Personal Call
Encyclopedia
Personal Call is the name of a half-hour radio play
written by Agatha Christie
and first performed on the BBC Radio
Light Programme on Monday, May 31, 1954 at 8.30pm. The play reuses the character of Inspector Narracott from the 1931 novel The Sittaford Mystery
.
, returned from their annual summer season at the archaeological dig at Nimrud
in 1952. The producer of the play, Ayton Whitaker, found the script to be "first rate" saying that it made, "full use of radio techniques and possibilities." It appears that Christie either did not specify Newton Abbot as one of the locales in the play or was happy for it to be changed, saying, "Any station will do. Newton Abbot telephone boxes and station geography would have to be vetted, of course."
In 1960, the BBC remade the play, this time produced by David H. Godfrey, and it was again transmitted on the Light Programme, this time at 9.30pm on Tuesday, November 29. No cast members from the 1954 production took part in this later version which was reviewed by Frederick Laws in The Listener who said it, "worked as neatly as those alarm clocks which also serve you with a cup of tea. It also did a bit of dodgy problem-solving solving of the sort psychologists allege that the mind does in sleep. And it only cheated, supernaturally, a little bit. It seemed, you see, as though a ghost was using the telephone service. Confident that neither the PMG (Postmaster General
), the powers above, nor Miss Christie would permit this, one waited, and the disclosure was suitably remarkable." He concluded, "The detective story, against all probability, seems to be coming back to radio."
The play has never been commercially published and received its first production since 1960 as part of the Agatha Christie Theatre Festival in 2001 at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff-on-Sea and has occasionally been performed since as a special event. The play was included in Murder on Air, a special production from April 22 to May 3, 2008 by the Agatha Christie Theatre Company of three of Christie's radio plays (the other two being The Yellow Iris
and Butter In a Lordly Dish
) at the Theatre Royal, Windsor
.
home of James and Pam Brent when there is a phone call. Mrs. Lamb, the Brent's housekeeper fetches James and the operator puts the call through. He hears a slightly ethereal voice that claims to be that of a woman called Fay. James is shocked and angry and demands to know who the caller really is. She repeats that she is Fay, she is at Newton Abbot railway station
and that she is waiting for him. Pam comes into the hall from the party and James, shaken, slams the phone down but refuses to say who the caller was. He sends her back to look after his guests and rings the operator to find out where the call came from. He is stunned to find out that no call has been put through to his house today. Pam comes back from the party again, suspicious about what is going on. James tries to reassure her that there is no problem. Pam tells him that she has invited two friends who she hasn’t seen for a long time to come round and play bridge tomorrow.
At a railway station a woman asks a porter where the telephone kiosk is for long-distance calls. After she has been pointed in the right direction, the porter turns to his colleague and tells him that she reminds him of someone – someone connected with the matter of a dead woman...
James and Pam are playing bridge with Evan and Mary Curtis when another call comes through. After James has gone into the hall to take it, Pam confesses to Mary that she is worried as yesterday’s call upset him so much. Mary suggests she listens in on the bedroom extension. Pam does so and hears as “Fay” speaks to James again. He demands to know who she is and where she is ringing from. For confirmation, she opens the door of the kiosk and he hears the guard’s cry announcing Newton Abbot railway station. Fay asks if he has noticed the time – it is 7.15pm and she tells him that she is waiting for him. Again, James slams the phone down. His friends notice his shaken condition when he returns to them and he tells them he has a headache. They decide to leave him, promising to see James and Pam again after their trip to France, which starts the day after tomorrow. They go and soon after Pam asks who Fay is and confesses to listening into the call. James tells her that Fay was the name he called his first wife, despite the fact that Pam knew her name to be Florence and that she died a year ago. James tells her the death was an accident. They were at Newton Abbot station and Fay, suffering a dizzy spell, fell under the path of an oncoming train – at 7.15pm. James tries to dismiss the incident of the spectral phone, looking forward to their trip to France.
The next day, Pam receives a phone call from Mr Enderby, their lawyer. He has seen to the matter of their will as arranged and now wants to know if he should retain it or should he send it on to their bank. Pam tells him the bank and Mr Enderby concludes the call by wishing her a pleasant and relaxing holiday and he hopes that she will recover from the dizzy spells she has been suffering from that James had told him about. Shaken, Pam thanks him and finishes the call – she hasn’t been suffering from any dizzy spells but before she can puzzle the matter out, she receives a second call. The ghostly caller announces herself as Fay Mortimer and tells Pam not to travel to France in a train with James. After the call is finished, James comes home and Pam asks him who Fay Mortimer is – she thought his first wife’s name was Garland. James is furious but Pam is determined to go to Newton Abbot the next day and to be there at 7.15pm to see what is happening. If James will not go with her, she will go alone.
The next day the two are at the station at the appointed time. Pam makes James talk through the sequence of events of what happened the year before and James tells again of Fay’s dizzy spells. Pam uses this prompt to tell James of Mr. Enderby’s comments on the phone yesterday. James is annoyed but before the conversation can progress, Fay herself walks along the platform towards them, saying that she has been waiting for him since he pushed her under the train the year before. Shocked and panicking, James backs off and falls into the path of a train passing through. Pam faints...
...and comes to in the office of the station master with Inspector Narracott of the police bending over her. He tells her that her husband is dead. It is fortunate for her as he has little doubt that she would not have survived the trip to France. James has murdered three wives before in the same fashion: one in Scandinavia, one in Wales and the last one here at Newton Abbot a year ago. She is introduced to "Fay" – it is, in fact, the dead girl’s mother who, her voice sounding similar and made-up to look younger, agreed to help the police trap the murderer of her daughter. The first time she rang she was in London, the second time was in Newton Abbot but no one was in the third time she called. Pam tells her she was mistaken – she spoke to her and warned her not to travel by train with James. Fay’s mother tells her that it is she who is mistaken. She has never spoken with Pam before. Pam is more disconcerted than ever - who did she speak to...?
Produced by Ayton Whitaker
Cast:
Jessie Evans as Fay
James McKechnie as James Brent
Mary Wimbush
as Pam Brent
Joan Sanderson
as Mrs. Lamb
Hamilton Dyce
as Evan Curtis
Janet Burnell as Mary Curtis
Norman Chidgey as Mr. Enderby
Edgar Norfolk as Inspector Narracott
With: Sulwen Morgan, Cyril Shaps
, Peter Claughton, Dorothy Clement, Alan Reid, Hugh David
and Ruth Cracknell
Cast:
Vivienne Chatterton as Mrs. Lamb
Ivan Brandt as James Brent
Beatrice Bevan as Fay
Barbara Lott
as Pamela Brent
George Hagan as Inspector Narracott
James Thomason as Mr. Enderby
William Eedle as Man/Porter
Charles Simon as 2nd Porter/Station Announcer
Michael Turner as Evan/Man
Eva Stuart as Mary/Woman
Penelope Lee as Operator/Woman
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
written by Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
and first performed on the BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
Light Programme on Monday, May 31, 1954 at 8.30pm. The play reuses the character of Inspector Narracott from the 1931 novel The Sittaford Mystery
The Sittaford Mystery
The Sittaford Mystery is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1931 under the title of The Murder at Hazelmoor and in UK by the Collins Crime Club on 7 September of the same year under Christie's original title...
.
Background
Christie’s official biography states that the play was written after she and her husband, Max MallowanMax Mallowan
Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan, CBE was a prominent British archaeologist, specialising in ancient Middle Eastern history, and the second husband of Dame Agatha Christie.-Life and work:...
, returned from their annual summer season at the archaeological dig at Nimrud
Nimrud
Nimrud is an ancient Assyrian city located south of Nineveh on the river Tigris in modern Ninawa Governorate Iraq. In ancient times the city was called Kalḫu. The Arabs called the city Nimrud after the Biblical Nimrod, a legendary hunting hero .The city covered an area of around . Ruins of the city...
in 1952. The producer of the play, Ayton Whitaker, found the script to be "first rate" saying that it made, "full use of radio techniques and possibilities." It appears that Christie either did not specify Newton Abbot as one of the locales in the play or was happy for it to be changed, saying, "Any station will do. Newton Abbot telephone boxes and station geography would have to be vetted, of course."
In 1960, the BBC remade the play, this time produced by David H. Godfrey, and it was again transmitted on the Light Programme, this time at 9.30pm on Tuesday, November 29. No cast members from the 1954 production took part in this later version which was reviewed by Frederick Laws in The Listener who said it, "worked as neatly as those alarm clocks which also serve you with a cup of tea. It also did a bit of dodgy problem-solving solving of the sort psychologists allege that the mind does in sleep. And it only cheated, supernaturally, a little bit. It seemed, you see, as though a ghost was using the telephone service. Confident that neither the PMG (Postmaster General
United Kingdom Postmaster General
The Postmaster General of the United Kingdom is a defunct Cabinet-level ministerial position in HM Government. Aside from maintaining the postal system, the Telegraph Act of 1868 established the Postmaster General's right to exclusively maintain electric telegraphs...
), the powers above, nor Miss Christie would permit this, one waited, and the disclosure was suitably remarkable." He concluded, "The detective story, against all probability, seems to be coming back to radio."
The play has never been commercially published and received its first production since 1960 as part of the Agatha Christie Theatre Festival in 2001 at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff-on-Sea and has occasionally been performed since as a special event. The play was included in Murder on Air, a special production from April 22 to May 3, 2008 by the Agatha Christie Theatre Company of three of Christie's radio plays (the other two being The Yellow Iris
The Yellow Iris (radio play)
The Yellow Iris is the name of a radio play written by Agatha Christie and broadcast on the BBC National Programme on Tuesday 2 November 1937 at 8.00pm...
and Butter In a Lordly Dish
Butter In a Lordly Dish
Butter in a Lordly Dish is the name of a half-hour radio play written by Agatha Christie and first performed on the BBC Radio Light Programme on Tuesday January 13, 1948 at 9.30pm in a strand entitled Mystery Playhouse presents The Detection Club. It was repeated on Friday January 16 at 4.15pm and...
) at the Theatre Royal, Windsor
Theatre Royal, Windsor
The Theatre Royal, Windsor is located in the town of Windsor, Berkshire, England, directly across the road from Windsor Castle.The present building was opened on 17 December 1910 after the previous theatre had burned down on 18 February 1908, under the ownership of Sir William Shipley.With the...
.
Plot summary
A cocktail party is in full flow at the KensingtonKensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
home of James and Pam Brent when there is a phone call. Mrs. Lamb, the Brent's housekeeper fetches James and the operator puts the call through. He hears a slightly ethereal voice that claims to be that of a woman called Fay. James is shocked and angry and demands to know who the caller really is. She repeats that she is Fay, she is at Newton Abbot railway station
Newton Abbot railway station
Newton Abbot railway station serves the town of Newton Abbot in Devon, England. It is from London on the Exeter to Plymouth line via the Reading to Taunton line, at the junction for the branch to . For many years it was also the junction for Moretonhampstead and the site of a large locomotive...
and that she is waiting for him. Pam comes into the hall from the party and James, shaken, slams the phone down but refuses to say who the caller was. He sends her back to look after his guests and rings the operator to find out where the call came from. He is stunned to find out that no call has been put through to his house today. Pam comes back from the party again, suspicious about what is going on. James tries to reassure her that there is no problem. Pam tells him that she has invited two friends who she hasn’t seen for a long time to come round and play bridge tomorrow.
At a railway station a woman asks a porter where the telephone kiosk is for long-distance calls. After she has been pointed in the right direction, the porter turns to his colleague and tells him that she reminds him of someone – someone connected with the matter of a dead woman...
James and Pam are playing bridge with Evan and Mary Curtis when another call comes through. After James has gone into the hall to take it, Pam confesses to Mary that she is worried as yesterday’s call upset him so much. Mary suggests she listens in on the bedroom extension. Pam does so and hears as “Fay” speaks to James again. He demands to know who she is and where she is ringing from. For confirmation, she opens the door of the kiosk and he hears the guard’s cry announcing Newton Abbot railway station. Fay asks if he has noticed the time – it is 7.15pm and she tells him that she is waiting for him. Again, James slams the phone down. His friends notice his shaken condition when he returns to them and he tells them he has a headache. They decide to leave him, promising to see James and Pam again after their trip to France, which starts the day after tomorrow. They go and soon after Pam asks who Fay is and confesses to listening into the call. James tells her that Fay was the name he called his first wife, despite the fact that Pam knew her name to be Florence and that she died a year ago. James tells her the death was an accident. They were at Newton Abbot station and Fay, suffering a dizzy spell, fell under the path of an oncoming train – at 7.15pm. James tries to dismiss the incident of the spectral phone, looking forward to their trip to France.
The next day, Pam receives a phone call from Mr Enderby, their lawyer. He has seen to the matter of their will as arranged and now wants to know if he should retain it or should he send it on to their bank. Pam tells him the bank and Mr Enderby concludes the call by wishing her a pleasant and relaxing holiday and he hopes that she will recover from the dizzy spells she has been suffering from that James had told him about. Shaken, Pam thanks him and finishes the call – she hasn’t been suffering from any dizzy spells but before she can puzzle the matter out, she receives a second call. The ghostly caller announces herself as Fay Mortimer and tells Pam not to travel to France in a train with James. After the call is finished, James comes home and Pam asks him who Fay Mortimer is – she thought his first wife’s name was Garland. James is furious but Pam is determined to go to Newton Abbot the next day and to be there at 7.15pm to see what is happening. If James will not go with her, she will go alone.
The next day the two are at the station at the appointed time. Pam makes James talk through the sequence of events of what happened the year before and James tells again of Fay’s dizzy spells. Pam uses this prompt to tell James of Mr. Enderby’s comments on the phone yesterday. James is annoyed but before the conversation can progress, Fay herself walks along the platform towards them, saying that she has been waiting for him since he pushed her under the train the year before. Shocked and panicking, James backs off and falls into the path of a train passing through. Pam faints...
...and comes to in the office of the station master with Inspector Narracott of the police bending over her. He tells her that her husband is dead. It is fortunate for her as he has little doubt that she would not have survived the trip to France. James has murdered three wives before in the same fashion: one in Scandinavia, one in Wales and the last one here at Newton Abbot a year ago. She is introduced to "Fay" – it is, in fact, the dead girl’s mother who, her voice sounding similar and made-up to look younger, agreed to help the police trap the murderer of her daughter. The first time she rang she was in London, the second time was in Newton Abbot but no one was in the third time she called. Pam tells her she was mistaken – she spoke to her and warned her not to travel by train with James. Fay’s mother tells her that it is she who is mistaken. She has never spoken with Pam before. Pam is more disconcerted than ever - who did she speak to...?
1954 Production
Cast:
Jessie Evans as Fay
James McKechnie as James Brent
Mary Wimbush
Mary Wimbush
Mary Wimbush was an English actress, whose career spanned sixty years from the 1940s to the 2000s...
as Pam Brent
Joan Sanderson
Joan Sanderson
Joan Sanderson was an English television and stage actress. During a long career she invariably played dragonish dowagers, stuck-up spinsters and suburban matrons.-Theatre:...
as Mrs. Lamb
Hamilton Dyce
Hamilton Dyce
Hamilton Dyce was a British film and television actor.-Selected filmography:* Whistle Down the Wind * Dr. Crippen * Mrs...
as Evan Curtis
Janet Burnell as Mary Curtis
Norman Chidgey as Mr. Enderby
Edgar Norfolk as Inspector Narracott
With: Sulwen Morgan, Cyril Shaps
Cyril Shaps
-Biography:Shaps was born in Highbury, London; he was of Polish ancestry and his father was a tailor.He was a child broadcaster, providing voices for radio commercials at the age of 12. After grammar school and Army service he trained at RADA and then worked for two years as an announcer, producer...
, Peter Claughton, Dorothy Clement, Alan Reid, Hugh David
Hugh David
Hugh David was an actor turned television director. David was born in Aberystwyth, Wales. His directorial credits include Compact, Z-Cars, The Pallisers and Doctor Who, for which he directed two stories in the Patrick Troughton era...
and Ruth Cracknell
Ruth Cracknell
Ruth Cracknell AM was an Australian theatre and television character actress who appeared in many comedy roles. She was known variously as "Crackers", "Dame Crackers" and "Dame Ruth" throughout a career spanning 56 years....
1960 Production
Produced by David H. GodfreyCast:
Vivienne Chatterton as Mrs. Lamb
Ivan Brandt as James Brent
Beatrice Bevan as Fay
Barbara Lott
Barbara Lott
Barbara Dulcie Lott was a British actress probably best remembered as Ronnie Corbett's character's mother, Phyllis Lumsden in the comedy series Sorry!...
as Pamela Brent
George Hagan as Inspector Narracott
James Thomason as Mr. Enderby
William Eedle as Man/Porter
Charles Simon as 2nd Porter/Station Announcer
Michael Turner as Evan/Man
Eva Stuart as Mary/Woman
Penelope Lee as Operator/Woman