The best thing on the radio last week was, without question, Kind Hearts and Coronets. You may have missed it because it was on Radio 4 Extra, the poor, forgotten relation of the BBC’s main channels, which many regard as merely a Radio 4+1 for yesterday’s replays, when it is in fact home to the drama and comedy archive. Like the BBC4 TV channel, which is sadly ceasing commissioning, it hosts the sort of intelligent programmes people really enjoy, to the consternation of those who dismiss them as ‘old’.
Fittingly, for Radio 4 Extra, Kind Hearts is all about a poor, forgotten relation who strives to reclaim his place within a family unwilling to acknowledge his existence. Adapted from the Ealing Studios screenplay of 1949 starring Alec Guinness, the radio drama, first broadcast in 1996, is one part Wilde to two parts Conan Doyle. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know the plot, which follows Louis Mazzini as he bumps off cousin after cousin in increasingly elaborate ways in his quest to succeed to a dukedom.
Adapted from the Ealing Studios screenplay of 1949, this is one part Wilde to two parts Conan Doyle
We are introduced to Mazzini, played superbly for radio by Michael Kitchen, through the man hired to execute him. As the bells toll, the suave young cad has only a matter of hours in which to transcribe his Brief History of Events — a ‘not uninteresting’ confession — before being hanged for his crimes. His last request is for a quill.
He starts at the very beginning. His mother, the daughter of the 7th Duke of Chalfont, was disinherited after running away with an Italian opera singer to live in Clapham. The tenor took one look at his newborn son and dropped dead from a heart attack.
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