Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case by Francis Durbridge

His scream of thwarted rage as he accidentally fell from a balcony in the final moments of the play (thus letting the BBC off the moral hook) was magnificently memorable.

Originally the actor Richard Hurndall had been booked for the part, and his name even appeared in Radio Times, but a last-minute indisposition gave the role to Coke, who took it with relish.

Just as the series itself was already one of the most popular and listened-to on the radio, during the war years coming a strong second to Appointment With Fear and easily beating Ernest Dudley's Dr Morelle.Ī stand-out performance was in George Bancroft Pleydell's famous drama The Ware Case (April 1959, with Isabel Dean), in which he played a man accused of murder who, after a tense trial, is finally found innocent – only to reveal, in a burst of gloating frenzy, that he did it after all. Holmes and Watson will forever be Carleton Hobbs and Norman Shelley the Mayor of Toytown will be Felix Felton Jeeves and Wooster are Richard Briers and Michael Hordern and Paul Temple, Francis Durbridge's radio sleuth, will always be, incontestably, Peter Coke.Ĭoke – pronounced 'Cook' – was already an established stage, screen and radio actor when he took on the role for Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case in March 1954. To the 1940s baby boomers – those born in the six years from 1944 to 1950 and brought up on a strict diet of the Home Service and the Light Programme on the wireless during the 1950s and the 1960s – certain radio voices will never be surpassed, or even matched.

Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case by Francis Durbridge