The Rivals: Tales of Sherlock Holmes’ rival detectives

The Rivals: Tales of Sherlock Holmes’ rival detectives

16 BBC Radio full-cast dramas

Summary

The complete collection of all 16 episodes from this gripping BBC Radio crime series

Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard was made to look a fool in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Now he gets his own back, introducing sixteen tales of detectives whose abilities rival that of the great Sherlock Holmes.

Starring James Fleet (Series 1, 3 and 4) and Tim Piggott-Smith (Series 2) as Lestrade, with casts featuring Andrew Scott, Paul Rhys, Anton Lesser, Honeysuckle Weeks, Rupert Vansittart, John Sessions, Marcia Warren and Tim McInnerny.

Dramatised for radio by Chris Harrald, these stories are written by masters of the crime and thriller genre, all contemporaries of Arthur Conan Doyle.

They include:
The Murders on the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe
The Problem of Cell 13 by Jacques Futrelle
Murder By Proxy by Matthias McDonnel Bodkin
The Mystery of Redstone Manor by Catherine Louisa Pirkis
The Problem of the Superfluous Finger by Jacques Futrelle
The Clue of the Silver Spoons by Robert Barr
The Intangible Clue by Anna Katharine Green
The Game Played in the Dark by Ernest Bramah
The Kinght's Cross Signal Problem by Ernest Bramah
A Snapshot by Matthias McDonnel Bodkin
Seven, Seven, Seven - City by Julius Chambers
The Moabite Cipher - by R Austin Freeman
The Clairvoyants - by Arthur B Reeve
The Stanway Cameo Mystery - Arthur Morrison
The Secret of Dunstan's Tower - Ernest Bramah
The Mystery of the Scarlet Thread - Jacques Futrelle

Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko (Series 1) and Liz Webb (Series 2, 3, 4)


(c) BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 2021
(p) BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 2021

About the authors

Robert Barr

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Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) was born in Boston and orphaned at an early age. Taken in by a couple from Richmond, Virginia, he spent a semester at the University of Virginia but could not afford to stay longer. After joining the Army and matriculating as a cadet, he started his literary career with the anonymous publication of Tamerlane and Other Poems, before working as a literary critic. His life was dotted with scandals, such as purposefully getting himself court-martialled to ensure dismissal from the Army, being discharged from his job at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond after being found drunk by his boss, and secretly marrying his thirteen-year-old cousin Virginia (listed twenty-one on the marriage certificate). His work took him to both New York City and Baltimore, where he died at the age of forty, two years after Virginia.
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Julius Chambers

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R. Austin Freeman

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Arthur B Reeve

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Matthias McDonnel Bodkin

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Jacques Futrelle

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Arthur Morrison

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Ernest Bramah

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Louisa Pirkis

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Anna Katherine Green

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