The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency

The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency Vol. 1 & 2.

Written and dramatised by Alexander McCall Smith

Read by various actors

Published by BBC Audio

Price: £9.99 (www.bbcshop.com)

This is another fab production from the BBC. Precious ‘Mma’ Ramotswe is the proud owner of her own business. After the death of her Daddy, Mma Ramotswe uses her inheritance to buy herself a house and an office in Botswana (visit: www.botswana.com for more info on this country) from which she starts the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, 'for women and others'. Her assets are a tiny white van, two desks, a telephone and an old typewriter .

I popped McCall Smith into Google, and learnt that he was born and brought up in South Africa, and was in Botswana teaching and setting up a Law school before he moved to Edinburgh, Scotland. He fills the nooks and crannies of this novel with his love of the country, revealing an exquisite eye for detail.

The actors were well chosen for this production. The accents and mannerisms made each of the characters come alive. I loved Mma Ramotswe’s voice; her love of ‘traditional Africa’, her intelligence and empathy for fellow human beings. It was the description of Mma Ramotswe’s house overlooking the town and the tops of the acacia trees that made me want to look up Botswana.

This Radio drama does peel away some of McCall Smith’s original novel. We lose Mma Ramotswe’s brief and unhappy marriage to a jazz musician for example. Cuts are of course a necessary evil. Where it’s thinned, characters are sharper and the comedy of some of the situations are more evident in this format. Mma Ramotswe’s relationship her highly talented secretary, Mma Makutsi, is strengthened. Ramotswe becomes a mentor as the pair of them team up to tail a teenage girl to find out if she has a boyfriend. A job well paid by the father, Mr Patel. I was a bit sceptical of this story. I was waiting for it to be referred back to later on with the revelation that the girl did indeed have a boyfriend, and that in fact she was pregnant! But this didn’t happen, Mma Ramotswe is anything but cynical.

A lovely aspect of this drama, one that comes across just as well as in the book, is the way the it’s broken into stories. Each case is a separate story, with characters interlinking. It makes it very readable.

As she begins to get more cases, they become more challenging. Mr J.L.B. Maketoni, the reliable owner of Speedy Motors (and love interest) helps her with the maintenance of her little white van. He invites her in for a piece of cake and some bush tea and shows her what he has found in the back of a car he’s working on. Mma Ramotswe is soon on the trail of a missing child, a case that involves one of South Africa’s oldest traditions.