Dickie Dick Dickens

Dickie Dick Dickens is a satirical radio play by Rolf and Alexandra Becker. The play, which tells the story of Dickie Dick Dickens rise from simple pickpocket to gangster leader in Chicago, was first produced in Germany in 1959 by Bayerischer Rundfunk, which produced the last of its 51 episodes in 1976. Radio Bremen, Schweizer Radio DRS, Norwegian NRK and Swedish Sveriges Radio also made their own productions. It became particularly popular in Norway where it was voted the most popular radio play of all time in 2001.

Rolf and Alexandra Becker also published five books parallel with the production of the radio play. A theater play based on the radio play debuted in Norway in 2011.

The story is set in the 1920s in Chicago and tells the story of Dickie Dick Dickens evolving from a simple pickpocket to the "most dangerous man in Chicago's underworld", "a shining star in the wonderful million city's gangster sky". Among the members of his gang are the superstitious Opa Crackle and Bonco. His chief opponent is fellow gangster leader Jim Cooper while his opponents in the police include Chief Sergeant Lionel McKenzie and Sergeant Hillbilly.

An important part of the play is the two narrators who underline that the story is based on "countless partly dubious, partly non-existing sources" which form the basis for an "in every detail truthful rendering". Most important of the historical documentation is Dickie Dick Dickens's memoirs, written 20 years later in Sing Sing and translated into fourteen languages. According to the story, Dickie Dick Dickens lived 68% of his life in Chicago and 32% in Sing Sing.

Each episode ends with a cliffhanger.

In an interview Rolf Becker said that the play was inspired by American quasi-documentary crime series like Dragnet and some tendencies in film noir. Johannes Joner who played Dickie Dick Dickens in a theater version describes Dickie as a mixture of Al Capone and Arsène Lupin.

Bayerischer Rundfunk produced 51 episodes from 1959 to 1976. The six episodes in 1976 were independent from the episodes that were made in 1959 and the 1960s and featured Dickie Dick Dickens travelling in Europe.

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