Dark Fantasy: Funeral Arrangements Completed

Alf Daniels and Eleanor Naylor Corin star in Funeral Arrangements Completed. They play Richard and Emily Longacre. Richard recently received a letter informing him of his Aunt Patricia’s death. This was quite a surprise for him because he had no idea he even had an Aunt Patricia. The letter also stated he was her sole heir and had inherited her hotel, Merryvale.

The beginning of the episode finds Richard and Emily on their way to Merryvale. They stop at an inn to ask directions. Jason, the innkeeper, is keen for them to spend the night at his establishment, but Richard is determined to press on, as is Emily, who believes she saw a ghost sitting in one of the chairs in the lounge of the inn. The story takes a turn for the weird when Jason informs Richard his Aunt Patricia died five years ago and enquires who sent him the letter. When Richard tells him it was Dr Hiland, Jason says the doctor also died five years ago—within a couple of days of Richard’s aunt.

Despite Jason’s best efforts; none of this new information is enough to persuade Richard and Emily to spend the night at the inn. Even when Jason tells him his aunt’s body was never found, and mentions the resulting rumours of her resurrection as a zombie, it still fails to deter the two travellers, and it’s not long before they are standing outside the boarded-up hotel and looking for something to prise away the boards from the door. The first place they look is inside the shed, but their candle blows out. When Richard manages to relight it Emily is gone and a lid is lifting on one of the coffins stacked at the back of the shed.

Funeral Arrangements Completed is not one of the better episodes of the Dark Fantasy radio series. The ending is a big disappointment. The quality of this recording is also quite poor at the beginning but becomes more reasonable after the introduction is out of the way.

Dark Fantasy Radio Show: Funeral Arrangements Completed

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