A British murder mystery series based on true life cases from Scotland Yard's files. Each episode was based on an item or items of evidence in their “crime museum”. Orson Welles hosted and narrated the shows, although he didn’t play characters. It’s a shame he didn’t – the investigating characters were boring; I think they vary from episode to episode but I could never tell because they are inter-changeable. And the acting from the suspects, victims, etc was off that generic English murder drama acting school (eg “I loved him, Bunty, I tell you I loved him”). It’s also a pity they didn’t do more period stories, since they would have done them easy enough on radio.
Still, some strong scripts – sometimes the killer even got away. “Glass Shards” reminded me of Law and Order, with the police running into dead ends. (A lot of the show was police procedural.) “Cord” was set in the theatre, and Orson’s absence from that show was particularly notable. The chloroform episode involving a affair between a married woman and a minister was really strong. I also enjoyed “Straight Razor" – they catch a killer who they suspect might be Jack the Ripper (he’s hung for murdering his wife but not the official Ripper crimes). A list of episodes is here.
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