Fear on 4

is the continuation of a 50-year tradition on BBC radio of broadcasting tales of suspense and dread, beginning in 1943 with Appointment with Fear and continuing through Fear on 4 in 1988. Fear on 4 spanned six separate series over 11 years, becoming shorter by the series, with twelve episodes in the first series and only one (plus some repeats) in the last. The episodes were introduced by Edward De Souza as 'The Man in Black'—a host-character created for Suspense in the United States, but almost immediately borrowed for the BBC series Appointment with Fear which featured Valentine Dyall. Throughout the series, the BBC set very high standards for production quality. Pacing, acting, direction, and incidental music were all excellent. But perhaps what the BBC excel at is in choosing which stories to dramatize.

Orson Scott Card once identified Dread as the most powerful of the three types of fear (dread, terror, and horror). Dread "... is that tension, that waiting that comes when you know there is something to fear but you have not yet identified what it is. The fear that comes when you first realize that your spouse should have been home an hour ago; when you hear a strange sound in the baby's bedroom; when you realize that a window you are sure you closed is now open, the curtains billowing, and you're alone in the house." Blood and gore don't work well on radio. Dread does. And the BBC know this.

Sources used to create my own log and double-check titles, dates and cast members: BBC Genome Project, BBC Radio Listings, and Alison and Nigel Deacon's Diversity Website.

Currently this archive contains 18 of 47 plotlines and 14 reviews

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Beast with Five Fingers, The

Upon the death his uncle, a hard-headed scientist receives a small wooden box in the post—a box that rattles and moves as if it contained a small animal eager to escape. He thinks it might be that 4-toed albino he's been expecting. He's wrong.

See also "Crimson Hand, The" (The Hermit's Cave), "Dead Hand, The" (Murder at Midnight), "Death by Whose Hands?" (CBS Radio Mystery Theater), "Gipsy's Hand, The" (The Witch's Tale), "Hand, The" (CBS Radio Mystery Theater), and "Hand of Botar" (Hall of Fantasy).

Blood of Eva Bergen, The

By the River, Fontainbleau

There's a difference between drawing, sketching, painting... and being an Artist. This is a tale about the price for success—a tale of two art students, Marcel and Antoine, who, while tramping the French countryside testing their skill, discover a remote farm epitomizing human degradation... and the most amazing woman whose beauty cries out to be captured on canvas. Marcel has had enough and returns to Paris, but Antoine... feels compelled to stay.

Child Crying, A

Chimes of Midnight, The

A professor of cosmology purchases a very unusual clock which confirms his theories about the anthropic nature of Time in a most unfortunate manner.

Dance in the Underworld

Dark Feathers

Day at the Dentist's, A

A man with a detached filling pays an emergency visit to a dentist whom he hasn't seen in 10 years. He is terrified of dentists, you see, but this particular dentist has a very successful technique for relaxing his patients and enticing them into his chair.

Based on an idea by Arch Oboler.

Dead Drummer, The

One stormy night on the Salisbury Plain, the past comes back to haunt a pair of washed up sailors searching for shelter. Billy is a nervous fellow who hears the sound of drum beats following him. Of course his friend, Matthew, doesn't hear anything...

A note from Noelle: although this adaptation of "The Dead Drummer" was written by David Buck, it was based off an earlier story from a collection of stories published as The Ingoldsby Legends by Thomas Ingoldsby.

Reading Link: "The Dead Drummer", by Thomas Ingoldsby, available at eBooks@Adelaide.

Dead Man's Boots

Dispossessed Daughter, The

Dreaming of Thee

Edge, The

Every Detail but One

An expectant single woman, living alone, receives troubling messages on her answering machine from a hoarse, whispering sort of voice calling her by name and urgently pleading for help. She thinks it must be some deranged crank caller... until she starts hearing that same voice at other times: while she's watching television... and while she's sleeping...

Face, The

A husband, feeling the crush of his working life intruding into his private, pays little regard for his wife's recurring nightmares and urges her to see their family doctor. The doctor, in turn, urges her to visit the seashore where she can breath some fresh air and perhaps take a nice brisk dip in the ocean... Yep. That did the trick. No more nightmares...

Fat Andy

A man obsesses about losing the church where he has been a patron since a small boy... for if the Bishop signs the papers, then God will leave and Bad will be allowed to enter.

Gobble, Gobble

Green and Pleasant

Hand in Glove

They were known as the clever Miss Trevors, and social gatherings were never the same without them. Now that Ethel Trevor has set her cap on Lord Fred, she simply must have a new pair of ivory lace gloves. And it just so happens her elderly aunt has a lovely pair locked away in a trunk in the attic... 

Hearing Is Believing

Hellhound On My Trail

His Last Card

Horn, The

Invitation to the Vaults

Journey Home, The

Judge's House, The

Versions were produced for CBS Radio Mystery Theater, Fear on 4, Hall of Fantasy, and Haunted.

Life Line

Making Sacrifices

Mind Well the Tree

A husband and wife in an awkward, somewhat fractious relationship inherit a mansion called Elm Cottage from a distant aunt with the instruction to "mind well, the tree". But there is only one elm tree on the property... and it's been dead for many years. Dead and rotten.

Monkey's Paw, The

On a Dark and Stormy Night, an old friend from 20 years ago visits a man and his family and shows them a desiccated monkey's paw: a paw which he obtained from a Fakir in India and which has the power to grant 3 wishes...

Monkey's Revenge, The

Music Lovers

Two music lovers meet for an evening of recorded music so they can really hear the music without being disturbed by the rabble.

Net Suicide

Next in Line, The

Playing God

Routine Operation, A

St. Austin Friars

Snipe 3909

Snowman Killing, The

A mother becomes increasingly paranoid for the safety of her two sons when they obsess over a snowman in the yard that only they see.

Soul Searching

Speciality of the House, The

Dinner at Spiro's is an occasion to be both anticipated and remembered as the finest dining experience in the world—but why is the chef so fanatically adamant that no one be allowed in his kitchen? From the series Fear on Four.

Survival

A spacecraft en route to Mars suffers a catastrophic malfunction. Adrift in space and with no communications grim decisions must be made. When a rescue party finally arrives they don’t find what they where expecting. (or... when an interplanetary liner is cast adrift in the depths of space, the passengers are faced with a limited food supply, and the looming threat of cannibalism?)

Another version of this story aired on SF 68. See also "A Fall of Moondust" (Nightfall), and "Space Wreck" (2000 Plus); also "The Map Makers" and "Death Wish" (X Minus One)

Tapping

A couple living alone on the Scottish coast must deal with the husband's suppressed trauma over having heard a supposedly dead young girl tapping from within a coffin when he was young. Little do they realize the dangers of dredging up the past...

Tissue Memory

Vicious Fish

William and Mary

A woman receives a letter left by her recently deceased husband, an Oxford don, explaining that he has participated in a medical experiment. Just after his cancer kills him, his doctor will remove his brain and sustain it artificially. The letter tells the wife to contact the doctor, to find out whether the operation was a success.

Yellow Wallpaper, The

Thinking a move to the countryside will aid in his wife's recovery after the birth of their child, a rational forward-thinking husband does just that. The doctor's orders include no socialization, nothing to excite the patient's nerves. Confined to her bed, the wife is at first repulsed then fascinated with the horrid yellow wallpaper covering the walls of her bedroom. 

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