Transcending noir – Claire Grove’s BBC radio adaptations of Raymond Chandler

By considering two of Radio 4’s most recent adaptations (2011), this article analyses how director Claire Grove recreates the noir aesthetic characteristic of post-1945 radio and film adaptations of Chandler’s work. She achieves her task through various means – subverting Marlowe’s role as the omniscient narrator, challenging our understanding of him as a hard-boiled hero, and creating deliberately discordant soundscapes denoting the corruption pervading Marlowe’s world. The experience of listening to Grove’s adaptations not only reminds us of the importance of noir in the past but also comments on corruption in the present day. Nonetheless this is not the end of the story, as Grove asks us to reflect on Marlowe’s behaviour and consider whether there are other alternatives to viewing the world through perpetually cynical spectacles.