Turn me on, I'm a radio

I have always loved radio. Born a generation earlier, I'd have made my career - or at least part of it - singing and acting in front of the microphones of some powerful station. Instead, like many children of my age, I heard the radio stories from my parents, who had known those days well. My dad, especially, reminisced so vividly about The Shadow and Fibber McGee and Molly that I sometimes have to remind myself that I never heard the programs first-hand. Film is indeed magical, and television can be (sometimes), but there is something about sitting in the dark just hearing a story and letting the pictures rise from within one's mind that cannot be equalled. We hear, in the womb, before we see...

Here, in three segments, is a tale of Sherlock Holmes, "The FInal Problem", broadcast in December 1954. It stars Sir Ralph RIchardson as Dr. Watson, Sir John Gielgud as Sherlock Holmes, and Orson Welles as Professor Moriarty.

Listen. Close your eyes. And see.