The Naked Lady

Review: Laurence Marcus

Duncan Ross’ The Naked Lady was a curious addition to the BBC’s drama slate in 1959 - curious in part because of how it was billed in the Radio Times as a "Comedy Thriller." This puzzling label was not uncommon for the time; in the 1950s, many BBC dramas leaned on a touch of levity, perhaps assuming their audience needed some comic relief to digest darker material. Whether or not the series truly warranted the "comedy" tag is impossible to verify today - all four half-hour episodes have been lost from the BBC archives.

Written especially for television by Ross, The Naked Lady was a coastal murder mystery set in the southwest fishing village of Torpoint and filmed partly in Dorset - where the Royal Navy was, coincidentally, conducting mine-sweeping operations during production. Ross, previously best known for his dramatized documentaries, assured viewers at the time that the mystery was solvable through clues given by three specific characters, noting proudly, "There are no red herrings."

The story begins with two off-duty soldiers arriving at a small seaside hotel for a well-earned rest. Their holiday takes a dark turn when they meet the enchanting and flirtatious Miss Le Roy (Janette Rowsell -  The Count of Monte Cristo), who is later found hanged - and naked - in her hotel room. The men, seen leaving the dining room with her the night before, have disappeared, casting immediate suspicion on them.

Detective Inspector Bill Burroughs (Osborn, in one of his final acting roles before transitioning into producing) is dispatched to investigate. With limited leads, his trail takes him to a London nightclub, where he encounters singer Sylvia Craig (Morris - The Forsyte Saga / Howards' Way), who once shared a room with the dead woman. Struck by Craig’s poise and potential connection to the case, Burroughs convinces her to return to Torpoint with him.

As the mystery deepens, they uncover a web of intrigue. Miss Le Roy had a recently deceased brother, drowned in the Thames, and a complicated romantic history involving several local men. Suspicion intensifies around Professor Dodds (Harold Scott – Dixon of Dock Green), a supposed birdwatcher who prowls the coastline with high-powered binoculars - but may have been watching more than just birds. Piece by piece, Burroughs and Craig reconstruct the final hours of Miss Le Roy’s life, eventually uncovering a crucial link between her and the last man to see her alive.

The serial reunited Osborn and Morris, who had previously appeared together in the popular Solo for Canary. Morris, incidentally, was the wife of BBC executive Ronald Waldman, and thus subject to the odd stipulation that spouses of BBC officials could only take six acting roles per year with the corporation - The Naked Lady accounted for one of her remaining three engagements that year. How very 1950s!

Though not widely reviewed, two contemporary critics captured contrasting responses to the series. Writing in the London Daily News on 14 July, Philip Purser noted a formula emerging in BBC thrillers: "Every six weeks or so the locale is shifted and the characters changed, but the essence remains the same: someone is murdered (usually a pretty girl), and a detective of one sort or another is trying to find out who did it." He described The Naked Lady—"a seductive title"—as bearing all the hallmarks of a classic serial, right down to familiar faces like Osborn and Morris.

The Manchester Evening News was less impressed. In a review published the same day, the critic lamented the slow pacing and lack of dramatic tension: "Shock, tension? Not on your life... you would have thought the discoverer (of the dead body) found one practically every day." Nevertheless, they conceded that Osborn and Morris added a much-needed dose of realism, and the episode ended on a "tantalising note."

Despite early criticisms, the series appears to have improved over its run. On 4 August, Purser returned with praise for the finale, calling it "strong and amusing," and commending the clever twist: heroin was being smuggled in plastic lobsters. "Jolly ingenious," he quipped, applauding Ross for the inventive solution.

Patrick Troughton, notably billed high in the cast list, was listed as appearing in all four episodes. Curiously, there’s no mention of his role in any surviving press material, leaving a small mystery of its own.

Produced and directed by the prolific Campbell Logan, The Naked Lady was never commercially released or exported abroad. Like many BBC serials of its era, it was wiped from the archives during the great junkings of the 1960s and ’70s. Duncan Ross would continue to contribute to 1960s television, writing 6 episodes of Para Handy - Master Mariner and No Cloak - No Dagger, a six-part series starring William Franklin, Lana Morris and Patrick Troughton. Sadly, Ross passed away in 1968 at the age of sixty.

What remains of The Naked Lady is not the footage, but the printed fragments: the premise, the cast, the curious tone, and a final twist involving plastic lobsters!