Spies and Espionage on Radio
- A very popular genre – whether it be modern, cold-war or even historical – a good ‘cloak and dagger’ story always works well.
- A genre that works extremely well with the medium of radio – all those word pictures, voice inflections and sound effects create vivid mind pictures.
- The images represented in these radio series meant that each individual listener created their own mind pictures – rather than images created by someone else.
- Traditionally these series were broadcast later in the evening (so that the children didn’t go to bed and have nightmares).
- The Adventures of Major Gregory Keen (the first of which is Dossier on Dumetrius) was one of the first post-war espionage series. Its outstanding success meant the follow-on adventure (Deadly Nightshade) was commissioned almost immediately. There are five adventures in the series.
- Long regarded as a forerunner to the James Bond franchise, The Adventures of Major Gregory Keen were penned by Lindsay Hardy – who had met and mixed with some of the inspirations for his characters when he was in London.
- Other popular titles in this genre include A Mask For Alexis, Goodbye Gwynnevere, The Red Gardenia and Undercover.
- We also have a series titled I, Spy in which each episode is a self-contained story – supposedly a true story – in which a person or event is detailed.
- As the behaviour of spies and commandos necessarily involves an element of crime – these stories are usually categorised as ‘Crime & Mystery’. Who are we to draw a line on what is crime and what is espionage??
- We’ve been told on more than one occasion – that people who listen to these stories in their cars have missed their turn-off due to their focus on the plot.
