By H. Rider Haggard, adapted by Chris Harrald

BBC Radio 4, April 2 & 9 2017

Allan Quatermain is hired to help find a missing man – believed to be on the trail of the legendary King Solomon’s Mines…

Rider Haggard is one of those authors who many people sort of know something about – his creations include She Who Must Be Obeyed as well as Allan Quatermain – and chances are there are far more people nowadays who have read Quatermain’s adventures in Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen than have ever perused the original novels which have what would now be regarded as a quite unpolitically correct stance on many issues. The adventures have formed the basis of various TV series and films, with Richard Chamberlain, John Colicos and Sean Connery among those who’ve played Quatermain – most with more links to Indiana Jones than Haggard’s original.

For this Radio 4 play, part of the Ends of the Earth season, however, Chris Harrald has gone back to the original text, with Tim McInnerny’s Quatermain a far cry from Harrison Ford’s Indy. He’s someone who may not have seen it all, but certainly has a fair idea of the pitfalls and problems that can arise when common sense is trumped by overenthusiasm, and it’s only the promise that his son will be looked after financially that makes him agree to head through a desert that no man should be able to survive.

Harrald’s adaptation doesn’t add in extraneous obstacles for Quatermain and his employers/companions to face – accidental death, the elements, and nature itself are more than enough, and there are certain points where you may well reach for a glass of something cold to drink yourself…

Verdict: Very much a recreation of the attitudes of the mid-1880s, this is stirring stuff. 8/10

Paul Simpson