“It’s brilliant!” I declared to Tim Beddows, visiting him back in 2019. “It’s like ITC on the radio! You’ve got to listen to it.” I’m not sure if he ever did, and if not, this is the story of what he sadly missed out on...
I have the radio on most days. I’m not listening to it as such: it’s merely a kind of background noise to take the edge off the silence that you get from living alone. Now and then, some random item will emerge from the drone and catch my attention. It was a few years ago now and I was in the middle of doing the washing-up (the always-on radio being located in the kitchen). I tend to have the set tuned to Radio 4 Extra by default: it avoids having to listen to the news (too depressing) or any of the contemporary ‘comedies’ on Radio 4 (too depressing – and not remotely funny). On this particular evening, I began to take more notice than usual of whatever programme was being transmitted. As I gradually tuned in my attention, I slowly realised that this programme was hysterically funny. It wasn’t meant to be. It was the earnest over-the-top acting that amused me, along with a script that mined every cliché in the melodramatic crime caper grab-bag. What on earth was it? I began to recognise certain voices in the cast – Francis de Wolff, Hamilton Dyce and other familiar names from British film and TV of the 1960s. Bestriding the whole production like a vocal colossus was the redoubtable Mr. Voice Over himself – the voice of Barrett Homes, Protect and Survive and a thousand and one other endeavours: Patrick Allen. How come I’d never come across this programme before?
The serial I’d stumbled across was, in fact, Battle For Inspector West, one of a number of radio adaptations of John Creasey’s novels featuring Roger ‘Handsome’ West, the youngest (and corniest) Chief Inspector in Scotland Yard. The novels are 100% nonsense: I speak from experience. Blood-thirsty, exploitative and, for their time, surprisingly violent. Realism doesn’t get a look in, and it’s hardly surprising considering the volume of Creasey’s output. According to the Radio Times blurb that accompanied the first Inspector West broadcast in 1967, Creasey’s books had sold more than twenty-five million copies across seventeen different languages. They may be of questionable literary merit, but you can’t argue with statistics like that. And that was nearly sixty years ago, so heaven knows how many more sales have been clocked up since then.
Spanning the years 1942-1978, Creasey turned in a staggering forty-three Inspector West novels, in addition to his many other series. Other long-running creations included The Toff, Gideon of Scotland Yard, and the Baron… two of which went on to become staples of the ITC action adventure genre. And ITC is where we’re going with this.
Having accidentally discovered the series, I stuck with it to the end – or, if you prefer, the following day, because I’d come in at episode five of six and the serial was being broadcast on a daily basis. No matter, because a few months later, the Inspector was back, and this time I was primed and ready for action…
Those radio Wests (if you’ll excuse a Shoestring-esque pun) were the closest thing I’d ever heard to ITC on the wireless, and I’ve been recommending them as such ever since to anyone who’ll listen. Stand by for West is breakneck, bonkers and ludicrously over-acted, not to mention chock-full of familiar voices that will be instantly recognisable to anyone who enjoys old British TV and movies of a certain era. The name of Patrick Allen alone should be enough to sell the series to anyone of that stripe, but as a bonus we get his real-life spouse Sarah Lawson filling the same role in the series as the Inspector’s wife, Janet.
The Inspector West serials are, in a word, brilliant. Not to be taken seriously, you understand. But hugely entertaining. Of the six produced for BBC Radio, only three appear to be extant: the aforementioned Battle for Inspector West (1967), along with Inspector West at Home (1968) and Inspector West at Bay (1969). Missing in action are A Beauty for Inspector West, Inspector West Cries Wolf (both 1970) and Inspector West Makes Haste (1971). The series was given the overall title Stand by For West and debuted on the BBC Light Programme before transferring to Radio 4. The programmes were typically transmitted mid-evening and many of them must have clashed with the actual ITC productions as they went out on television. We seldom had the radio on in the evening, which is one reason why I never got to hear them until more recently.
It wasn’t until 2019 that the serials found their way onto Radio 4 Extra’s playlist and they’ve been in more or less constant rotation ever since, clocking up on average one run per year. The good news (if you’ve read thus far and want to hear them for yourself) is that the first of them, Battle for Inspector West commenced its third repeat run on 4 Extra today (20.11.24), and will be available on catch up for the next month. Battle is my personal favourite of the three, but they all come highly recommended. This first serial is notable for Francis de Wolff’s performance in the role of super-villain ‘Carosian’ (his name, presumably, intended as a homonym for ‘corrosion’), a man who kills people using ‘the largest Alsatian dog I’ve ever seen’, and is planning the ultimate crime wave that will tear London apart unless West can stop him. “I want Carosian!” he barks at Assistant Commisioner Sir Guy Chatworth (Hamilton Dyce) “I want him badly!” And that’s one of the better lines of dialogue. If you go for radio drama of the “look, he’s holding a gun” variety, you’ll find all that and much more besides. Patrick Allen is in full-on voiceover man mode, even when complimenting his wife Janet on the quality of his breakfast: “mmm, that smells good.” Honestly, I’m not making this up.
Each episode begins the same way, with a melodramatic trumpet fanfare, grim shouty announcer and some screeching car tyres. Start as you mean to go on…
If the dreaded AI wants to achieve something actually worthwhile, as opposed to trying to make the entire creative industry redundant, it might set itself the task of turning these audio classics into full visual extravaganzas. They can scrape Allen and Lawson from Night of the Big Heat, and take it from there...
New listeners start here: Stand by for West
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