The Nine Tailors (BBC Radio Collection)

{eighth of 11 in Lord Peter Wimsey; BBC Audio/ eleventh of 15 in Lord Peter Wimsey series; detective, crime, murder, fens, East Anglia, fen country, fenlands, bell ringing}(1934)(BBC dramatisation 2001)

I listened to this BBC dramatisation of the Lord Peter Wimsey book for the Green Dragon's memorial read for @MrsLee as it was a favourite of hers. 'Nine Tailors' (according to Wikipedia) is a bell ringing term. They are the nine strokes rung at the beginning of a toll for a man who has died (Six Tailors being for a woman).

Ian Carmichael (who played Wimsey in the 1970s TV adaptations) reprises his role in these recordings. (I have only recently started trying audiobooks and discovered the BBC dramatisations of some of the Agatha Raisin show more books. I must say that the Penelope Keith version of Agatha - and Ashley Judd's take in the TV shows - seems to be more appealing than the book persona. But I digress.) I haven’t read any of Dorothy Sayer's series before, though I did catch some episodes of the TV series back in the ‘80s (with Edward Petherbridge in the title role), and it sounds as though, from comments from others reading the book for the memorial read, that a lot of her descriptive detail of the landscape and so on are lost - somewhat of a given for what is essentially a scripted adaptation that comes in at around 3 hours worth of listening, more or less. Though the very effective sound effects substitute for some of them, the details and inferences of other authors' works seem to be a special trait of Sayers’s (as someone on the thread said, she starts a lot of mental hares). However, this just means that I can start reading from the beginning and enjoy the (written) series though I did enjoy this dramatisation.

As Lord Peter and his man Bunter are tooling through the wintry Fen country on New Year's eve they end up in a ditch. Since they cannot travel further until the car is hauled out, on hearing church bells (‘civilisation’ according to Lord Peter), they make for nearby Fenchurch St Paul's where the vicar puts them up. As recompense Lord Peter offers to help with the vicar’s project to ring in the New Year with a marathon nine hour session on the church bells - which all have their own names (it reminds me of Garth Nix's Old Kingdom series)

Gaude, Sabaoth, John, Jericho, Jubilee, Dimity, Batty Thomas, and Tailor Paul

(Lord Wimsey calls them off) - since they are a man down with the influenza going around. Sadly while he is staying at the rectory word comes that Lady Thorpe, a member of the local gentry, is poorly and requests the last sacrament. Lord P is intrigued to learn that about a decade or two previously (in 1914) an emerald necklace was stolen from one of her wedding guests but, although the thieves were arrested, was never recovered.

Sometime later, early in the spring, Lord Peter receives a request for help from Reverend Venables. Sir Henry Thorpe died three months after his wife but when they opened her grave, so as to inter the two together, the body of an unknown man (sans hands) was discovered buried on top of Lady Thorpe’s coffin - and Lord Wimsey is up for the hunt.

I enjoyed this full cast dramatisation, which was easy to listen to and even re-listen to, and I found the sound effects (the bell ringing, the outdoor scenes and so on) worked well to convey the ambiance - and, unusually for me, I guessed the identity of the murderer correctly. I find it difficult to keep track of characters’ names when listening to audiobooks (I do some crafting while listening so my focus is split) but the varied accents made it easy to keep track of the characters themselves.

I think I will add the (original) Lord Peter Wimsey series to the TBR pile.

(September 2025)
3.5 - 4 **** show less