Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
Alan receives a theatre ticket in the morning post, with no indication who sent it or why. He's rather mystified, but since he hasn't seen Bulldog Drummond he decides to go along to Wyndham's Theatre... and so begins his very first adventure, dating from January 1924. Story begins at 00:01:30
Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me:
* Occasional/one-off support via Buy Me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/bitesizedaudio
* Monthly support on Patreon: patreon.com/bitesizedaudio
* Donate via PayPal: paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=HMMUWZ7URN26A
* Visit my Bandcamp page to hear more of my performances of classic stories, and you can purchase and download high quality audio files to listen offline: bitesizedaudio.bandcamp.com
* Become a Bitesized Audio Classics member on YouTube, from $1 / £1 / €1 per month:
youtube.com/c/BitesizedAudioClassics/join
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:30 My Adventure in Jermyn Street
00:22:41 Credits, thanks and further listening
If you enjoy this story, you may like to hear my previous A. J. Alan recordings, available here: youtu.be/bmF4KhEgB9k
About the author: A. J. Alan was the pseudonym of the multi-talented Leslie Harrison Lambert (1883–1941), an English civil servant and intelligence officer whose readings of his own short stories on the fledgling BBC radio service in the early 1920s were incredibly popular with contemporary audiences. He was born in Nottingham, he went to school at Rugby and initially trained as a surveyor. After working for a few years as a surveyor, he made quite a radical career change: in about 1906 he became a professional magician and was accepted into the Magic Circle.
He also developed an interest in amateur radio in the years before the First World War which proved pivotal to his life and career: on the outbreak of war in August 1914 he volunteered to work at a coastguard station intercepting German wireless communications, and by the end of that year was working for the British Admiralty in Naval Intelligence Room 40, which was later to become part of what is now known as GCHQ. Lambert remained in the Intelligence service for the rest of his career. He still held a senior role at the outbreak of the Second World War, and transferred to Bletchley Park where he worked in Hut 8 (alongside Alan Turing amongst many others). However by this stage his health was declining, and he died in December 1941 at the age of 58.
The story goes that Lambert, already a wireless enthusiast, wrote to the BBC in 1923 (the year after the Corporation was founded) offering to read his own short stories as live broadcasts. His application was favourably received, and so he read My Adventure in Jermyn Street on 31 January 1924. The blend of mystery and humour was well received, and he went on to broadcast many more stories in a similar vein over the following decade and more, until the eve of World War II.
There are various popular legends about Alan’s broadcasts: that he had his scripts pasted onto cardboard so that the paper wouldn’t make a noise on the microphone, and that he turned up in full evening dress to do the broadcasts, with his own candle in case the lights in the studio went out. His stories were distinctive in tone, with a highly conversational, off-the-cuff style which belied the intense preparation which went into every episode. The broadcasts were hugely popular with contemporary audiences and made "A. J. Alan" into a household name. The stories themselves are typically a blend of humour and suspense, often with a twist. The majority of them were subsequently published in contemporary newspaper or periodicals, as well as published in book form ('Good Evening, Everyone!' in 1928 and 'A. J. Alan's Second Book' in 1933).
Sadly, the original radio broadcasts of Alan’s stories aren’t widely available, if they’ve survived at all, but a few were later re-recorded and released on gramophone discs in the 1930s. If you'd like to hear the voice of the man himself, a couple of short clips are available on the 'Stars of the Wireless' website:
rfwilmut.net/wireless/alan.html
A full recording of one of his last stories, 'The Fire Bell' (1937), is available on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=BLI7OqFIM0s
This recording © Bitesized Audio 2026
Alan receives a theatre ticket in the morning post, with no indication who sent it or why. He's rather mystified, but since he hasn't seen Bulldog Drummond he decides to go along to Wyndham's Theatre... and so begins his very first adventure, dating from January 1924. Story begins at 00:01:30
Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me:
* Occasional/one-off support via Buy Me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/bitesizedaudio
* Monthly support on Patreon: patreon.com/bitesizedaudio
* Donate via PayPal: paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=HMMUWZ7URN26A
* Visit my Bandcamp page to hear more of my performances of classic stories, and you can purchase and download high quality audio files to listen offline: bitesizedaudio.bandcamp.com
* Become a Bitesized Audio Classics member on YouTube, from $1 / £1 / €1 per month:
youtube.com/c/BitesizedAudioClassics/join
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:30 My Adventure in Jermyn Street
00:22:41 Credits, thanks and further listening
If you enjoy this story, you may like to hear my previous A. J. Alan recordings, available here: youtu.be/bmF4KhEgB9k
About the author: A. J. Alan was the pseudonym of the multi-talented Leslie Harrison Lambert (1883–1941), an English civil servant and intelligence officer whose readings of his own short stories on the fledgling BBC radio service in the early 1920s were incredibly popular with contemporary audiences. He was born in Nottingham, he went to school at Rugby and initially trained as a surveyor. After working for a few years as a surveyor, he made quite a radical career change: in about 1906 he became a professional magician and was accepted into the Magic Circle.
He also developed an interest in amateur radio in the years before the First World War which proved pivotal to his life and career: on the outbreak of war in August 1914 he volunteered to work at a coastguard station intercepting German wireless communications, and by the end of that year was working for the British Admiralty in Naval Intelligence Room 40, which was later to become part of what is now known as GCHQ. Lambert remained in the Intelligence service for the rest of his career. He still held a senior role at the outbreak of the Second World War, and transferred to Bletchley Park where he worked in Hut 8 (alongside Alan Turing amongst many others). However by this stage his health was declining, and he died in December 1941 at the age of 58.
The story goes that Lambert, already a wireless enthusiast, wrote to the BBC in 1923 (the year after the Corporation was founded) offering to read his own short stories as live broadcasts. His application was favourably received, and so he read My Adventure in Jermyn Street on 31 January 1924. The blend of mystery and humour was well received, and he went on to broadcast many more stories in a similar vein over the following decade and more, until the eve of World War II.
There are various popular legends about Alan’s broadcasts: that he had his scripts pasted onto cardboard so that the paper wouldn’t make a noise on the microphone, and that he turned up in full evening dress to do the broadcasts, with his own candle in case the lights in the studio went out. His stories were distinctive in tone, with a highly conversational, off-the-cuff style which belied the intense preparation which went into every episode. The broadcasts were hugely popular with contemporary audiences and made "A. J. Alan" into a household name. The stories themselves are typically a blend of humour and suspense, often with a twist. The majority of them were subsequently published in contemporary newspaper or periodicals, as well as published in book form ('Good Evening, Everyone!' in 1928 and 'A. J. Alan's Second Book' in 1933).
Sadly, the original radio broadcasts of Alan’s stories aren’t widely available, if they’ve survived at all, but a few were later re-recorded and released on gramophone discs in the 1930s. If you'd like to hear the voice of the man himself, a couple of short clips are available on the 'Stars of the Wireless' website:
rfwilmut.net/wireless/alan.html
A full recording of one of his last stories, 'The Fire Bell' (1937), is available on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=BLI7OqFIM0s
This recording © Bitesized Audio 2026
