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Double Jeopardy
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2016
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About the author
Stephen Wyatt
55 books6 followersStephen Wyatt was educated at Latymer Upper School and then Clare College, Cambridge. After a brief spell as Lecturer in Drama at Glasgow University, he began his career as a freelance playwright in 1975 as writer/researcher with the Belgrade Theatre Coventry in Education team.
His subsequent young people's theatre work includes The Magic Cabbage (Unicorn 1978), Monster (York Theatre Royal 1979) and The Witch of Wapping (Half Moon 1980).
In 1982 and 1983 he was Resident Writer with the Bubble Theatre for whom he wrote Glitterballs and The Rogue's Progress.
Other theatre work includes After Shave (Apollo Theatre 1978), R.I.P Maria Callas (Edinburgh Festival / Hen and Chickens 1992), A working woman (from Zola's L'Assommoir) (West Yorkshire Playhouse 1992) and The Standard Bearer (Man in the Moon 2001). He also collaborated with Jeff Clarke on The Burglar's Opera for Opera della Luna (2004) "stolen from an idea by W. S. Gilbert with music nicked from Sir Arthur Sullivan".
His first work for television was Claws, filmed by the BBC in 1987, starring Simon Jones and Brenda Blethyn. Wyatt then went on to write two scripts for the science fiction series Doctor Who — these were Paradise Towers and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. Both of those serials featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. His other television credits include scripts for The House of Eliott and Casualty.
He has worked for BBC Radio since 1985 as both an adapter and an original playwright.
His subsequent young people's theatre work includes The Magic Cabbage (Unicorn 1978), Monster (York Theatre Royal 1979) and The Witch of Wapping (Half Moon 1980).
In 1982 and 1983 he was Resident Writer with the Bubble Theatre for whom he wrote Glitterballs and The Rogue's Progress.
Other theatre work includes After Shave (Apollo Theatre 1978), R.I.P Maria Callas (Edinburgh Festival / Hen and Chickens 1992), A working woman (from Zola's L'Assommoir) (West Yorkshire Playhouse 1992) and The Standard Bearer (Man in the Moon 2001). He also collaborated with Jeff Clarke on The Burglar's Opera for Opera della Luna (2004) "stolen from an idea by W. S. Gilbert with music nicked from Sir Arthur Sullivan".
His first work for television was Claws, filmed by the BBC in 1987, starring Simon Jones and Brenda Blethyn. Wyatt then went on to write two scripts for the science fiction series Doctor Who — these were Paradise Towers and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. Both of those serials featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. His other television credits include scripts for The House of Eliott and Casualty.
He has worked for BBC Radio since 1985 as both an adapter and an original playwright.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 18, 2018
From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
4 Extra Debut. 1944, and Raymond Chandler spends four months locked in an office with Billy Wilder adapting Double Indemnity. Stars Patrick Stewart.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y...
4 Extra Debut. 1944, and Raymond Chandler spends four months locked in an office with Billy Wilder adapting Double Indemnity. Stars Patrick Stewart.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y...
November 16, 2018
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y...Description: Patrick Stewart stars as Raymond Chandler and Adrian Scarborough is Billy Wilder in this entertaining glimpse inside the Hollywood film industry. In 1944 the two men came together to work on a screen adaptation of James M Cain's novel Double Indemnity. Billy Wilder is a 36 year old German Jewish émigré just making his name as a director and Raymond Chandler is a reformed alcoholic with a developing reputation as a novelist but absolutely no experience of writing for movies. The play follows their famously difficult collaboration.
Directed by Claire Grove
Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler are legendary. The English-educated, middle-aged , would-be intellectual versus the ambitious young German émigré. Paramount Studios put Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder together because none of the big names would touch James M Cain's novel. With its adulterous lovers, and a crime that could be copied, it was judged too controversial to adapt because of the censorious Production Code guidelines. Chandler and Wilder famously hated each other but in a space of some four months locked in an office together they created an outstanding screenplay for a ground-breaking classic film .
Want to read
November 14, 201813 NOV 2018 - a lunch-time listen-to recommendation through Bettie. Many Thanks.
Listen here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y...
It stars the fab Sir Patrick Stewart!
Listen here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y...
It stars the fab Sir Patrick Stewart!
March 7, 2024
Geestig hoorspel over de onwaarschijnlijke samenwerking tussen Billy Wilder en Raymond Chandler aan het script van Double indemnity.
Een leerrijke inkijk in Hollywood, in de kunst van scenario schrijven, maar vooral een spits geschreven komische clash tussen de koppige extremen van dit vreemd koppel.
Een leerrijke inkijk in Hollywood, in de kunst van scenario schrijven, maar vooral een spits geschreven komische clash tussen de koppige extremen van dit vreemd koppel.
July 22, 2025
Double Jeopardy by Stephen Wyatt
Excellent entertainment
Once in a while, I plan to listen to a BBC production of a play.
There is a Double Indemnity at work here, with one advantage that they have been very entertaining- out of three two have been wonderful.
And to double the indemnity, they are also rather short and one gets a maximum of enjoyment, with minimum risk.
I have started Quartet, a play that I did not like, but it did not cost me hours, which is the case with some Kindle versions, to realize I am getting nowhere.
This production has Patrick Stewart and Adrian Scarborough playing the only roles in the play, those of:
- Raymond Chandler- Patrick Stewart
- Billy Wilder played by Adrian Scarborough
Billy Wilder has the idea to make a movie, which he would direct, based on the book Double Indemnity by James Cain.
I did not know that, apart from being a fabulous, acclaimed director- Some Like It Hot being rated among the top 10 comedies of all time- the creator of German origin was also a writer, fact to each he refers a few times in this play.
Because he loves the works of Raymond Chandler, Wilder contacts him in order to have him write a script.
The two meet, but there is no love lost between these geniuses and this makes one wonder about the real encounter:
- Was this based on any memoir?
The result is nevertheless very entertaining, for the fuss that each makes over the other’s failings is funny.
It appears that Chandler is the one who gets more annoyed by the antics of Billy Wilder who benefits from a humorous description:
- The director was always on the move, agitating a cane that seemed to be on the point of hitting me, with a hat always on his head, like he was on permanently on the point of leaving the room
Billy Wilder is also very upset by the smoking and the attitude of the fellow writer, who complains to the studio:
- He smoke tobacco from his pipe, but that smells like dirty underwear…
- I have to say I was wrong about the tobacco smell…it is in fact like the unwashed armpits of a platoon of soldiers
I probably misquoted here and there, but this is a note which reveals what I have got out of the work, much less about the play itself- if you really want an accurate assessment, you better look for the notes of a real critic, not of an amateur reader.
The tension, the contradictions between the two work wonderfully, for the result is a script for a very well received movie.
Wilder was even hoping for Oscars, which he and Chandler may have deserved, and not getting any, he makes the competitor stumble, by jerking ahead a foot, while the man was walking to the podium for his prize.
The two script writers have a few opinions, one of which is to avoid at all costs making the characters gay- did they say pansy? I forgot.
It is a great entertainment; I am just wondering still, how much the personages resemble the real life screenwriters…one of whom is much better known as a novelist.
Billy Wilder, as he is described reminds me of Martin Scorsese, with the same continuous agitation and perhaps about the same, short height.
Both classic directors.
Excellent entertainment
Once in a while, I plan to listen to a BBC production of a play.
There is a Double Indemnity at work here, with one advantage that they have been very entertaining- out of three two have been wonderful.
And to double the indemnity, they are also rather short and one gets a maximum of enjoyment, with minimum risk.
I have started Quartet, a play that I did not like, but it did not cost me hours, which is the case with some Kindle versions, to realize I am getting nowhere.
This production has Patrick Stewart and Adrian Scarborough playing the only roles in the play, those of:
- Raymond Chandler- Patrick Stewart
- Billy Wilder played by Adrian Scarborough
Billy Wilder has the idea to make a movie, which he would direct, based on the book Double Indemnity by James Cain.
I did not know that, apart from being a fabulous, acclaimed director- Some Like It Hot being rated among the top 10 comedies of all time- the creator of German origin was also a writer, fact to each he refers a few times in this play.
Because he loves the works of Raymond Chandler, Wilder contacts him in order to have him write a script.
The two meet, but there is no love lost between these geniuses and this makes one wonder about the real encounter:
- Was this based on any memoir?
The result is nevertheless very entertaining, for the fuss that each makes over the other’s failings is funny.
It appears that Chandler is the one who gets more annoyed by the antics of Billy Wilder who benefits from a humorous description:
- The director was always on the move, agitating a cane that seemed to be on the point of hitting me, with a hat always on his head, like he was on permanently on the point of leaving the room
Billy Wilder is also very upset by the smoking and the attitude of the fellow writer, who complains to the studio:
- He smoke tobacco from his pipe, but that smells like dirty underwear…
- I have to say I was wrong about the tobacco smell…it is in fact like the unwashed armpits of a platoon of soldiers
I probably misquoted here and there, but this is a note which reveals what I have got out of the work, much less about the play itself- if you really want an accurate assessment, you better look for the notes of a real critic, not of an amateur reader.
The tension, the contradictions between the two work wonderfully, for the result is a script for a very well received movie.
Wilder was even hoping for Oscars, which he and Chandler may have deserved, and not getting any, he makes the competitor stumble, by jerking ahead a foot, while the man was walking to the podium for his prize.
The two script writers have a few opinions, one of which is to avoid at all costs making the characters gay- did they say pansy? I forgot.
It is a great entertainment; I am just wondering still, how much the personages resemble the real life screenwriters…one of whom is much better known as a novelist.
Billy Wilder, as he is described reminds me of Martin Scorsese, with the same continuous agitation and perhaps about the same, short height.
Both classic directors.
January 13, 2023
Who knew Chandler was such a dick.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews