Paul Temple

For the BBC TV series that broadcast 52 episodes over 4 seasons from 1969 to 1971, see Paul Temple (TV series).

For the co-founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, see Paul Nathaniel Temple, Jr.

Paul Temple
First appearance	Send for Paul Temple (1938)
Created by	Francis Durbridge
Portrayed by	Carl Bernard Hugh Morton Barry Morse Howard Marion Crawford Kim Peacock Peter Coke Crawford Logan Anthony Hulme John Bentley Francis Matthews
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Author, detective
Spouse(s)	Louise ("Steve") Temple
Nationality	English

Paul Temple is a fictional character created by English writer Francis Durbridge (1912–1998) for the BBC radio serial Send for Paul Temple in 1938. Temple is an amateur private detective and author of crime fiction. Together with his journalist wife Louise, affectionately known as "Steve" after her pen name "Steve Trent", he solves "whodunnit" crimes with subtle, humorous dialogue. Always the gentleman, the strongest oath he utters is "by Timothy".

Since 1938 the Temples have featured in over 30 BBC radio dramas, 12 serials for German radio, a BBC television series, four British feature films, and several novels. In addition, a Paul Temple comic strip featured in the London Evening News from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s.

Protagonist

Paul Temple isn't a detective in any recognised sense. Deduction didn't take place. Events simply occurred, people were met and spoken to, and murder attempts were survived. Then, in the final episode, Temple would arrange a drinks party, or similar, at which the villain would be revealed. Finally, Paul, Steve and Sir Graham Forbes would hold a post mortem, which would usually leave listeners no wiser as to why certain events in the serial had taken place, which of them had been red herrings and which had been unclarified clues.

Works

Original radio serials

Paul Temple was "born" as a radio detective. In Britain, several Paul Temple radio series were broadcast from the 1930s to the 1960s. While several actors and actresses portrayed the Temples over the years, including the Send for Paul Temple Again series which starred Barry Morse and aired in 1945, probably the best known portrayal of the couple was by Peter Coke (pronounced Cook) and Marjorie Westbury. The introductory and closing music for the majority of the long-running BBC radio series was Coronation Scot (a musical depiction of a train journey) composed by Vivian Ellis; the earliest serials, those aired prior to December 1947, used an excerpt from Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Most of the surviving serials starring Coke and Westbury have been repeated since 2003 by digital radio station BBC Radio 7 (now called BBC Radio 4 Extra). In 2006 the station tracked down the then 93-year-old Coke for a half-hour interview programme, Peter Coke and the Paul Temple Affair.

In August 2006 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a new 8-part production recreating one of the lost early radio serials, Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery, which had aired in 1947; Crawford Logan starred as Paul Temple with Gerda Stevenson as Steve (in place of the original leads, Kim Peacock and Marjorie Westbury) in a mono production employing vintage microphones and sound effects. A new production of The Madison Mystery followed between May and July 2008, and a remake of the 1947 serial Paul Temple and Steve aired in June and July 2010. A remake of A Case for Paul Temple began transmission on 24 August 2011, and was released on CD in October 2011. In early 2013, the BBC re recorded Paul Temple and the Gregory Affair, broadcast later in the year and released on CD September 2013.

Paul Temple's catchphrase "by Timothy" first occurred in episode two of the first serial Send for Paul Temple.

Serial title	Starring	Original broadcast dates	Episodes	Archive status
Send for Paul Temple	Hugh Morton and Bernadette Hodgson	8 April—27 May 1938 (BBC Midland region only)	8 x 25 minutes	1-5 & 7-8 lost, 6 exists. A 1940 remake for Canadian radio exists in full.
Paul Temple and the Front Page Men	Hugh Morton and Bernadette Hodgson	1 November—21 December 1938 (BBC Midland region only)	8 x 25 minutes	1-7 lost, 8 exists
News of Paul Temple	Hugh Morton and Bernadette Hodgson	13 November—18 December 1939	6 x 25 minutes	All lost
Send for Paul Temple (abridged remake)	Carl Bernard and Thea Holme	13 October 1941	1 x 60 minutes	Lost
Paul Temple Intervenes	Carl Bernard and Bernadette Hodgson	30 October—18 December 1942	8 x 20 minutes	Exists in full
News of Paul Temple (abridged remake)	Richard Williams and Lucille Lisle	5 July 1944	1 x 60 minutes	Lost
Send for Paul Temple Again	Barry Morse and Marjorie Westbury	13 September—1 November 1945	8 x 30 minutes	All lost
A Case for Paul Temple	Howard Marion Crawford and Marjorie Westbury	7 February—28 March 1946	8 x 30 minutes	All lost
Paul Temple and the Gregory Affair	Kim Peacock and Marjorie Westbury	17 October—19 December 1946	10 x 30 minutes	All lost
Paul Temple and Steve	Kim Peacock and Marjorie Westbury	30 March—18 May 1947	8 x 30 Minutes	All lost
Mr. & Mrs. Paul Temple (abridged remake of Paul Temple and Steve)	Kim Peacock and Marjorie Westbury	23 November 1947	1 x 45 minutes	Lost
Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery	Kim Peacock and Marjorie Westbury	1 December 1947—19 January 1948	8 x 30 minutes	All lost
Paul Temple and the Curzon Case	Kim Peacock and Marjorie Westbury	7 December 1948—25 January 1949	8 x 30 minutes	All lost
Paul Temple and the Madison Mystery	Kim Peacock and Marjorie Westbury	12 October—30 November 1949	8 x 30 minutes	All lost
Paul Temple and the Vandyke Affair	Kim Peacock and Marjorie Westbury	30 October—18 December 1950	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full (Not retained by BBC, but archived at the British Library)
Paul Temple and the Jonathan Mystery	Kim Peacock and Marjorie Westbury	10 May—28 June 1951	8 x 30 minutes	All lost
Paul Temple and Steve Again	Kim Peacock and Marjorie Westbury	8 April 1953	1 x 60 minutes	Lost
Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case	Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury	29 March—17 May 1954	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full (this is the version available on CD/cassette from the BBC Radio Collection)
Paul Temple and the Madison Mystery (remake)	Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury	20 June—8 August 1955	8 x 30 Minutes	All lost
Paul Temple and the Lawrence Affair	Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury	11 April—30 May 1956	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
Paul Temple and the Spencer Affair	Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury	13 November 1957—1 January 1958	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
Paul Temple and the Vandyke Affair (remake)	Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury	1 January—19 February 1959	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
Paul Temple and the Conrad Case	Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury	2 March—20 April 1959	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case (remake)	Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury	22 November 1959—10 January 1960	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
Paul Temple and the Margo Mystery	Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury as Steve	1 January—19 February 1961	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
Paul Temple and the Jonathan Mystery (remake)	Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury	14 October—2 December 1963	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery	Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury	11 April—16 May 1965	6 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
Paul Temple and the Alex Affair	Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury	26 February—21 March 1968	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery (remake)	Crawford Logan and Gerda Stevenson	7 August—2 October 2006	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
Paul Temple and the Madison Mystery (remake)	Crawford Logan and Gerda Stevenson	16 May—4 July 2008	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
Paul Temple and Steve (remake)	Crawford Logan and Gerda Stevenson	11 June—30 July 2010	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
A Case for Paul Temple (remake)	Crawford Logan and Gerda Stevenson	24 August—12 October 2011	8 x 30 minutes	Exists in full
Paul Temple and the Gregory Affair (remake)	Crawford Logan and Gerda Stevenson	3 July— 11 September 2013	10 x 30 minutes	Exists in full

Film adaptations

Between 1946 and 1952 Paul Temple appeared in four feature films distributed by Butcher's Film Service (a film distributor based in the North of England, which also distributed films in the Old Mother Riley series of Northern comedies).

• 1946 Send for Paul Temple with Anthony Hulme (1910–2007) (born Harry Idris Miller) as Temple, Joy Shelton as Steve and Maire O'Neill as Mrs Neddy.
• 1948 Calling Paul Temple (based on Send for Paul Temple Again) with John Bentley as Temple and Dinah Sheridan as Steve.
• 1950 Paul Temple's Triumph (based on News of Paul Temple) with John Bentley as Temple and Dinah Sheridan as Steve.
• 1952 Paul Temple Returns (based on Paul Temple Intervenes) with John Bentley as Temple and Patricia Dainton as Steve.

BBC television series

Francis Durbridge licensed the character to the BBC, which from 1969 to 1971, made 52 episodes of Paul Temple on television, in colour, with each episode lasting around 50 minutes. It starred Francis Matthews as Paul Temple, co-starring Ros Drinkwater as his wife Steve, with George Sewell as Sammy Carson. The 52 episodes over 4 seasons were co-produced with West German television station ZDF, making it the very first international co-production of the TV era, thereby making it practicable to film location scenes for the series in West Germany.

The co-produced episodes were dubbed into German, using German voice artists, for broadcasting in West Germany. Only 16 of the 52 episodes currently exist in the BBC TV archives with their original English soundtracks, with 11 of the episodes available in colour and 5 episodes only available in black and white. The other 36 episodes are missing from the BBC TV archives. The visuals of some of the 36 missing episodes survive in the ZDF TV archives in Germany, but only with the dubbed German soundtracks.

The theme tune of the television series was written by Australian composer, Ron Grainer.

Novels

Many of the British Paul Temple radio serials were novelized by Francis Durbridge between 1938 and 1989. Some of the novels in which the character appears were written in collaboration with John Thewes, Douglas Rutherford or Charles Hatten – and those with Rutherford were even published under the pen-name "Paul Temple", thus making the fictional writer a "real" one.

• Send for Paul Temple (1938), Anthony Head (2007)*

• Paul Temple and the Front Page Men (1939), Anthony Head (2009)*

• News of Paul Temple (1940), Anthony Head (2008)*

• Paul Temple Intervenes (1944), Toby Stephens (2011)*

• Send for Paul Temple Again! (1948)

• The Tyler Mystery (1957), Anthony Head (2006)*

• East of Algiers (1959), Anthony Head (2009)* - based on the Sullivan Mystery but with locations and character names altered

• Paul Temple and the Harkdale Robbery (1970), Anthony Head (2007)*

• Paul Temple and the Kelby Affair (1970), Anthony Head (2007)*

• The Geneva Mystery (1971), Toby Stephens (2011)*

• The Curzon Case (1972), Anthony Head (2006)*

• Paul Temple and the Margot Mystery (1986), Toby Stephens (2011)

• Paul Temple and the Madison Case (1988)

• Paul Temple and the Conrad Case (1989)

(*) Indicates also released as an audiobook on CD, read by Anthony Head or Toby Stephens

Commercial releases

All the complete surviving Paul Temple UK radio serials (with the exception of the 1959 remake of Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case and the original 1950 production of Paul Temple and the Vandyke affair,(the latter of which will be released in February 2016) have been released on CD by the BBC Radio Collection, as has the 1940 Canadian remake of Send for Paul Temple.

The 11 surviving colour episodes of the BBC-TV version of "Paul Temple" featuring Francis Matthews and Ros Drinkwater were released on DVD on 6 July 2009 by Acorn Media UK. A further 5 Black and White episodes were released in April 2012. Many unreleased colour episodes still exist in the archives of ZDF, the series' German co-producer, with soundtrack in German.

In 2010 Renown Pictures Ltd, new owners of The Butchers Library, released on DVD the feature films Send For Paul Temple, Paul Temple Returns (a.k.a. 'Bombay Waterfront') and Calling Paul Temple.

In 2011 a box set of all four Paul Temple movies was released in November. The film "Paul Temples Triumph" was released singly initially to Renown Club members only in March 2012. It has since become generally available.

International adaptations

Netherlands

In the Netherlands several of the radio plays were recorded with Dutch actors and with the main character's name translated to 'Paul Vlaanderen '.

Germany

In Germany, 12 Paul Temple radio serials were adapted between 1949 and 1967, each episode (in common with the BBC serials) ending with a cliffhanger. They were listened to by such huge numbers of people that they earned the sobriquet Straßenfeger ("street sweepers"), because they left the streets practically deserted whenever an episode was broadcast. They were performed by actors of national renown, including Luxembourg-born René Deltgen (who played the title role in 11 of the 12 series), Gustav Knuth, Friedrich W. Bauschulte, Pinkas Braun, Heinz Schimmelpfennig, Siegfried Wischnewski, Wolfgang Wahl, Günther Ungeheuer and Paul Klinger amongst others.

All surviving 11 German radio serials have since been released on CD as audiobooks. Two short-lived comic series by the Aachener Bildschriftenverlag and the Luna-Kriminalromane are rare collector's items.

In 2014, an abridged remake of the lost 1949 version of "Paul Temple and the Gregory Affair" was aired and released, followed by a live radio show in 2015 with the cast and the WDR Radio Orchestra, hosted by German Comedian Bastian Pastewka.

In 2015, all 4 Paul Temple feature films were released on DVD.

External links

• The Paul Temple File
• Francis Durbridge Homepage: Paul Temple (Radio, TV, Books) (German)
• Paul Temple
• [1] Anthony Hulme Obituary