Classic Serial - The Moonstone - Episode 1

Doug Lucie's dramatisation of Wilkie Collins' detective masterpiece from 1868, starring Eleanor Bron as Lady Verinder and Kenneth Cranham as Sergeant Cuff, Paul Rhys as Franklin Blake and narrated by Steve Hodson as Betteridge. Described by T.S. Eliot as the first and best of English Detective novels, The Moonstone, involves a huge diamond stolen from the forehead of an Indian deity, plundered in a siege and finally given to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. It is said to carry a curse and mysteriously disappears on the night of the celebrations. Are the Indian jugglers who were at the house earlier to blame? Why are they hanging around the property with a little boy they appear to be able to hypnotise? When the local police get nowhere, one of the new detective police is called for from London, and quickly finds a clue, but what is it going to tell him? Has the curse of the Moonstone brought with it suspicion and superstition to poison the happy Verinder household on the Yorkshire coast? Cast: Lady Verinder ..... Eleanor Bron Rachel Verinder ..... Jasmine Hyde Betteridge ..... Steve Hodson Franklin Blake ..... Paul Rhys Sergeant Cuff ..... Kenneth Cranham John Herncastle ..... Stephen Critchlow Rosanna Spearman ..... Alison Pettitt Godfrey Ablewhite ..... Mark Straker Penelope ..... Clare Corbett Mr Murthwaite ..... Paul Battacharjee Khan/Indian..... Narinder Samra Housemaid ..... Carolyn Pickles Boy ..... Alex Miller Recorded on location by Lucinda Mason Brown Original Music by David Chilton Dramatised by Doug Lucie Producer: Janet Whitaker A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4.