Aberystwyth Mon Amour - mp3
Description:
Noirish comic thriller set on the mean streets of Aberystwyth. Written by
Malcolm Pryce and adapted for radio by Peter Morgan.
Malcolm Pryce's witty and scabrous comic thriller Aberystwyth Mon Amour is an
original and diverting entry into the field of black-comedy writing - a genre
which has enjoyed a long and healthy lineage, from Voltaire through Evelyn
Waugh to the present day although lately it is pretty well the preserve of
crime fiction. Making the unexciting Welsh town of Aberystwyth seem as
fascinating and dangerous for his hardboiled 'tec as the mean streets of
Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles is a daunting task but it's a trick Pryce pulls
off with considerable aplomb.
Throughout Aberystwyth, schoolboys are vanishing without trace, and Louie
Knight, the town's only private investigator, becomes involved when he has a
visit from the exotic singer Myfanwy Montez (love the name!). She is the star
of Wales' most outrageous nightclub, and is keen for Louie to track down her
missing cousin, known as Evans the Boot. Aided by such eccentrics as
philosopher-cum-ice-cream seller Sospan, Louie finds himself encountering a
plot quite as labyrinthine as any which exercised Philip Marlowe. Surely
Lovespoon, Grand Wizard of the Druids and the town's most powerful citizen, had
a hand in the disappearances?
Nothing is quite as it seems in Pryce's outrageous and irreverent tale, which
functions as a canny thriller as much as a wry parody. A good deal of the
humour comes from relocating Chandler's sun-baked California locales to a
parochial Welsh town, and all the clichés are ruthlessly exploded: Louie is
visited in his seedy office by his sultry female client in time-honoured
fashion. But it's the language, which leaps off the page, that really marks
Pryce out as a stylist of no mean skill, and his bizarre refraction of
Marlowe-speak is a real delight:
"By the time I reached the whelk stall the drizzle had finally made up its mind
and turned into rain, driving forward hard off the sea and into my face. The
booth was quiet: no-one there except a kid in charge--a pimply adolescent in a
grubby white coat and a silly cardboard hat. I ordered the special and waited,
as the youth kept a wary eye on me; trouble was never far away at this time of
night."
Original Book Review by Barry Forshaw
Cast:
Richard Nichols as Louie Knight
Lynne Seymour as Myfanwy Montez and
Manon Edwards as Mrs Llantrisant
Recorded from Radio Wales using Polderbits Sound Recorder and Editor
Replies
Dear Rick -
I thank you so much for another great series!
Bob
What a fun series. Thanks, Rick!
Bump to join the others in the series
I just bumped yours too. ---------------------- R
Yeah, I see ... but mine is brand new! :>)
You posted it after my new one so yours should be first and mine second, fair is fair. ---------------- R