Satyajit Ray's 'Feluda' to star BBC radio play

NEW DELHI: Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray's fictional Bengali detective Feluda will be the star of a special radio feature in which versatile actor Rahul Bose will play the super sleuth and Anupam Kher his loyal sidekick.

BBC World Service will feature a dramatisation of Feluda: The Golden Fortress, on February 10 with Bose in the lead role, BBC said.

Kher plays affable writer Lalmohan Ganguly, immortalised for his gaffes in a series of stories by Ray featuring the detective.

Ray wrote 35 stories about Pradosh C Mitter, who also went by the moniker Feluda, a sharp and quick-witted detective whose exploits have been filmed for TV and the big screen.

The Golden Fortess was filmed by Ray himself as Sonar Kella.

Writer Ray Grewal, who adapted the story for radio, described Feluda as a combination of Sherlock Holmes, Tintin and Indiana Jones. He said, "People often think that plays work better on radio when listeners use their imaginations to see the story.

"Feluda is so well known in India that people have very clear ideas about who he is and what he sounds like. But millions of BBC listeners around the world will not be familiar with him," he said.
 
Bose has worked on radio before in a production of Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy for BBC Radio 4 in 2000.