The Scoop and Behind the Screen
Two collaborative detective serials from the Detection Club.
The Scoop and Behind the Screen is a volume collecting two collaborative detective serials produced by members of the Detection Club. Broadcast weekly on the BBC National Programme in 1930 and 1931, the scripts were first published in The Listener and later issued in book form by Victor Gollancz Ltd in 1983.
Quick Facts
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Genre
- Crime novel
- Publisher
- Victor Gollancz Ltd
- Released
- 1983
- Format
- Print (Hardback)
- Pages
- 184 pp (first edition, hardback)
Facts from the source article.
Behind the Screen
Behind the Screen consisted of six episodes transmitted from 9:25 pm to 9:40 pm on Saturday evenings from 14 June to 19 July 1930. The contributors were Hugh Walpole (episode 1), Agatha Christie (episode 2, titled Something is Missing), Dorothy L. Sayers (episode 3, Man at the Gate), Anthony Berkeley (episode 4, I Killed Mr Dudden), E.C. Bentley (episode 5, Amy Intervenes), and Ronald Knox (episode 6, How Dudden Died). Each episode was first published in The Listener within a week of its broadcast, appearing in issues 75 through 80. In the book version and in The Listener, four episodes were untitled; the exceptions were the fourth and sixth, which were given the titles In the Aspidistra and Mr Parsons on the Case respectively.
The Scoop
The Scoop was a second serial commissioned by the BBC following the popularity of Behind the Screen, as announced in The Guardian on 2 December 1930. It comprised twelve instalments, all transmitted from 9:25 pm to 9:40 pm except for episode 7. The serial ran from 10 January to 28 March 1931. Contributors included Dorothy L. Sayers (episode 1), Agatha Christie (episodes 2 and 4, the latter titled The Strange Behaviour of Mr. Potts and published under the alternative title The Weapon), E.C. Bentley (episodes 3, Fisher's Alibi, and 8, The Sad Truth About Potts), Anthony Berkeley (episodes 5, Tracing Tracey, and 9, Bond Street and Broad Street, published under the slightly different title Bond Street or Broad Street?), Freeman Wills Crofts (episodes 6, Scotland Yard on the Job, and 11, Inspector Smart gets a Nasty Jar, published as Inspector Smart's Nasty Jar), and Clemence Dane (episodes 7, Beryl in Broad Street, transmitted from 8:30 pm to 8:55 pm, and 10, Beryl Takes the Consequences). Each episode was first published in The Listener within days of its broadcast, in issues 105 through 116.
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