What happens
In 1685, following the failed rebellion against King James II in England, Peter Blood, an Irish physician, is convicted of treason and sentenced to transportation to the West Indies. At a slave auction on the island of Barbados, the Governor's niece, Arabella Bishop, buys him for ten pounds, while his fellow prisoners face the auction block alongside him. Blood's men plan an escape, and a sudden Spanish threat to the bay gives them their chance. The episode is a Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film Captain Blood, first broadcast on February 22, 1937, and it stars Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, with Basil Rathbone, Henry Stevenson and Donald Crisp.
England, 1685, then the West Indies: a trial at Taunton Castle, a slave auction at Port Royal, and later the pirate haven of Tortuga.
Characters: Peter Blood, Arabella Bishop, Colonel Bishop, Governor Steed, Jeremy Pitt, Dixon, Lord Willoughby, Levasseur
Listen for: The bidding at the slave auction and the escape plan that follows.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.