Dramatised by Neville Teller from Ethel Lina White's novel "The Wheel Spins."
It is the late 1930s and the forthcoming world war casts its shadow across Europe. Iris Carr is travelling alone on the continent, having visited a remote mid-European country, Zabrovinia, and is returning to England on an express train where she meets a pleasant, garrulous, middle-aged Englishwoman in the railway carriage, Miss Froy.
Iris drops off to sleep. When she wakes up, Miss Froy has disappeared, and her very existence is denied by the other passengers. Iris is slowly driven towards admitting that Miss Froy is nothing but a delusion. And yet a couple of tiny clues support her insistence that Miss Froy exists and that something sinister has befallen her.
Cast:
Miss Froy.........Renee Asherson
Iris Carr......... Jenny Funnell
Max.........Mark Paton
Professor Wilburforce.........Mark Tandy
Dr Tranitz.........Richard Durdin
The Baron Hoffmyer.........Michael Roberts
Prince Fredrick.........Jonathan Keeble
Mrs. Barns.........Karen Lewis
The Baroness.........Shirley Dickson
Evelyn Flat-Porter.........Geraldine Fitzgerald
Rose Flat-Porter.........Jan Shand
Ian Breverton.........Jeffrey Beevers
Other parts were played by members of the cast.
Directed by Andy Jordan
1999 BBC World Service
Size 53MB. Length 58 min. Bit Rate 128kbps
Within this group Rikkla has posted an abridged reading of "The Lady Vanishes" (“The Wheel Spins”).
Interesting to compare this to the drama and the various film versions made.
Replies
Last Call before the DVD goes away:
The 2013 BBC-1 TV version is actually the closest to the book and is not bad. (I have this one if anyone wants it)
Bob
Thanks! Looking forward to hearing Neville Teller's take on it.
Thank you. No TV, but well entertained using sites like 'Times Past'.
Who needs to be tied to a goggle box?
With radio you can be doing all sorts of things at the same time.
Welcome to the group.
Thanks!
You are very welcome; as always abby.
Regards
William
The classic 1938 Hitchcock film (Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas and Margaret Lockwood) is available in full at the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/lady_vanishes
The 1979 Cybill Shepherd and Elliot Gould comedy version is ludicrously bad. Add in Herbert Lom and Angela Lansbury and you have all the ingredients for a real stinker.
The 2013 BBC-1 TV version is actually the closest to the book and is not bad. (I have this one if anyone wants it)
Bob
I was lucky enough to see the 1979 version first, so I enjoyed it because I had nothing to compare it with.
The Hitchcock version is a classic of course, though some of the effects look odd to a modern viewer.