Charles Paris: A Series of Murders

Charles Paris is his own worst enemy, a louche lush who can resist anything except temptation - especially in the form of women and alcohol. He’s been out of work so long now he feels he may never get a job and he’s driving Frances, his semi-ex-wife, mad. So when he’s offered a small role in a play, she nearly pushes him out of the door. But it seems that ‘The Message is Murder’ is such a terrible production that someone wants to kill off the cast.

Bill Nighy returns as Charles Paris: unsuccessful actor, bad husband, and dipsomaniac. Desperately in need of work, having been kicked out of his marital home, Charles jumps at playing a missing property developer in a crime-reconstruction program. But the missing person case soon turns to murder when severed body parts begin to appear.

Actor and reluctant sleuth Charles Paris is facing chaos on the domestic front. He’s lodging with his ex-wife Frances, and now their pregnant daughter has moved in as well. It’s all a bit much.... So he is over the moon when he lands a job on the BBC Radio Rep - but the ink is barely dry on his contract when a murder takes place in Broadcasting House. A young female studio manager is found dead in an editing suite, and Charles steps in to investigate....

Bill Nighy stars as Charles Paris with Martine McCutcheon as Jodie Ricks in this BBC Radio 4 comedy detective drama. Charles finds himself uncharacteristically employed in a film, having landed the part of Szabec, a middle management vampire in 'The Wreathing'. His co-star is swimwear model turned actress Jodie Ricks and before long, Jodie is using Charles as a confidant.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast adaptation of Simon Brett's comic murder mystery, starring Bill Nighy as the irrepressible Charles Paris. Charles Paris (unsuccessful actor, bad husband, dipsomaniac) is currently appearing as a fork lift operator in a corporate video. It's not prime-time television or a major film, but it seems like easy money - until the fork lift is used to commit a murder. When Charles himself comes under suspicion, he decides to find out for himself who the murderer is.

Bill Nighy stars as Charles Paris in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast adaptation of Simon Brett's comic crime novel An Amateur Corpse. Charles is out of work again, and to make matters worse his mother has come to stay and he's no way of escaping her. So when he's offered some voiceover work by old friend, Hugo, he's delighted to get out of the house. But Hugo's marriage is in trouble: his much younger wife, Ellie, spends all her time at her Amateur Dramatic Group, and Hugo is drinking too much.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Simon Brett's entertaining crime novel, starring Bill Nighy. Charles Paris has been resting for quite a while, so he's relieved when he is cast as Ghost of Hamlet's Father and First Gravedigger in a touring production of Hamlet. But rehearsals are a little tense - the lead roles of Hamlet and Ophelia are played by a reality TV contestant and TV talent show winner respectively, and their opinions on celebrity and the theatre differ somewhat from those of the more experienced members of the cast.

A three-month run of a new farce is not to be sniffed at by a jobbing actor. Especially when there's the distinct possibility of a West End run. Which is why Charles Paris is standing on stage. However, by the time the troupe reaches Bath a darker mood has set in and Charles' old friend Mark has a drink problem that amounts to a death wish. But it's not the drink that kills Mark - it's somebody in the cast who has a secret that Mark must not be allowed to reveal....

A job in pantomime seems the perfect way to spend the Christmas season for Charles, but the cast of Cinderella are a motley crew from reality TV and Charles finds himself having to explain the traditions of panto to their baffled American star whose career is on a downward trajectory. When the star is shot dead, and Charles finds the body, he finds himself under suspicion.

Nine BBC Radio full-cast dramatisations of the crime novels of Qiu Xiaolong, set in Shanghai. Starring Jamie Zubairi as Chief Inspector Chen Cao, an astute young policeman with twin passions for food and poetry. Through thrilling crime drama, these nine mysteries paint a portrait of modern life in communist China, depicting traditional Shanghai life amidst the old alleyways and how it is rapidly changing with modernisation.

A collection of four blackly humorous crime mysteries featuring the fictional BBC Radio crime correspondent, George Cragge. Adapted from the novel by Mark Tavener, In the Red sees the anarchic George Cragge investigate a spree of bizarre murders in the world of City finance, a small political party contesting a by-election, and a plan to overthrow the Director-General of the BBC. The sequel, In the Balance, features George Cragge kicking off a murder trail during the FIFA World Cup at Wembley Stadium. And with Europe becoming a hot potato, can the Prime Minister hold on to his job? In the Chair follows the maverick hack as he looks into a series of murders of dentists linked to New Labour policy. The final drama, In the End, sees George Cragge investigating a series of murders of journalists.

On sabbatical from the Franciscan order, Father Paolo Baldi is working as a philosophy lecturer in Dublin when his life takes an unexpected turn and he finds himself helping the police to solve crimes. In his second series, Father Baldi investigates a string of curious murders. Along with Tina, Paolo follows a killing in a castle at a celebrity wedding, a high-profile case of a police officer’s murder and enters the world of romantic poetry to solve a suspected suicide.

Charles Paris returns again, in a fringe show at the Edinburgh Festival, with another nubile girl to provoke him, his accommodating wife to console him and a gory murder to challenge him. Edinburgh and the Festival are both background and foreground with Charles flitting between a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a ‘mixed-media’ satire, a late-night revue and his own one-man show on Thomas Hood. Then a fading pop star is murdered, there’s a bomb scare in Holyrood Palace and someone makes a suicide leap from the top of the Rock….

Benedict Cumberbatch plays the young, feisty, devastatingly acute Horace Rumpole in this collection of cracking cases, also starring Timothy West as the older Rumpole.

A game of ‘murders’ at Sir Hubert Handesley’s country house party becomes far too realistic for anyone’s liking. First a guest arrives with a dangerously lethal dagger and then, when the gong sounds to announce the start of the game, the victim plays dead in a very convincing manner. Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn believes the unusual dagger is a vital clue to the real-life murder, and soon he’s on the trail of a Russian secret society.