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The Night of the 27th.
On December 27th. 1949 the BBC Light Programme broadcast a play by Edward J. Mason, prolific author of such as 'Dick Barton' and 'The Younger Generation' at the time, with 'The Archers' still to come. This piece, entitled 'The Night of the 27th', told of a get together by radio characters at a dinner party. In attendance were such as The Man in Black, The Dales, Paul and Steve Temple, Philip Odell and that intrepid constable, P.C. 49.
In a scene that occurs on pages 8 and 9 of the script, Mrs. Temple hears the faint strains of THE HARRY LIME THEME coming from another room. "Don't tell me the Third Man's here, too?" she laughs. The private eye, Odell, has just arrived and says "You know, this record does things to me." Mrs. Temple agrees. "It did things to me - the first 457 times I heard it."
Odell nods and comments "If you want to make money these days, detective work is out - you've got to learn to play a zither. You can't lose."
P.C. 49,
passing by joins in.
"I knew a man who used to play a zither in the gutter
outside a pub near Piccadilly."
Odell shrugs.
"Don't tell me. At midnight, a Rolls Royce with a liveried
chauffeur came along".
P.C. 49
raises his eyebrows.
"That's right. You knew him too, did you?"
"No, I'm psychic," retorts Odell. He adds "And the chauffeur opened the door and the man with the zither got inside to be whisked away to a suite at the Savoy!"
49 shakes his
head.
"No, you're not psychic," he says.
"Why, what happenend then?"
There's a
twinkle in 49's eyes and his moustache trembles.
"The Rolls Royce ran over him!"
Taken from an article written by Colin Morgan in 'In Tune' magazine issue 66 (April/May 1996)
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