Red Sands Investigations

***Carla, the sole benefactor of her detective uncle’s will, travels to Red Sands to sort through his affairs… and soon discovers that all is not as it seems in the town. Did her Uncle jump from Red Sands pier or was he pushed? Only his pile of dicta-phone tapes and his infatuated assistant, Tiff, can help solve the mystery… and maybe avenge his death.***

## Production Comments

Like many people, I love writing, so I’ve been doing it for enjoyment for a long time. I had written some short plays and sketches for theatre, but moving into a new area meant that the logistics of fitting in involvement in drama groups became difficult. I resigned myself to giving up drama and started trying to write a book. And that’s when I stumbled across Pendant, the whole world of internet audio opened up and the book got shelved.

Fast forward a couple of years and I was in the process of putting together ‘Red Sands Investigations’ on my own. I hadn’t pitched it to Tilly at Pendant, as I didn’t think he would be interested in a one-off miniseries. In fact, it turned out that he was, which was wonderful news for the show as it underwent Marleigh’s great script editing just for starters.

I have been a fan of film noir and detective pulp fiction ever since seeing ‘The Maltese Falcon’ one rainy afternoon and being awed by its visual style and crackling dialogue. I started setting the video for the matinee noirs and B-movies and immediately fell in love with the genre’s outsiders and antiheroes and independent, glamorous femme fatales.

I wanted to write an audio drama inspired by that world, but as a Brit, I knew that I could never dream of trying to emulate the style of Chandler or Hammett, steeped as it is in dialect and creative slang. It had to have a British setting and feel, one that I was more familiar with.

The setting is the run-down seaside town of Red Sands. Having worked on a pier, it struck me that the leisure industry community seemed to have potential for the small town claustrophobia and entangled relationships of the story.

Victorian British seaside resorts have a unique atmosphere with their elegant architecture and amusement arcades. While not as popular as in the past, a few of them still have traditional variety shows and pantos. Another passion of mine is the - now pretty much extinct - music hall and variety theatre, so I was keen to mix that popular entertainment culture into the show, along with a little local myth and legend.

The fourth series of the brilliant 1970s TV drama ‘Public Eye’ is set in Brighton. It follows the cases of Frank Marker, a private detective released from prison. I was wary of veering too close to that territory, or episodic case by case OTR series like ‘The Adventures of Phillip Marlow’ or ‘Barry Craig, Confidential Investigator’.

In fact, ‘Red Sands Investigations’ starts out with its private investigator dead, perhaps through being a little too soft-boiled. Instead, the mystery of his death and other peculiar happenings are picked up by his niece, struggling to cope with cases and find the truth in a town hostile to outsiders.

I have had enormous fun writing and directing this and have been lucky enough to have an extremely talented cast. I hope that it’s an enjoyable listen, too.

Fiona Thraille

*Creator, Writer and Director, "Red Sands Investigations"*