Whose Body?

by Chris Miller (Adapter), Dorothy L. Sayers, Ian Carmichael (Narrator)

Ian Carmichael is Lord Peter Wimsey, with Patricia Routledge as his mother, in this BBC radio 4 full-cast dramatisation by Chris Miller.

Dorothy L. Sayers’ first Lord Peter Wimsey tale introduces many of the author’s best-known characters. Wimsey’s mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, rings her son with news of ‘such a quaint thing’. She has heard through a friend that Mr Thipps, a respectable Battersea architect, found a dead man in his bath - wearing nothing but a gold prince-nez. Lord Wimsey makes his way straight over to Mr Thipps’, and a good look at the body raises a number of interesting questions. Why would such an apparently well-groomed man have filthy black toenails, flea bites and the scent of carbolic soap lingering on his corpse?

Then comes the disappearance of oil millionaire Sir Reuben Levy, last seen on the Battersea Park Road. With his beard shaved he would look very similar to the man found in the bath - but is Sir Levy really dead?

This adaptation was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 - 30 December 1973 to 27 January 1974.

Genres: Mystery, Audiobook

3 pages, Audio CD

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the book itself a while ago, but this is the BBC radioplay. It gives me the terrible urge to say things like "top hole" and "jolly good" and so on -- mimicking Ian Carmichael's tone, of course. I'm late to this party, I know, but he makes an excellent Peter Wimsey: in fact, all the casting is very good. It brings across the tone of the book very well, too. Very fun to listen to -- it made me laugh a fair few times.

(It did also make me realise that if Peter Carmichael of Jo Walton's Small Change trilogy isn't a deliberate reference, it ought to be.)

The plot itself, well, it was a bit easy for me to follow, having read the book before. It's an interesting enough mystery -- and there was enough of a gap between me reading the book and hearing the radioplay that meant I was puzzling over the exact way Peter would figure things out, which kept me even more entertained.

[Carlee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to this 5 episode radio adaption of the book Whose Body? It was pretty enjoyable, although some of the music intros and outros were a bit long (I get that it's how it was on the BBC broadcast but they could probably have trimmed it out of the audiobook).

[Isabella ⸙ · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fine. The murder mystery itself - the skeleton of the story, if you will - was quite clever, but the story, the flesh, lacked substance in other aspects, especially the characters and their psychologies. Lord Peter Wimsey is annoying, but I'll still give some other books a shot, since I hear that the writing improves as the series go on. (I still prefer Agatha Christie #sorrynotsorry)

[Loren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book shows Sayers' adeptness at a classic whodunnit. All the pieces are there, waiting to be found, or missed, by the reader.

[sabisteb aka callisto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lord Peter Wimsey wird von seiner Mutter, der Duchess of Denver, gebeten beim Architekt, der an ihrer Kirche Reparaturen vornimmt vorbeizuschauen. In Mr. Thipps Badewanne wurde eine Leiche gefunden, die bis auch eine Brille unbekleidet ist.
Inspektor Sugg verdächtigt den Architekten, Wimsey jedoch glaubt an ein viel komplexeres Verbrechen, den zeitgleich verschwand der reiche Banker Sir Reuben Levy, der dem Toten in der Badewanne erstaunlich ähnlich sieht.

Ich liebe ja die Sir Peter Wimsey Hörspiele mit Ian Carmichael als Lord Peter aus dem 70er Jahren. Warum auch immer, dieser erste Fall wurde damals nicht vertont, sondern erst 1987, dann aber mit Gary Bond als Lord Peter.
Davon abgesehen, dass Dorothy L. Sayers Debutroman nicht an ihre anderen Fälle heranreicht, dafür ist das Motiv zu überkonstruiert und auch die Tat und deren Durchführung dermaßen abstrus verkompliziert, kann Gary Bond nicht annähernd an Ian Carmichaels Darstellung heranreichen. Gary Bonds Lord Peter ist einfach nur arrogant, elitär, ihm fehlt der Witz und Charme von Ian Carmichaels Darstellung. Auch mag ich den Soundtrack nicht. Die 70er Jahre Version hatte coole Charleston Musik, die einfach in die Zeit passte, die aus den 80ern kommt nicht Klassik daher, zeitlos und dröge.
Möglicherweise vertonte man Lord Peters ersten Fall nicht, weil er nicht an die späteren Fälle heranreicht und auch eine andere Seite des Lebemanns Lord Peter zeigt. In diesem ersten Fall leidet er noch unter dem posttraumatischen Stresssyndrom und hat an seinen Erlebnissen aus dem ersten Weltkrieg schwer zu knabbern. Viele der bekannten und beliebte Figuren der späteren Romane fehlen auch noch, nur sein Bruder und seine Mutter haben hier ihren ersten Auftritt.
Fazit: Ein gutes, solides BBC Hörspiel und guten Sprechern. Leider kommt diese Nachgeburt der Lord Peter Hörspielereihe nicht an die Originale aus den 70ern mit Ian Carmichael ran.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dorothy Sayer's style is unmistakable. In this text, she applies it to a murder story, introducing a cast of apparently unremarkable, everyday characters, each of which has a potential motive for murder. Most writers would arrive at a "10 little Indians" situation, eliminating the suspects one by one in the tradition of Hercule Poirot; Sayers, however, eliminates nobody, and confirms nothing - we are left, even at the last sentence, suspecting that much more happened than was actually told.

Even if she had not improved her writing significantly after this, Dorothy Sayers' book would still be well worth reading.

[The Book Loving Monkey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! Ian Carmichael and Peter Jones are on top form as Lord Peter Wimsey and Bunter.

[Evamaria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very entertaining audio play.