The Old Ladies
by Hugh Walpole
Hugh Walpole - The Old Ladies
BBC Radio 4: Saturday Night Theatre
Broadcast: Saturday 2nd March 1968 @ 8:30 p.m.
The play opens just before Christmas, many years ago. In the city of Polchester there was an old rickety building on the rock
above an old grass-grown square. The house was a windy, creaky, rain-bitten place where three old ladies lived as tenants, including Miss
Beringer, who moved in the day before.
Although Miss Beringer has a rather nervous personality, she is befriended by a kindly neighbour named Mrs. Amorest. Soon, however,
she meets the third tenant, a strange woman who takes an interest in her one treasured possession, an amber figurine. Although it is the
morning of Christmas Eve, the mood in the house soon turns ominous, despite Mrs Amorest's best efforts to foster a festive spirit....
"The Old Ladies" was adapted for radio by Rodney Ackland from his stage adaptation which premiered in London in April 1935, which,
in turn, was adapted from Hugh Walpole's 1924 novel, "The Old Ladies".
With Edith Evans [Mrs. Agatha Payne], Gwen Pfrangcon-Davies [Mrs. Lucy Amorest], Sylvia Coleridge [Miss May Beringer], and Peter
Williams [The Narrator].
Produced by Charles Lefeaux.
90 minutes.
Jim
