Charles Paris: Dead Giveaway: A BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation
About this audiobook
Bill Nighy stars as Charles Paris in a witty, twisty mystery by Jeremy Front, based on a story by Simon Brett
Charles’ enthusiastic but inept agent, Maurice, is always on the lookout for a quick, easy and lucrative commission. Keen to jump on the latest bandwagon, he’s now aiming to move into ‘content’: and his first TV pilot is a high-stakes reality gameshow set in a manor house spa hotel on the privately owned island of St. Mungo. When the actor playing ‘The Butler’ drops out, Maurice offers the part to Charles – who promptly invites his semi-detached wife Frances along as a birthday treat.
But no sooner do they all arrive than Storm Trevor sweeps in, cutting them off from the mainland. And when the host of the show dies in suspicious circumstances, Charles suspects someone in the cast is wearing a killer’s cloak. It’s time for him to adopt his alternative role of amateur detective – can our faithful sleuthhound sniff out who’s lying, who’s keeping secrets – and who has a motive for murder?
Starring Bill Nighy as Charles Paris, with Jon Glover as Maurice, Suzanne Burden as Frances and a full cast including Letty Butler, Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong and Lauren Cornelius.
Production credits
Written by Jeremy Front, from a story by Simon Brett
Cast
Charles – Bill Nighy
Frances – Suzanne Burden
Maurice – Jon Glover
Sean McKay – Jonathan Forbes
Xanthe Klein – Letty Butler
Mike Cheadle – Stephen Hogan
Sheila Cheadle – Gillian Bevan
Tatti – Grace Hogg-Robinson
Ross – Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong
Sapphi – Lauren Cornelius
Tristram – David Holt
Directed by Sally Avens
Technical producers: Peter Ringrose & Alison Craig
© 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd
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About the author
Jeremy Front (Author)
Jeremy Front is an award winning writer, actor and broadcaster. He studied Fine Art (Painting) at Goldsmith’s, University of London and Central St. Martin’s School of Art.
His first feature length screenplay was shortlisted for the Oxford Film Foundation Prize and first theatre pieces were musical/sketch revues, co-written with his sister, Rebecca Front. Four Times Four, a collection of monologues for women was staged by the RSC in Stratford as part of their New Writing Season.
Jeremy has written extensively for radio and television moving between original and adaptations in both drama and comedy. Work for BBC Radio includes the comedy series: Jack and Millie, seven series of Incredible Women (nominated BBC Audio Drama Award) in both of which he co-stars with Rebecca Front, and the long-running radio comedy series The Charles Paris Mysteries starring Bill Nighy. Jeremy has adapted and dramatized work by Graham Greene Stamboul Train, Elizabeth Gaskell Mr. Harrison’s Confession, John Meade Faulkner The Lost Stradivarius, Anita Loos Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Nominated and Finalist for a Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award), Chekov The Duel and Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, Scoop, Brideshead Revisited and The Sword of Honour Trilogy (Winner of the BBC Audio Drama Award).
Simon Brett (Author)
Simon Brett was born in Worcester Park, Surrey, on 28 October 1945. He was educated at Dulwich College and Wadham College, Oxford, where he read English and was president of the Oxford University Dramatic Society.
After graduating in 1967 he worked as Father Christmas in a department store before landinga job at the BBC as a radio producer. During his ten years there, he worked on such programmes as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Week Ending, The Burkiss Way, I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue and Just a Minute. He moved to London Weekend Television in 1977, where he produced Maggie and Her, End of Part One and The Glums (a popular spin-off from radio’s Take It From Here).
Brett’s first Charles Paris novel, Cast In Order of Disappearance, was published in 1975, and by 1979 he was able to leave LWT and become a full-time writer. He has written over eighty books, including nineteen Charles Paris books, fifteen Fethering Mysteries and six Mrs Pargeter novels, as well as several non-series titles such as A Shock to the System (1984), which was adapted as a film starring Michael Caine. He has also contributed to several anthologies and scripted many sitcoms for radio including No Commitments, Smelling of Roses and After Henry.
Other radio work includes several one-off plays for Radio 4, and a number of episodes of the detective series Baldi. A former Chair of both the Crime Writers’ Association and The Society of Authors, he is currently President of the Detection Club, as well as being involved with various writers’ organisations. He is married with three children, and lives in West Sussex.
