Telecrime (BBC 1939, Shelagh Furley, J.B. Rowe)

Television in the UK was very much in it’s infancy when Telecrime was made. The BBC had only started broadcasting TV on a regular basis in 1936 and then it was just a few hours each day.

Each of the five fifteen minute episodes, all performed live and appearing occasionally in the BBC schedule, focused on a different crime. In four of them J.B. Rowe played Inspector Holt.

Writer Mileson Horton, who contributed the scripts for all of these, liked the concept so much that he and the BBC mounted another series, this time called Telecrimes, when the BBC resumed television broadcasts in 1946 following the second world war.

production details
UK / BBC / 5×15 minute episodes / Broadcast 10 August 1938 – 25 July 1939

Creator: Mileson Horton / Producers: Eric Crozier (stories 1 and 2), Stephen Harrison (stories 3-5)

cast
J.B. Rowe as Inspector Holt

Other cast members included Shelagh Furley, Ernest Jay, Frank Foster.

THE EPISODES
1. THE BACK-STAGE MURDER (10 Aug 38)
2. POETIC JUSTICE (17 Aug 38)
3. THE FLETCHER CASE (24 Feb 39)
4. THE ALMOST PERFECT MURDER (15 Apr 39)
5. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE (25 Jul 39)