Joseph and Joseph

A radio play by Oliver Emanuel

The Afternoon Play BBC Radio 4

As this began it reminded of a recent radio play that had the theme of a young teacher who was clandestinely photographed by a camera phone while having a one-off sex act with someone she had just met at a party. That play was a straight ahead from-the-headlines current horror sort of story.

Joseph and Joseph starts out in much the same way as we meet mild mannered accountant Joseph Taylor and his fiancé going over the credit card invoice. She is very angry about his trip to Nice when he had told her he was going on a business trip somewhere much less glamorous. And what's is with these expenses in Nice? What is he doing spending an enormous amount of money gambling, drinking, and buying a very expensive wristwatch? Joseph is completely baffled by the matter. He is also canned from his job for stealing money from a business account. Our boy is in trouble and doesn't know why. Arriving home from his dismissal his fiancé is waiting for him with a postcard from a woman in Nice. It's a love note. She misses him and wonders where he is and why he hasn't contacted her.

It takes Joseph a few beats more than average to catch on that he has been the victim of identity theft. He jets off to Nice to try to get to the bottom of it. Here the suspense continues as he looks for the thief Joseph. But happily this turns out not to be your average horror-from-the-headlines show. Oliver Emanuel takes us on quite a trip. Sometimes there is a bit in a bump in continuing to suspend disbelief with the turns of the plot. But all in all it is a pleasant diverting trip to Nice that just might get the listener thinking, "What if. It there another way?"

This is a fine, fully realized production director Colin Guthrie. Shaun Dooley, Helen Longworth, Christine Kavanagh, Sam Dale do a very nice job with the acting chores. Give it a listen.

It is available here: The Afternoon Play BBC Radio 4 Through Tuesday April 17, 2007. Click the Wednesday button.