SNT 1976-06-26 Riverside Villas Murder (Kingsley Amis) 26.6.1976.txt
Kingsley Amis - The Riverside Villas Murder
BBC Radio 4: Saturday Night Theatre
Broadcast: Saturday 26th June 1976 @ 8:30 p.m.
A classic armchair mystery, "The Riverside Villas Murder" has for its hero a 14-year-old boy, Peter Furneaux. The play begins
on a summer evening in 1936 and, like all 14-year-olds, Peter is hovering hopefully on the brink between sexual inexperience
and initiation. But he is forced into manhood when a crime, truly murderous, is committed by an unknown and almost
unidentifiable assailant. Only Peter begins to guess at the truth - a dangerous truth - which leads him to the river bank by
moonlight.
Dramatised for radio by Frederick Bradnum from the 1973 novel "The Riverside Villas Murder" by Kingsley Amis.
With Ian Sharrock [Peter Furneaux], Peter Jeffrey [Colonel Mountain], Norma Ronald [Mrs. Trevelyn], Stephen Thorne [Captain
Furneaux], Paul Myer [Detective Constable Barrett], Clifford Norgate [Detective Hodgson], Deborah Paige [Daphne Hodgson],
Malcolm Reid [Mr. Langdon], Garard Green [Inspector Cox], Anne Jameson [Mrs. Ellington / Mrs. Hodgson], Leslie Heritage
[Mr. Trevelyn], Steve Hodson [Mr. Inman], Douglas Blackwell [Sergeant Duke], and Joanna Wake [Mrs. Furneaux].
Produced and Directed by Harry Catlin
Size: 79,205 Kb kbps: 128 kHz: 44 Time: 1 hr. 24 min. 28 sec. (Stereo)
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Review of Book:
In the middle part of his writing career, Kingsley Amis alternated his caustic, brilliant novels about the state of contemporary
England with far more experimental work. "The Riverside Villas Murder", while avoiding the abstract approach he demonstrated
in "The Anti-Death League", or the supernatural experimentation of "The Green Man", falls into this category. Set in a leafy
London suburb in the 1930s, the novel follows Peter, a 14-year-old schoolboy about to be initiated into the adult world through his
involvement in a violent local murder. Exploring the sordid underside of genteel suburban life, in a time most of us would assume
was more innocent, Peter is a brilliantly drawn character. Amis is particularly astute in judging the moods and opinions of his
protagonist, and Peter's sexual "awakening" is especially well-handled. Few writers would have Amis' deftness of touch in this
area - he makes it clear that while at the same time Peter is as obsessed with sex as any other 14-year old boy, he is still a child.
Smoking illicit cigarettes one minute, he'll be playing with toy aeroplanes in the field behind his house the next. Amis'
characterisation is easily as effective in his portrayal of the relationship between Peter and his father - in most Amis novels, it is
dialogue that reveals the essential truths of his characters, but with Peter's father it is what he does not say that reveals the most
about him.
A superbly entertaining novel about a reserved, and in many ways hypocritical, society about to be changed irrevocably by war,
"The Riverside Villas Murder" is also an excellent whodunnit, a masterful rites-of-passage tale, and being by Kingsley Amis it is
of course extremely funny. It's a shame this book has been out of print for so long - we can only hope that this situation is rectified
as soon as possible, so that more readers can access one of the best novels by one of post-war Britain's best novelists
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