Rigor Mortis: The Complete Series 1-3

A BBC Radio 4 Black Comedy

By: Laurence Howarth

Narrated by: Peter Davidson, Tracy-Ann Oberman

All 18 episodes of the sitcom set in the fascinating but misunderstood world of the pathology lab.

Meet Dr Anthony Webster and Dr Ruth Anderson, two pathologists attempting to live normal lives in an atmosphere of death, decay and seriously unpleasant smells. Anthony loves his chosen profession, finding every cadaver exciting and surprising: 'they're like Kinder eggs that have died'. Ruth, however, longs for a juicy murder mystery, instead of one routine autopsy after another.

Together, they perform post-mortems under the watchful eye of their enthusiastic head of department, Professor Donaldson, a man who's never short of a new initiative or NHS directive to implement. Also keeping the mortuary alive are hard-drinking lab assistant Gordon, no-nonsense secretary Chloe and ineffectual police sergeant Simon, who unfortunately gets queasy around corpses.

Throughout these three series, the team tackle a 'live' radio autopsy, a dearth of dead bodies and a health scare in the lab; find themselves forced to work on Christmas Day due to a department store drama, and witness a retirement, a leaving party, an overdue baby - and a death....

Scripted by Laurence Howarth, one of the lead writers on Dead Ringers and co-star of Radio 4's Laurence & Gus, this delightfully dark comedy is like Silent Witness, only slightly less ridiculous. It stars Peter Davison as Anthony, Tracy-Ann Oberman and Matilda Ziegler as Ruth and Geoffrey Whitehead as Professor Donaldson, with Tom Price as Gordon, Marianne Levy as Chloe and Gus Brown as Simon.

Dr Anthony Webster - Peter Davison

Dr Ruth Anderson - Tracy-Ann Oberman/Matilda Ziegler

Professor Donaldson - Geoffrey Whitehead

Gordon - Tom Price

Chloe - Marianne Levy

Simon - Gus Brown

David/Patient - Stephen Critchlow

Elaine/Mrs. Fitzherbert/Alison/Mrs. Wealands/Mrs. Dance - Beth Chalmers

Mrs. Renfield - Rachel Atkins

Daniel Kasper - Laurence Howarth

Margaret - Lauren Bird

Prof. Van den Hoogenband - Chris Pavlo

Mr. Reeve - Nicholas Boulton

Mrs. Anderson - Paula Wilcox

Norman - Lewis Aaltonen

Dr Betzatzoglu - Alex Lowe

Matthew - Steven Kynman

Mrs. Wantage - Felicity Montagu

Mr. Wantage - Kim Wall

Dorothy - Joanna Brookes

Interviewer/Mr. Dance - Gerard McDermott

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Critic reviews

"Wonderfully funny...the wit flashes as brightly as the scalpels." (Sunday Times)

"The sharpest, blackest and most original sitcom I've heard in years." (Observer)

Fantastic comedy for you to visualize

Radio comedy can be great, as was proven Manu decades ago by the likes of Jack Benny and Amos and Andy. Rigor Mortis is obviously much more up to date and modern but it carries in the traction of radio comedy. Peter Davison, who I discovered decades ago as the fifth Doctor Who, does a great job heading up a fine cast. The scripts are tight and always amusing, sometimes even hilarious. If you like radio shows give this one a try. The dry British sense of humor is always funny to me.

Dead funny

Great show wish their had been more episodes. Love Peter Davidson since he played Doctor Who. Will watch or listen anything he’s in. I loved the dark humor wished it had lasted longer