Back in what many regard as the golden age of radio, before TV and films had started to produce the spine-chilling programmes for which they are now well known, BBC Radio produced one of its most famous horror series, Appointment With Fear. A weekly half hour show introduced by Valentine Dyall, Old Harrovian actor who had made his radio debut in 1936, as The Man In Black, a sinister character who has been recently described by Edward de Souza as "a sort of darker Somerset Maughham, a creepy raconteur who picks up news of the spooky bits of life". He introduced the story, made comments afterwards and sometimes provided short narrative links.

Many of the plays were originally written for American radio by John Dickson Carr, but the series also dramatised stories by such authors as Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson and W. W. Jacobs.

Appointment With Fear ran for a total of ten series between 1943 and 1955, with Valentine Dyall introducing nine of them. He was unavailable for the second series, and was replaced by his Father, Franklin Dyall.

In 1949 The Man In Black was awarded a series of his own, called The Man In Black, with a very similar format to Appointment With Fear.

The man came out of retirement in 1988 for a series of twelve shows under the title Fear on Four. Valentine Dyall had died in 1985, aged 77, so his role was taken over by Edward de Souza

From an episode of Dr Who

Valentine Dyalls Obituary