2 Saturday-Night Theatre: The Instruments of Darkness
Sat 24th Sep 1977, 20:30 on BBC Radio 4 FM
By Michael Robson
A comedy thriller; the second of two plays about the eccentric Inspector Millions.
The happy excitement attendant upon the forthcoming opening of the Crystal Palace has been marred by two inexplicable fatalities. Two days ago at half past six in the morning, a scaffolder was seen to fall abruptly some 40 feet to the floor of the Oriental Tea Room and, yesterday morning, an even more macabre death was to follow ... a man was seen lying motionless 60 feet up in the branches of a sycamore tree - the
centre-piece of a horticultural display! An motley crew assemble to sort out who did it: Joseph Paxton, a host of characters with unlikely names, and Inspector Millions and his sidekick Dynasty Surecard.
Directed By: David Spenser
Inspector Millions: Nigel Stock
Dynasty Surecard: Anthony Hall
Melisande, Lady Quandary: Elizabeth Proud
Porritt: Richard Hurndall
Xerxes, Lord Quandary: Manning Wilson
Sir Joseph Paxton/Fleet Ned Sprott: Brian Hewlett
Dr Melchior Yolland/Bishop of Whetstone:
Michael Deacon
Caroline Muldoon: Heather Bell
Nimbles Earthrowl: Peter Wickham
Edgar Joynstschism: Nigel Graham
Danvers Gimlinge: Michael Harbour
Sir Jericho Arbogast: Henry Knowles
Meldrum/Peebles Clatworthy: Trader Faulkner
Mrs Glumdalclitch Orsborne: Irene Sutcliffe
Daffodil: Penelope Reynolds
Nigel Stock as Inspector Millions
By Michael Robson
The Terrible Connexion, The first of two Victorian mysteries solved by 'the eccentric Inspector Millions', as the Radio Times has it.
Its companion-piece is The Instruments of Darkness
Both plays are self-consciously baroque and establish their own idiom, with formal dialogue, fanciful crimes and grotesque characters with outre names. Nigel Stock plays the inspector with great panache, relishing his lines and contriving to make him at once absurd and impressive. Anthony
Hall is his piping sidekick, the industrious Dynasty Surecard.
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