The Fear On 4 Radio Program

Background

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been the greatest, most prolific, and wide ranging broadcasting system in the world for over 88 years. Launched from the early British Broadcasting Company, Ltd. (1922-1927), in 1927 Great Britain's first major broadcasting network reorganized as The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), a government owned and operated Radio broadcasting network in the public service.

Almost from its inception, the BBC began airing every type of programming imaginable, including some of the era's finest dramatic presentations. Over the years of its evolution, the BBC has grown as sophisticated as its vast, worldwide audience. In addition, it has preserved and maintained one of the world's largest archives of Radio recordings. Over the years of the Golden Age of BBC Radio, thousands of dedicated listeners dutifully recorded and maintained their own archives of BBC programming. It's to those thousands of BBC fans that we owe a great deal of the original BBC recordings of the era, complete with original airchecks, presenters and announcements.

One of the BBC's dramatic strengths over Radio have been its thriller and supernatural dramas. Some of the more popular thriller series' from the BBC canon have been:

Appointment with Fear (1944-1949, then 1975)
The Price of Fear (1973 - BBC World Service)
Before the Screaming Begins (1977)
Haunted (1980 - BBC World Service)
Spine Chillers (1982)
Fear On 4 (1988 - BBC World Service; BBC Radio 4)
Midnight Tales (1990)
After Supper Ghost Stories (1992)
The Woman in Black (1993)

The above list is by no means comprehensive and doesn't include the literally thousands of thriller and supernatural dramas churned out over the various 'Play' programmes of the BBC over its long history.

In the U.S. the BBC's most enduring favorites in the thriller genre have been Appointment with Fear, The Price of Fear and Fear On 4. Appointment with Fear first aired during the World War II years and was later revived with a 1975 run featuring a presenter, 'The Man In Black' portrayed by Edward De Souza. Edward De Souza reappeared thirteen years later as The Man In Black to present the original run of Fear on 4, a series of late-night thrillers first aired over the BBC World Service, but ultimately intended for BBC Radio 4, hence the name. The BBC World Service also aired at least Series' 1 through 3 of Fear On 4 as The Man In Black.

BBC Radio 4 introduces Fear On 4 with The Man In Black

The BBC's Radio fans are some of the most loyal in the world, so it seemed natural to mate The Man In Black to BBC Radio 4's new late night thriller anthology for 1988. Edward De Souza returned to present the first series of twelve spine-tinglers. The character of The Man In Black, and indeed the original series of Appointment with Fear are very reminiscent of The Man in Black from our own long-running Suspense series over CBS. Joe Kearns, among others, portrayed the Man in Black as host to many of the early Suspense programs, and the theme music from Suspense seems uncannily like the introductory music for Appointment with Fear.

Clearly the concept of The Man in Black caught on far better with BBC listeners than with American audiences. Fear On 4 first aired almost eleven years after the 1975 revival of Appointment with Fear but Edward De Souza as The Man In Black remained so firmly ensconced in popular memory that there seemed no better presenter for the new thriller revival series than the scary 'old' master himself. And indeed, the ensuing years had given De Souza a bit more chill and foreboding in his voice than when he'd first presented Appointment with Fear.

De Souza was in his early 40s when he first introduced The Man In Black, but clearly had a knack for portraying a far older and more ominous characterization. The ensuing eleven, then twenty-two years, as the series entered its fifth incarnation, only served to make De Souza's voice even more chilling. By Series Five, broadcast in 1997, De Souza's 'Man In Black' voice had become so identified with Fear On 4, that even though he didn't present the final series himself, his voice was used to announce each of the last five Fear On 4 programmes. Only in his mid-60s by then, De Souza continued a very busy career in Television and Film for the next twelve years.

The Man In Black character was by no means Fear On 4's most compelling feature, though De Souza's intros and expositions certainly leant a great deal to the ambience of the series. In fact it was the extraordinary writers that maintained Fear On 4's supremacy as one of Radio's finest spine-tinglers. This was, after all, a Radio revival series, but every bit in the spine-tingler, late night thriller mold from the era B.T.V. (before Television). Those were the days when one's mind and imagination informed the imagery of Radio dramatizations. And indeed with the lights down low or the only light the glow of a radio dial and perhaps a crackling fireplace, there was no better ambience to enjoy thirty minutes of terror. To that end, Fear On 4 far exceeded its portfolio.

Employing the finest writers of the 20th Century, Fear On 4 was like a compendium of the greatest suspense and horror fiction of the century. Roald Dahl, Arch Oboler, William Ingram, John Wyndham, Ray Bradbury, Elizabeth Bowen, Stephen Gallagher and Guy Jenkin contributed many of the stories. BBC veterans Bert Coules and Nick Fisher were well represented. Bram Stoker's short story, The Judge's House was adapted by John Keir Cross. The dramas were marvelously performed by British casts from all over the U.K., often alternating back and forth between Edinburgh, Scotland and London on a regular basis.

For anyone who's heard some of the thousands of BBC drama showcases over the years, it's clear that Fear On 4 had a very high bar of quality to meet to satisfy BBC audiences around the world. But meet--and exceed--that bar, it did. The sound engineering, incidental scoring, direction, pacing, and performances showcased some of the finest thriller dramatizations in BBC history. The series holds up so well today that BBC 7 routinely airs rebroadcasts of Fear On 4 to rapt audiences of the 21st Century.

After five series' spanning ten years, one last send up of Fear On 4 aired on February 15, 1999 with The Blood of Eva Bergen--but minus any reference to The Man In Black. Apparently one more series of Fear On 4 was not to be. But fast forward only two years and first BBC Radio 4, then BBC 7 began airing several rebroadcasts of the series. Sadly, sometime around 1991, the BBC clipped Edward De Souza's intros from a few of the archived recordings and a couple of the recordings have yet to be rebroadcast. The very best exemplars of the series are the original, recorded-as-broadcast programs from the original runs, with Edward De Souza's introductions and expositions fully intact.

Sadly, one must be careful these days to make sure of the integrity of circulating recordings. Commercial OTR and OTR trading being what they've deteriorated to, many commercial sources and forums simply slap the original air date on a 2001 to 2010 BBC Radio 4 or BBC 7 rebroadcast of Fear On 4 and pass it off as an original 'as-broadcast' recording. There are literally tens of thousands of such bogus recordings in wide circulation now, much to the detriment of the hobby. The easiest way to tell if you've got an original set or the bogus, back-dated set is by listening to Programme No. 3 from Series 1. In the close, the contemporary presenter cautions the listener that Edward De Souza's intro and exposition are missing, due to having been denatured from the recording sometime around 1991. A small matter to some, absolutely vital to others, both the originals and BBC 7's rebroadcasts are supremely well engineered and digitally transcribed. We're in the camp that prefers the original, as-broadcast recordings.

Irrespective of the source, Fear On 4 stands as one of the finest anthologies of the thriller genre ever to air. It was indeed a revival series, but it was conceived and produced every bit in the spirit of the great spine-tinglers of the mid-20th Century. And indeed, the majority of its selections come from the Golden Age era of Radio. All in all an essential addition to any vintage Radio collection, irrespective of its vintage.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the BBC Radio Shows site and the Radio Times.

Our own archived recordings of Fear On 4 are from the first three runs over BBC's World Service and the 4th and 5th series over BBC Radio 4. Most of our archival recordings contain the BBC World Service aircheck and all of them carry Edward De Souza's wonderful Man In Black intros and expositions. We maintain our own set of the BBC Radio 4 and BBC 7 rebroadcasts as well for comparison purposes only. We prefer the original recorded-from-air broadcasts of Fear On 4. Yes, its a revival series and not specifically from the Golden Age of Radio, but its lineage can be traced to the original Appointment With Fear broadcasts during World War II and for that reason alone, we view Fear On 4 as an authentic exemplar of the Golden Age of Radio's many thriller and supernatural dramas.

OTRisms:

We don't misrepresent any of the recordings in our vast archive of BBC exemplars. When absolutely necessary, we include some of the 21st century rebroadcasts of BBC dramas of the 20th century to provide continuity within our various collections of BBC drama. But as soon as we uncover an authentic first generation transcription or recorded from air recording we replace the rebroadcasts. This is a personal preference and, for us anyway, maintains the integrity of our BBC collection.

The reprehensible practice of relabeling BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3 and BBC 7 rebroadcasts of 20th century recordings simply to make them appear to be authentic, recorded-from-air recordings is simply dishonest. There's no need to mince words about it. If that offends you, we're sorry. We prefer to call them as we see them. We're Radio preservationists, not liars. We leave the lying to the overwhelming majority of commercial OTR purveyors who engage in all manner of monkey business to prop up their services, 'reputations', 'credentials', and, most importantly, cash-flow.

A word about Episode and Series numbering for BBC dramas: in a word, they do it differently. We're sorry if that doesn't meet the OTTER log's cookie-cutter approach, but that's simply how it is. Recurring BBC series' didn't air contiguously over multiple seasons as they almost always did over American Radio. There have often been several months or even years between series' of popular BBC Radio features. Therefore, and quite logically, they're numbered sequentially within their respective series: such as Series 1, Episode 1, Series 2, Episode 2, etc. Several popular conventions for numbering BBC Radio series have evolved over the years. Similar to the conventions for numbering chronological Television broadcasts the world over, they're identified as, for example: 1x01, denoting episode 1 of season or series 1, or the easier 101 denoting episode 1 of season or series 1 and 201 denoting epsiode 1 of season or series 2, etc. This is a fairly simple convention--and it's employed the world over for both BBC Radio and conventional Television episodes.

BBC broadcasts over the years require a far more nuanced approach than that applied to the overwhelming majority of OTR collections. Series 3 of Fear On 4 is a representative example. Airing almost a year and a half after Series 2, one of its broadcasts, "Invitation to The Vaults" was postponed until February 21, 1991. Hence it aired last in the series, though it's still Episode No. 4 of Series 3. That nuance, among many others, is lost on those collecting only the BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3 and BBC 7 rebroadcasts from the BBC's massive archival recordings. And indeed, the presenters of the rebroadcasts don't always convey those nuances when introducing rebroadcasts. But that omission doesn't change the historical facts behind the original broadcast. Just saying. . . .

We do not believe The Hairy Hand of Dartmoor to be a Fear On 4 revival exemplar. Unfortunately, all circulating exemplars of this program have no full introduction or aircheck identifying the service over which it was broadcast--or whether is was characterized as among the Fear On 4 canon. We include it in the log below for continuity's sake only.

What you see here, is what you get. Complete transparency. We have no 'credentials' whatsoever--in any way, shape, or form--in the 'otr community'--none. But here's how we did it--for better or worse. Here's how you can build on it yourselves--hopefully for the better. Here are the breadcrumbs--just follow the trail a bit further if you wish. No hobbled downloads. No misdirection. No posturing about our 'credentials.' No misrepresentations. No strings attached. We point you in the right direction and you're free to expand on it, extend it, use it however it best advances your efforts.

We ask one thing and one thing only--if you employ what we publish, attribute it, before we cite you on it.

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We don't pronounce our Golden Age Radio research as 'certified' anything. By the very definition, research is imperfect. We simply tell the truth. As is our continuing practice, we provide our fully provenanced research results--to the extent possible--right here on the page, for any of our peers to review--or refute--as the case may be. If you take issue with any of our findings, you're welcome to cite any better verifiable source(s) and we'll immediately review them and update our findings accordingly. As more verifiable provenances surface, we'll continue to update the following series log, as appropriate.

All rights reserved by their respective sources. Article and log copyright 2009 The Digital Deli Online--all rights reserved. Any failure to attribute the results of this copywritten work will be rigorously pursued.

[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]