Rough Cider By Peter Lovesey

SANWAL

(4.1 stars; 9 reviews)

Rough Cider In Peter Lovesey's thriller set in the 60's, a lecturer is forced to re-live his childhood memories of a gruesome murder. Did he contribute to a miscarriage of justice? Dramatised by Michael Z Lewin Theo: Rob Edwards Alice: Briony Glassco Mr Lockwood: Neville Jason Mrs Lockwood: Tina Gray Barbara: Oona Beeson Harry: Peter Whitman Duke: David Jarvis Bernard: Malcolm Ward Sally: Frances Jeater Voss: Don McCorkindale Danny: Lyndam Gregory Dr Ott: Gavin Muir Young Theo:   William Wortley Director Matthew Waltersly. Saturday-Night Theatre:  Sat 2nd Jul 1994 19:50 on BBC Radio 4 FM It is World War II and American soldiers stationed in rural England have made friends, especially with the local girls. After a dance to celebrate the pressing of the apples into cider, the resentment of the local men leads to violence and a murder. Later, a child is born, a girl. When she grows up, she tries to find out more about her soldier-father. And long-forgotten jealousies and hatreds come frothing to the surface. Rough Cider was nominated for an Edgar Award. “When I was nine, I fell in love with a girl of twenty called Barbara, who killed herself.” Theo, a university lecturer, has his early life brought uncomfortably back when, in 1964 he is approached by an American girl called Alice. She wants to be told about her father, a GI hanged for murder in Somerset during World War II. As a boy, Theo had been a principal witness for the prosecution. Alice persuades him to revisit the farm where Theo was evacuated. She is too young to have known her father, but is staunchly determined to discover the true facts. The horrors of the past take on a frightening immediacy when another murder is committed.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.