Donna Fletcher Crow in conversation with Adam Graham

The inimitable Adam Graham has been one of my most-admired friends for many years—
and not just because he always wears a kilt!
I had even listened to some of Adam’s podcasts of
“The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio”,
but I had no idea of the wealth of material he offers for lovers of classic British mysteries until I interviewed him.

Donna: Adam, how did you get into this fascinating world of podcasting?
Adam: I've been fascinated by audio for many years. Back in the dial-up days of the Internet, my brother and I made Real Audio streaming online radio sketches on a lark, even creating a superhero radio drama which I've been strongly admonished against ever sharing! Then in the mid-2000s, I began recording live podcasts on topics like politics and bargains that didn't go anywhere. I did get interviewed by the local newspaper and boasted that I had a whole 15 subscribers.  I started hosting Old Time Radio podcasts in 2007 with the Old Time Dragnet show. In 2008, I started the Old Time Radio Superman show to help promote my own science fiction works.

 Donna: Then what got you doing the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio series?

Adam: Listeners to the Old Time Dragnet program kept sending me ideas to do other podcasts based on other old time radio detective programs they enjoyed. I resisted because these programs were so obscure that if I were to start a podcast based on a program like, for example, Rogue’s Gallery, by the time I had drawn an audience, the podcast would be over. By comparison, Dragnet had more than 300 episodes circulating and would take six years to finish. Superman would take more than a decade to complete at a rate of two episodes per week. Those made sense to do, anything else didn’t. More than that, I just wasn’t interested in any other programs. Until I stumbled across an online old time radio station and heard a series called Let George Do It that reminded me of my childhood love of mystery-solving TV shows like Perry Mason and Columbo as well as the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books.

Then, I had an idea for a new podcast. If programs were obscure, why make one show the focus of a Podcast, why not create a podcast that would continue on to another series after one was finished? And better yet, this would be a daily podcast.

My initial idea was to try to go through an entire series one episode at a time, five episodes per week until I finished. However, I realized a flaw with the plan.  Not all mystery fans would enjoy every program. If I started with a hard-boiled detective program and then did Sherlock Holmes, many listeners would drop out, and if I switched to something unlike Holmes when I finished, I’d again lose listeners.

Then I came up with the formula. We would do five different detective programs Monday-Friday. We’d go through each series from its first available episode to the sleuth’s final bow and we’d do different types of detective programs to appeal to the most listeners.

The series was successful. Each time we finished one series, we’d replace it with another.  Over the years, I’d receive notes from listeners who would list what programs they liked and which they hated and there would be
listeners whose hates and likes would be opposites—which confirmed that my plan worked.

Donna: I understand that your initial line-up was all American sleuths, except for Sherlock Holmes. When did you start sharing classic British mysteries?
Adam: By 2013, when the Old Time Dragnet Show ended after 2 ½ years, I was getting a handle on the podcasting part, but I learned I didn’t know nearly as much about real classic detective stories. One of my most embarrassing mistakes was when I played an episode of the American Hercule Poirot program and didn’t realize it was a half-hour condensation of Death on the Nile. My listeners let me know about that one! 

But I learned. I read more, listened more, and watched more. One thing I learned, though, is that there are few British radio programs available from radio’s golden age. So, in developing the classic British mystery series we’ve not played much radio directly recorded in the UK. However, many British detectives were popular and there were enough British ex-pats and Americans that could do passable British accents that there were several programs focusing on great British detectives and mysteries.

Donna: What British mystery writers have you featured?
Adam: We began by featuring detectives created by British writers or stories set in the UK:  Sherlock Holmes We did weekly Sherlock Holmes episodes for more than three years.  These include the iconic radio programs featuring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. But we also did a few episodes featuring earlier Holmes series starring Richard Gordon and Luis Hector, as well as an episode of the Mercury Theater featuring Orson Wells as Holmes. There’s even more available from the post-Rathbone-era with Tom Conway (Nigel Bruce Continuing as Dr. Watson), John Stanley, and one episode of Ben Wright’s 1949-50 series. Most of these were part of, “The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” which mixed in adaptations of Doyle’s stories with new stories written by Edith Meiser or Anthony Boucher with approval of the Doyle estate. Because of the commercial nature of American radio, each episode of The New Adventures would have the format of a host coming to visit Dr. Watson as a framing device. Commercials for sponsors such as G Washington Coffee, Petri Wines, and Clippercraft Clothes would be worked into these segments. In one episode of the John Stanley, Holmes and Watson even did a commercial for Clippercraft Clothes in character.

We also played the only British-originated program in fourteen years: The Sherlock Holmes program produced independently by Henry Allen Towers for Worldwide distribution starring Sir John Gielgud as Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as Doctor Watson.

Father Brown: This series moved Father Brown to New York with the idea of giving him American adventures. The series starred Karl Swenson, who was very good at performing dialects, and is best remembered as Mr.
Hanson from “Little House on the Prairie.” There are two episodes surviving. One of which is a faithful adaptation of, “The Three Tools of Death.”

Hercule Poirot: There are two Poirot adaptations from anthology series that survive. In a Campbell’s Playhouse adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Orson Welles played both Poirot and Dr. Sheppard. There was also an adaptation of a Poirot short story. Then there was a series of original tales that told of Poirot’s American adventures. In the first episode, Poirot struggles to find an apartment in New York’s World War II housing crunch. The series had Agatha Christie’s approval. The first episode exists and was supposed to feature a live transatlantic transmission but technology failed and they had to use a recording instead.

Raffles: There were two self-contained half hour episodes from different iterations of Raffles as a reformed thief turned crime solver: “Imposter” in which Raffles is accused of murder, and “Murder Signs it’s Name” where a woman asks Raffles to recover her stolen jewels.

Pursuit: I didn’t know whether this was a British or American series at first, but it was actually an American series about Scotland Yard Inspector Peter Black solving crimes in post-War England.

Donna: Many British-born actors came over to Hollywood. Did any of them feature in series set in America?
Adam:  There were a few of these actually.

The Private Files of Rex Saunders: This series starred Rex Harrison as Rex Saunders, a freelance troubleshooter. The series had a lot of similarities to Bulldog Drummond right down to its opening foghorn. 

Tales of Fatima: In this series, Basil Rathbone plays Basil Rathbone who is constantly finding himself involved in mysteries. This is an odd idea for a series with two episodes in circulation: “A Much Expected Murder” and “Time to Kill.” 

The Man Called X: British-born American Actor Herbert Marshall stars as a top-flight International Troubleshooter for the US government.  It was the most popular espionage program in the US prior to James Bond.

Donna: You've done quite a few one-off mystery specials from anthology programs. Have any of these featured British mysteries?
Adam: Yes, while none of them originated from the U.K. and few featured British actors, American radio (particularly during World War II and before) was definitely in love with British mysteries The ones we've featured are: G. K Chesterton’s classic The Man Who Was Thursday  from the Mercury Theater with Orson Welles; The Thirty-Nine Steps was featured three times. Once with Glenn Ford in a version that was based on the 1930s Alfred Hitchcock Movie, once with Orson Welles in a version that tracked more closely with the John Buchan abbreviated version with Herbert Marshall; 

“The Lost Special” we featured twice. We did a version with Ben Wright that was a straight detective mystery.  The other with Orson Welles imagines the perpetrator of the crime doing a radio broadcast explaining how he did it and threatening to name his employers if they don’t get him a pardon before the episode is over; 

“The Holloway Flat Tragedy” featured blind British detective Max Carrados; 

“Death in the Dressing Room” featured John Dickson Carr’s creation HM Merrivale; 

We featured a two-part adaptation of The Moonstone starring Peter Lawford (Part One) and (Part Two); 

We also played an hour-long adaptation of E. C. Bentley’s Trent’s Last Case; 

We featured an adaptation of Dorothy L Sayers’ short-story  “The Caves of Ali Baba” with Lord Peter Wimsey; 

For our 3,000^th episode special, we played an adaptation of the greatest British film of all time, The Third Man. (Joseph Cotton appears but not Orson Welles); 

We also played an adaptation of Thomas Burke’s classic story, “The Hands of Mr. 
https://www.spreaker.com/user/13210256/gd3752s_1"Ottermole” with Vincent Price and Claude Rains.

Donna: Tell us about your program The Amazing World of Radio.  Are there any particular programs that would be of interest to fans of classic British works?
Adam: The Amazing World of Radio is a series that explores a variety of programs outside the realm of detective fiction and is a much more intermittent podcast. We play Holiday programs. We feature Easter, Christmas, and Thanksgiving regularly and others such as Washington’s Birthday and New Year’s Day more infrequently. We'll usually play a short five-to-six-week Spring series. In addition, we'll play old time radio programs that feature actors who recently passed way We've done that after the passing of such performers as Kirk Douglas, Olivia De Havilland, Ed Asner, Betty White, and Larry Storch.

In addition to this, every year, we play a Summer series chosen by my Patreon supporters. The subject matter can vary quite a bit. Last year, we did a series of audio dramas in which all the characters were played one actor|. This year, we're doing Mr. and Mrs. Blandings (a sequel sitcom series to the 1948 Cary Grant film, no relation to P.G. Woodhouse's Blanding Castle.)

In the course of all these series, we've featured quite a few adaptations of classic British stories:

 Most prominently. in 2019, Patreon supporters voted for a Summer of Angela Lansbury in 2019 featuring her
old-time radio performances. She appeared in several adaptations from British literature:

Pride and Prejudice

Mansfield Park

Of Human Bondage

Cashel Byron’s Profession 

For our New Year’s special after 2020, we played an adaptation of Noel Coward’s Cavalcade; We also presented a Spring series featuring a two-part adaptation of the novels Alice in Wonderland (Part One) (Part Two) and Through the Looking Glass (Part One) (Part Two) and then an adaptation of the Disney Version. 

We played a radio adaptation of the film version of The Scarlet Pimpernel  starring Leslie Howard as part of our series honoring Olivia De Havilland when she passed away in 2020.  Finally, we also featured two radio version of Shakespeare Plays: Henry IV (with a small part for Humphrey Bogart) and Julius Caesar  (starring Thomas Mitchell as Brutus and Claude Rains as Cassius).

Donna: And one of my favorites is your World War II series. Tell us about that.

Adam: I did this series in 2013 and 2014 with one episode added in 2016 and put together a wide variety of different radio programs (mostly American and mostly from during the War) to tell a narrative of America in World War II from the pre-War isolationism to a few episodes that looked at the aftermath. One episode that might be of particular interest is this episode of an American in England in which Norman Corwin narrates and explains the effect of the War on Cromer.

Donna: Yes! I found the Cromer broadcast to be a tear-jerker, as true war stories so often are. Thank you so much for this great information, Adam, and for doing these programs which offer so many hours of listening pleasure. Do you have anything else you want to share?
Adam: Readers might find this list of Old Time Radio Detective Programs helpful. Also, we  have a YouTube page. I know some people find the whole podcasting thing difficult technically. With the YouTube, we upload the audio of the program with still cover art, and people can listen on YouTube. We also have our Public Domain Video Theater posted on YouTube which is a video version of the podcast with public domain TV shows and movies. 

Donna: Adam, you leave me breathless. How many podcasts have you done?
Adam: Close to 6,000:
4,100 +specials for Great Detectives and counting.
1,022 for Old Time Radio Superman
326 for Old Time Dragnet Show
277 for the War
220 for the Amazing World of Radio and Counting

 

Donna Fletcher Crow is a former English teacher and a Life Member of the Jane Austin Society of America. She is the author of 50 books, mostly novels dealing with British history.  The award-winning Glastonbury, A Novel of the Holy Grail, an Arthurian grail search epic covering 15 centuries of English history, is her best-known work.  She is also the author of The Monastery Murders: A Very Private Grave, A Darkly Hidden Truth and An Unholy Communion as well as the Lord Danvers series of Victorian true-crime novels and the literary suspense series The Elizabeth & Richard Mysteries. Donna and her husband live in Boise, Idaho.  They have 4 adult children and 12 grandchildren. She is an enthusiastic gardener.

To read more about all of Donna’s books and see pictures from her garden and
research trips go to:
http://www.donnafletchercrow.com/

You can follow her on Facebook at: http://ning.it/OHi0MY