cliffhanger, making them Strassenfeger, which were so popular as to leave the streets deserted. The actors were of national renown, with Paul Temple played by Luxembourg-born René Deltgen, and supported by Gustav Knuth, Paul Klinger and others. All of these German radio serials are, like the BBC originals, available on CD.The European Broadcasting Union invited Durbridge in 1967 to write an original radio serial for the international market, La Boutique. This was broadcast in more than fifteen countries, and in a variety of languages.
Work for television
Between 1952 and 1980, Durbridge wrote 17 TV serials for the BBC. Until 1959 they were shown under the umbrella title A Francis Durbridge Serial, which was then changed to Francis Durbridge Presents. Versions were also made in the Netherlands, Italy, France and Germany. Even after Durbridge stopped writing, some serials were re-made in the 1980s and '90s.The Scarf was a six-part serial starring Stephen Murray and Donald Pleasence, and was aired by the BBC in February and March 1959. The theme music was The Girl from Corsica by Trevor Duncan. There was uproar in Germany in 1962 when comedian Wolfgang Neuss revealed in a newspaper who would turn out to be the murderer in the last episode of a German version called .
In 1960–61, The World of Tim Frazer was broadcast as an 18-episode serial featuring three adventures starring Jack Hedley in the title role. They attracted almost 80% of all TV viewers—partly because, at that time, many European countries had one TV station each.
In the sixties and seventies, many mini-series adapted from Durbridge's works were produced in Italy by RAI-TV. They featured some of the best Italian actors, among them Aroldo Tieri, Giuliana Lojodice, Nando Gazzolo, Ugo Pagliai, Luigi Vannucchi, Alberto Lupo and Rossano Brazzi. In France, TV scriptwriter and director Abder Isker produced some of Durbridge's adaptations for ORTF.
In the mid-1960s, mini-series based on the Paul Temple novels appeared on TV in Europe.
The 1969–1971 television series Paul Temple ran for 52 episodes over four seasons, with the last 39 episodes being the first international television co-production, made by the BBC with Taurus Films of Munich, West Germany. Paul Temple was played by British actor Francis Matthews, with Ros Drinkwater playing Steve. Only 16 of the 52 episodes survive in the BBC TV archives today, with their original English soundtracks. The visuals of some of the 36 missing episodes survive in the ZDF TV archives in Germany, but only with the dubbed German soundtracks.
The surviving 11 colour episodes of Paul Temple were re-run on UK Gold in its formative years. In July 2009, Acorn Media released the 11 existing colour episodes on DVD. In April 2012, Acorn Media released a DVD of the final 5 episodes ever broadcast, which are only available in black and white. In August 2013, Acorn Media released all 16 existing episodes on DVD, in a release named Paul Temple: The Complete Collection.
Novels
Durbridge wrote many Paul Temple novels, starting with Send for Paul Temple in collaboration with John Thewes. 'Thewes' is thought to have been a pseudonym for Charles Hatton, with whom Durbridge collaborated on the following four Temple novelisations up until 1948. All of these were rapidly adapted from Durbridge's original radio scripts in order to capitalise on the popularity of the radio serial. Publicity for Send for Paul Temple described it as "the novel of the thriller that created a BBC fan-mail record". Durbridge used a co-author because he regarded himself as a writer of dialogue, a scriptwriter rather than a novelist. The two novels with Douglas Rutherford appeared under the pen name 'Paul Temple'. The Tyler Mystery is unusual in giving Temple's wife Steve a more central role. East of Algiers was partly based on the 1947 radio serial Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery.Durbridge wrote three Tim Frazer novels: The World of Tim Frazer, Tim Frazer Again and Tim Frazer Gets the Message. Beware of Johnny Washington was a substantially re-written version of the first Paul Temple novel, Send for Paul Temple and there were three others based on Paul Temple scripts that were recycled as non-Temple books. Two titles, Back Room Girl and The Pig-Tail Murder were written as original novels, but most of the later books were adapted from the television plays of the 1960s and 1970s.
List of radio plays and serials
The dates given are those of the first broadcast :Paul Temple
- Send for Paul Temple – 8 April 1938
- Paul Temple and the Front Page Men – 2 November 1938
- News of Paul Temple – 13 November 1939
- Paul Temple Intervenes – 30 October 1942
- Send for Paul Temple Again – 13 September 1945
- A Case for Paul Temple – 7 February 1946
- Paul Temple and the Gregory Affair – 17 October 1946
- Paul Temple and Steve – 30 March 1947
- Mr and Mrs Paul Temple – 21 November 1947
- Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery – 1 December 1947
- Paul Temple and the Curzon Case – 7 December 1948
- Paul Temple and the Madison Mystery – 12 October 1949
- Paul Temple and the Vandyke Affair – 3 November 1950
- Paul Temple and the Jonathan Mystery – 10 May 1951
- Paul Temple and Steve Again – 8 April 1953
- Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case – 2 April 1954
- Paul Temple and the Madison Mystery – 20 June 1955
- Paul Temple and the Lawrence Affair – 11 April 1956
- Paul Temple and the Spencer Affair – 13 November 1957
- Paul Temple and the Vandyke Affair – 1 January 1959
- Paul Temple and the Conrad Case – 2 March 1959
- Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case – 22 November 1959
- Paul Temple and the Margo Mystery – 1 January 1961
- Paul Temple and the Jonathan Mystery – 14 October 1963
- Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery – 11 April 1965
- Paul Temple and the Alex Affair – 26 February 1968
- Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery – 7 August 2006
Other radio plays and serials
- Promotion – 3 October 1934
- Information Received – 25 February 1938
- We Were Strangers – 9 July 1940
- And Anthony Sherwood Laughed – 20 December 1940
- Mr Hartington Died Tomorrow § – 9 February 1942
- The Essential Heart ‡ – 6 February 1943
- Farewell Leicester Square § – 8 February 1943
- Over My Dead Body – 11 April 1945
- John Washington Esquire – 16 September 1949
- What Do You Think? – 12 September 1962
- La Boutique – 2 October 1967
List of British TV series
- A Francis Durbridge Serial
- *The Broken Horseshoe
- *Operation Diplomat
- *The Teckman Biography
- *Portrait of Alison
- *My Friend Charles
- *The Other Man
- *A Time of Day
- *The Scarf
- Francis Durbridge Presents
- *The World of Tim Frazer
- *The Desperate People
- *Melissa
- *A Man Called Harry Brent
- *A Game of Murder
- *Bat Out of Hell
- Paul Temple
- Francis Durbridge Presents
- *The Passenger
- *Melissa
- *The Doll
- *Breakaway – The Family Affair
- *Breakaway – The Local Affair
List of German TV adaptations
- Der Andere
- Es ist soweit
- '
- '
- '
- '
- '
- '
- ', with Paul Hubschmid
- ', with Hardy Krüger
List of Italian TV adaptations
- '
- ', with Massimo Girotti
- ', with Rossano Brazzi
- '
- '
- '
- '
- ', with Nino Castelnuovo
- ', with Marilù Tolo
- '
List of French TV adaptations
- L'Écharpe, with Raymond Pellegrin
- Mélissa
- À corps perdu, with Danièle Delorme
- , with Marie-France Pisier
- Un certain Richard Dorian
- La Passagère
- La Mort d'un touriste
Other TV adaptations
- '
- Huivi
List of plays
List of films
List of novels
Paul Temple novels
- Send for Paul Temple
- Paul Temple and the Front Page Men
- News of Paul Temple
- Paul Temple Intervenes
- Send for Paul Temple Again!
- The Tyler Mystery by 'Paul Temple'
- East of Algiers by 'Paul Temple'
- Paul Temple and the Kelby Affair
- Paul Temple and the Harkdale Robbery
- The Geneva Mystery
- The Curzon Case
- Paul Temple and the Margo Mystery
- Paul Temple and the Madison Case
- Paul Temple and the Conrad Case
Tim Frazer novels
- The World of Tim Frazer
- Tim Frazer Again
- Tim Frazer Gets the Message
Other novels
- Back Room Girl
- Beware of Johnny Washington
- Design for Murder
- The Other Man
- A Time of Day
- The Scarf
- Portrait of Alison
- My Friend Charles
- Another Woman's Shoes
- The Desperate People
- Dead to the World
- My Wife Melissa
- The Pig-Tail Murder
- A Man Called Harry Brent
- Bat out of Hell
- A Game of Murder
- The Passenger
- Breakaway
- The Doll
Personal life