Review: CHARLES PARIS: CORPORATE BODIES, Simon Brett - BBC Radio Play

• first published 1991
• this edition a BBC Radio Play available from Audible
• Written by: Simon Brett, Jeremy Front
• Narrated by: Bill Nighy, Suzanne Burden, Full Cast
• Length: 1 hr and 49 mins 
• Unabridged Audiobook

Synopsis ( Audible


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. Meanwhile, as ever with Charles, life on the domestic front is not plain sailing. After inflicting damage upon his ex-wife's house, he finds himself offering her a berth on the houseboat he’s currently sitting for a friend. However, life on the water proves as tricky as life at work…Suzanne Burden, Tim McInnery, and Jon Glover are also among the cast in this dramatisation by Jeremy Front.

My take

Again Bill Nighy does a good job of bringing Charles Paris to life.  But the murder investigation does feel a bit low key, almost a plodding elimination of suspects, until we get down to the only person it could be, whom we should have suspected right from the start.

My rating: 4.2

I've also read
BLOOD AT THE BOOKIES
THE POISONING IN THE PUB
4.4, THE SHOOTING IN THE SHOP
4.3, SO MUCH BLOOD
4.2, A DECENT INTERVAL
4.5, BONES UNDER THE BEACH HUT
4.2, GUNS IN THE GALLERY
4.6, THE CORPSE ON THE COURT
4.3, THE STRANGLING ON THE STAGE
4.2, THE CINDERELLA KILLER
4.5, THE TOMB IN TURKEY 
4.4, MURDER UNPROMPTED - BBC Radio Play