The Secret Parts, by Eve Brook
Radio Plays: Eve Brook - The Secret Parts
BBC Radio 4: Afternoon Play
Broadcast: Monday 29th May 2000 @ 2:15 p.m.
Counsellor Helena Kerr, Chair of the Social Services Committee on Birmingham City's Council, discovers the body of her young gay clerk,
Ben Logan, lying in a council house corridor bludgeoned to death. Helena has immediate suspicions about the identity of the murderer as
she suspects her main political opponent, Councillor John Malcolm, and sets out to prove it.
Enter Detective Sergeant Michael Batalocco, described as "the hunk with the curly hair and naughty grin". After Helena’s initial attempts to
entice the detective sergeant are deliciously thwarted, the romantic comedy is woven into, and overlaps with, the criminal investigation. As
Batalocco goes about things by the book in search of the perpetrator of not one, but two murders, she follows the more unorthodox route.
While this most definitely produces results for Helena, it also gets her into a whole lot of trouble!
Romance and political skulduggery combine in this witty murder mystery, dramatised by David Edgar (Eve Brook's husband) from her
unpublished novel, "The Secret Parts", written two to three years before her death from cancer in 1998.
With Celia Imrie [Councillor Helena Kerr], Nathaniel Parker [Detective Sergeant Michael Batalocco], Frances Barber [Councillor Nina],
Nicholas Wilton [Councillor John Malcolm], Victoria Wicks [Rosmary Malcolm], John Rowe [Detective Inspector Pearce], Kim Wall
[Dave Wilson], Jillie Meers [Vera Logan], Roger Walker [Councillor Max Henderson], Beverly Hills [Mary, Helena's Secretary], Richenda
Carey [Stringer], Nitin Ganatra [Ginda], ? [Clive Graham, Club Owner], ? [Gary Stevenson], and ? [Harry Logan].
Other parts played by members of the cast.
Directed by Jonquil Panting.
Note: David Edgar's wife, Eve Brook, a writer and Birmingham City Councillor, died of cancer in 1998, leaving two sons.
90 minutes.
Jim
