Full-cast radio adaptations of two classic mysteries by the writer of The Phantom of the Opera

Gaston Leroux was one of the pioneers of the detective story, alongside Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allen Poe. Best known for The Phantom of the Opera, he also wrote a series of crime novels featuring journalist and amateur detective Joseph Rouletabille. Included here are dramatisations of the two best-known books in the series, The Mystery of the Yellow Room and its sequel, The Perfume of the Lady in Black, starring Nicholas Boulton as Rouletabille and Charles Simpson as his friend and assistant Sainclair.

The Mystery of the Yellow Room – Described by John Dickson Carr as ‘the finest locked-room tale ever written’, this celebrated mystery finds young reporter Rouletabille investigating an impossible crime. How was Professor Stangerson’s daughter Mathilde knocked unconscious, strangled and left for dead in the Yellow Room, when the door was bolted from the inside and the windows barred? And how did her attacker manage to vanish into thin air?

The Perfume of the Lady in Black – France’s most dangerous man is dead, and few people mourn his passing. Of the scattering of people at his funeral, one in particular stands out: a mysterious, heavily-veiled woman, dressed in swathes of black. Rouletabille recognises her perfume – lavender with a hint of jasmine – and is convinced they’ve met before: but where? To solve the puzzle, he must look to his own past, and a secret he has kept hidden for many years...


Cast and credits
Written by Gaston Leroux
First published 1907 (The Mystery of the Yellow Room), 1908 (The Perfume of the Lady in Black)
Directed by David Blount

The Mystery of the Yellow Room
Joseph Rouletabille – Nicholas Boulton
Inspector Frédéric Larson – Geoffrey Whitehead
Mathilde Stangerson – Becky Hindley
Jean Sainclair – Charles Simpson
Robert Darzac – Alastair Danson
Professor Stangerson – Hugh Dickson
Corbeau/Judge – Stephen Thorne
Jacques/Innkeeper – Brian Parr

Dramatised by Stephen Sheridan

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 20 June 1998

The Perfume of the Lady in Black
Rouletabille – Nicholas Boulton
Sainclair – Charles Simpson
Larson – Geoffrey Whitehead
Mathilde – Suzanna Hamilton
Rance/Uncle Marius – Stephen Thorne
Darzac/Steward – Alastair Danson
Beauvais/Captain – David Timson
Edith/Postmistress – Alison Pettitt

Dramatised by Stephen Sheridan from a translation by Margaret Costa

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 12 August 2000

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