Curlew in Autumn

Summary

David Ashton stars in this six-part vintage crime drama

A small town in Galloway, on the south-west coast of Scotland. A house strangely unchanged since 1941. A dead nurse. And a lawyer with one million pounds in his bank account - and no idea how it got there...

Peter Calman is in trouble. His legal firm is on the brink of bankruptcy, his secretary's handed in her notice and his bank manager has cut off his credit. Just when he thinks things can't get any worse, his ex-girlfriend Jenny calls, worried about her friend Tim Leighton. She's received a note, supposedly sent by him from an exclusive private hospital - but Tim is a penniless hermit, and illiterate.

Though the hospital denies all knowledge of Tim, Jenny's sure they're lying - and the mysterious caller on Peter's answerphone agrees. But before he can meet her, she's killed in a hit and run. Suspicion falls on Peter - and when a new German client arrives in town, offering him vast sums to buy a local cottage, the mutterings grow louder. And then Peter's office is ransacked...

As the mystery deepens, Peter's investigations take him to moonlit Dungrennan Bay...

Written by Edward Boyd (Castles in Spain, The Same River Twice, The Candle of Darkness), this tightly plotted thriller stars David Ashton, creator of the popular Victorian detective series McLevy, with a cast of veteran Scottish actors including Gregor Fisher (Rab C. Nesbitt).



Written by Edward Boyd
Directed by Patrick Rayner

Cast
Peter Calman - David Ashton
Jenny - Stella Forge
Magda - Vivienne Dixon
Old Hansford - Ian Stewart
Constable Archie Douglas/Elphinstone - Robert Paterson
Jock Matheson - John Shedden
Bank clerk/Hospital receptionist - Tamara Kennedy
Piggy Anderson/Donald McLeod/Chief Constable - John Buick
Nurse Nicolson - Anne Cullen
Isaiah Dunsmore - Gregor Fisher
Scholl - Brown Derby
Mary - Doreen Cameron
Dr Webber - Sandy Neilson
Sandy Brill/Clerk - Finlay Welsh
Walter Hansford - Ronald Aitken
Supt. Bullivant - Arthur Boland
Tim Leighton - Tom Criddle


First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 8 April-13 May 1984


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