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AUDIO REVIEWS
The Quarterly Review AUDIO
DICK BARTON AND THE PARIS ADVENTURE By Edward J. Mason, starring Douglas Kelly AudioGo, 4xCD, 4hrs
In a series of fifteen-minute episodes, Dick Barton and his chums work their way into the gang of black marketeer Spider Kennedy, who has a nasty habit of blowing up trains. Rather than the originals transmitted between 1946 and 1951, these are re-recordings produced for overseas transmission in 1949. Occasional line fluffs are not a problem, but do suggest these were recorded very quickly. Though there’s buzzing in places, the sound is good for such an old recording—particularly when it comes to the blood-curdling death screams. Listening to the story over a couple of days, the accent Dick adopts in his guise as an American gangster begins to grate. Spider Kennedy quickly drops his own silly accent, but their initial meeting is unintentionally comical; think Vic and Bob as FBI agents. The story can be repetitive, the crooks becoming suspicious more or less every fifteen minutes, but the way Dick talks his way out of trouble is often quite ingenious. Its villains are colourful and menacing, if stereotypical (for example a lisping man Dick dubs “honeybunch”). Though the story begins unpromisingly with a “half-wit” driving into a mine, it’s the now-historical setting of the story that modern listeners may find most interesting. It takes place against the background of post-war shortages, and when