Wednesday, August 15, 2007

A GIGANTIC HOUND


Karen over at the excellent Eurocrime has a post about the amateur production of Hound of the Baskervilles by the Malvern Theatre players which runs from 5-8th September.

The pleasure of being able to enjoy the stark beauty of Dartmoor is one of the benefits of living in Devon, but on a misty day it can be an inhospitable place even safely enclosed in a modern car. In August 1901 when the Hound of the Baskervilles first appeared as monthly parts in the Strand Magazine, Dartmoor would surely have seemed an even more frightening and terrifying location.

How incredibly patient the readers must have been to wait each month as the final episode was not published until April 1902.


Full details of the play at:

3 Comments:

Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

I wonder if this, plus the London productions of The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Thirty-Nine Steps presages a stage comeback for mystery.
===================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

7:13 PM  
Blogger Uriah Robinson said...

I saw the original film version of Thirty Nine Steps the other day and while obviously very dated it was still wonderful entertainment. I suspect that the producers are looking for great plots and you can't get much better than these two classics.
Great interview by the way, and your influence is such that I too have promoted Qui Xialong's position in my TBR pile.

7:25 AM  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

It would be interesting to put your answer before the producers of that stage version of The Thirty-Nine Steps. On the one hand, they may have loved the plot. On the other, they certainly did all kinds of things to it that Hitchcock never intended.

To name just two, the old couple who keep the hotel where Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll stay in the movie version are turned into what you expect old people to be in a sex farce. And the radio announcer broadcasting bulletins of Hannay's escape is flamboyantly gay, his voice going into little tremors when he mentions "the handsome Richard Hannay."

What's interesting is that the production stuck very closely to the Hitchcock movie, retaining most if not all of the scenes.

And I hope you like Death of a Red Heroine. I thought it was better than Qiu's next two novels, and I haven't yet read his fourth.
===================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

10:56 PM  

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