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A Stuga On the Cusp of the Orust Riviera, tucked away next to a hobbit hole in the woods.

Beau Geste by P.C. Wren

Beau Geste - P.C. Wren

bookshelves: adventure, african-continent, classic, filthy-lucre, fraudio, france, play-dramatisation, war, afr-tunisia

Read in October, 2009


** spoiler alert ** 31/10/2009 - Now for the Marty Feldman film!

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Beau Geste (Classic Serial) 04-10-2009 - 11-10-2009

Beau Geste is PC Wren's classic story of honour, love and adventure. The Geste brothers run away from England, home and romance to join the French Foreign Legion, following the mysterious disappearance of a valuable family heirloom. They endure hardship and suspicion until matters come to head when the Touareg – a nomadic North African desert tribe – suddenly attack their lonely outpost.

Wren's tale of "doing the right thing" was written in the years following the Great War, when the world was coming to terms with the birth of Communism in Russia and the rise of National Socialism in Germany. He saw both as challenges to the notion of Englishness that characterised, as he saw it, the proven social order manifest in British colonial rule during the Edwardian era.

Beau Geste is both a rattling good yarn and a plea for a return to a time when a stiff upper lip and a ramrod posture were essential components of the moral compass of the day.

From The Radio Times

There are certainly not any men falling in love with their male associates in this drama. The moral compass is on a ramrod-stiff straight-and-narrow setting in this rollicking version of PC Wren's tale of honour, love (heterosexual, of course) and adventure in the French Foreign Legion. It's old-fashioned, but in a delightfully satisfying way.

Beau ............................................. Chris New
John ............................................ Rob Hastie
Lawrence .................................... Michael Culkin
Major Jolivet .............................. Timothy Ackroyd
Aunt Patricia ................................ Tessa Worsley
Isobel ...................................... Candida Benson
Gussie .................................... Anthony Schuster
Burdon ...................................... Scott Richards
Young Beau ................................... Nick Hockaday
Young Gussie .................................. Freddie Hill
Young John ................................... Alex Hockaday
Young Claudia ................................ Hannah Sharpe
Young Isobel ............................... Melissa Gardner
Lejeune ...................................... Nick Fletcher
Boldini ..................................... Laurence Possa
Hank ........................................... Greg Wohead
Buddy ......................................... Don Mousseau
The Sergeant .............................. Alasdair MacEwan
Recruiting Officer .............................. Max Bennet
Schwartz ................................. Simon Scardifield

This production, adapted for radio by Graeme Fife and directed by Willi Richards, was recorded on location in the UK and Tunisia. Original music by Roger Pasto Cortina.

Producer Roger Elsgood