Kill the Pharaoh!: A Vintage BBC Radio Thriller

Victor Pemberton

Jul 2023 · BBC Digital Audio · Narrated by Sheila Grant, John Humphry, David Spenser, Rolf Lefebvre, Marion Mathie, Nigel Anthony, and Full Cast

About this audiobook

A suspenseful archaeological thriller full of secrets, lies and mysteries from acclaimed writer and producer Victor Pemberton

Best known as a TV producer, writer and script editor for Doctor Who, Victor Pemberton created the Doctor's most iconic gadget, the sonic screwdriver. A prolific dramatist, he also penned a wide variety of plays for BBC Radio including this gripping 8-part adventure, first broadcast in 1968.

Elizabeth Warwick, the daughter of a famous archaeologist, travels to Egypt's Valley of the Kings to explore the mysterious tomb her father discovered before his death. Following in his footsteps, she hopes to find out what secrets lurk within. Is it an empty shell, or the final resting place of a Pharaoh?

But her investigations lead her further and further into danger. Sir Richard Warwick had enemies, and now they are pursuing her. Embroiled in intrigue and unsure who to trust, she embarks on a quest that will take her from the Temple of Luxor to Cairo's City of the Dead...

Among the cast of this thrilling serial are Sheila Grant, John Humphry, David Spenser, Rolf Lefebvre, Nigel Anthony and Marion Mathie.


NB: Contains some dated references. Due to the age and nature of the recording, the sound quality may vary

Cast
Elizabeth Warwick - Sheila Grant
Mahmoud - James Thomason
Mr Wilder - John Humphry
Fuad - David Spenser
Charles Villiers - Rolf Lefebvre
Margaret Villiers - Marion Mathie
Achmed Araby - Haydn Jones
Abdullah - Antony Viccars
Bertie Pringle - Barry Lowe
O'Hara - Denis McCarthy
Captain Aziz - John Justin
Achmed Araby - Haydn Jones
The stranger/Michael Warwick - Christopher Bidmead
Dr Fawzad - Nigel Anthony

Other parts played by Anthony Jackson, Ian Thompson, Barbara Mitchell, Margaret Robertson, Rosalind Shanks, Douglas Hankin, LeRoy Lingwood, Alexander John and members of the BBC Drama Repertory Company

Written by Victor Pemberton
Produced by John Tydeman
First broadcast BBC Radio 2, 30 May-24 June 1968

© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

About the author

Victor Pemberton's career started in radio when his flatmates challenged him to write a play because he was criticising another. The result was The Gold Watch in 1961, the first of many radio scripts. His first television script was for Associated Rediffusion's Send Foster (1965), concerning the exploits of a junior reporter on a local newspaper. He also worked as an actor to supplement his writing income and this led to director Morris Barry casting him in Doctor Who (The Moonbase). After a brief stint writing and script-editing Doctor Who in the mid-Sixties, Victor contributed to Timeslip and Ace of Wands and wrote numerous other scripts for radio and television. He produced Fraggle Rock in the 1980s, as well as setting up a Writers' Television Workshop in Lagos, Nigeria, and working in Kuwait on a drama series about the daily life of a Gulf Arab family (Bait Abu Khaled). In 1990, Headline books invited Pemberton to write a novelisation of a BBC Drama series he had penned called Our Family. This was published in 1991 and led to a successful career as a novelist, and to date he has published fifteen 'family saga' novels, including Where the Swallows Come Again (2008).