Afternoon Plays X
  
  



Afternoon Play - The Walrus and the Terrier by Christopher Ralling 
*******When journalist James Cameron visited Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer 
in Gabon in 1953, he was shocked by what he found. Albert Schweitzer: selfless humanist or delusional hypocrite? 
It's the contentious debate at the heart of this pacy dramatisation of the real-life encounter between a British journalist 
(David Cameron, played by Jamie Glover) and the reclusive philospher turned medic (David Horovitch) who set 
up a mission at Lambaréné in French Equatorial Africa. Meeting Schweitzer shortly after he has been awarded the 
1952 Nobel Peace Prize, Cameron soon discovers the truth: the mission is squalid, Schweitzer's attitude borders on racist, 
and he is letting most of the donations sent to him rot unused in the sun. 
                But will Cameron spill the beans to his newspaper back home? 



Afternoon Play - The Waltzer by Rhiannon Tise
******Sally is thrilled to be going out on her first ever date, with Brian Wilcox, 
   though her jealous friend Paula reckons he is only after `just one thing'.


Afternoon Play -  War Bride by Nell Leyshon
******WWII is over and Eleanor and Clarence are on a ship, emigrating to Canada. Young Eleanor 
is running away from the farm she grew up on - and her parents don't know. When Eleanor discovers 
that her childhood sweetheart Frank is also on board, she starts to retreat from Clarence into the world 
of her imagination. Eleanor is vulnerable a long way from home. Who can she trust?



Afternoon Play -  A Rain of Stones by Wole Soyinka
******A thought provoking and atmospheric play that explores religious fanaticism. An archaeological discovery
reveals the source of the oldest religion ever, and is the cause of extreme action.
By Africa's most famous living playwright and Nobel Prize Winner for Literature, Wole Soyinka



Afternoon Play - When Tiger Woods Comes to Tiger Bay by Leonora Brito 
*******




Afternoon Play - Odd by Robert Shearman
******Michael Harris feels he's been wasting all his precious words writing commercials. 
Then at breakfast, his wife asks him to pass the spanner. Overnight every word in the English 
language seems to have changed its meaning and soon there's only one person left in the world 
who understands him: his secretary.
                        A fable about words and the tricks they can play.



Afternoon Play - O Margate by Annie Caulfield
******Poingant comedy. Aisha is an Algerian artist, taking refuge from death threats in Margate, 
a town struggling to reinvent itself as the new St Ives.


Afternoon Play - The Web of Belonging by Stevie Davies
******A delicious and poignant comedy adapted by Stevie Davies from her own novel. 
Jess Copplestone, devoted wife and pillar of the Shrewsbury community, has gladly taken 
on the care of her husband Jacob's three elderly relatives in a spirit of CHRISTIAN charity. 
When Jacob walks out on her one day for a younger woman, 
                 Jess' reserves of devotion and charity are sorely tested. 



Afternoon Play - Offshore by Simon Passmore 
******Taut thriller. Chris and Sam are looking forward to their cross-channel boat trip. 
                               But their idyllic weekend turns into a nightmare.



Afternoon Play - Occasional Swim by Annie McCartney
******A woman's marriage has disintegrated after a family tragedy. She meets another man, 
and they get on famously, and a happy ending is anticipated. 
                                 But there are some surprises in store.


Afternoon Play - The Old Avrio by H G Courtney Wells
******



Afternoon Play - The Old Railway Station by Tony Cassidy
******



Afternoon Play - The Sundowner by Evan Ritchie
******


Afternoon Play - Blame the Parents 1.2 by Nicholas McInerny and Jonathan Myerson
Afternoon Play - Blame the Parents 1.2 
******about teenagers caught up in a violent crime outside their school.

How much do parents really know about what their teenagers are up to? As far as the parents of Ben, Rory and Kris 
are concerned, their children have the world at their feet. But behind the promise of university 
                                and sporting achievement lies a much darker reality.



Afternoon Play - The Milk Race by Mark Tuohy
******Two west London milkmen race each other to Bognor Pier in their milk floats to decide 
which of them wins exclusive rights to their local round.


Afternoon Play - Ruminations upon Mortality by Nigel Baldwin. 
******When a prominent Bishop's private life is suddenly in the tabloids, his psychiatrist knows that the blame lies 
with his vengeful daughter. But whom is she taking vengeance on, and why?


Afternoon Play - Wednesdays With Strangers by Nick Leather.
******When a welcome pack to the UK offers advice on how to talk to strangers, a migrant worker 
decides to spend his one day off each week attempting to get to know the people of Britain 
and prove to his disillusioned flatmate that there is such a thing as the British Dream after all.


Afternoon Play - The Smallest Man in Christendom by Robin Brooks
******The true story of Jeffrey Hudson, whose extraordinary adventures are celebrated in a masque, 
including his presentation in a pie to King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, and his exploits 
in the Civil War. He had a curious life; he was court favourite and friend of the Queen, but came from 
an unknown farming family. On one occasion he behaved with a notable lack of commonsense and found 
himself involved in a duel. It changed his life.


Afternoon Play - Wednesdays with Strangers by Nick Leather.
******When a welcome pack to the UK offers advice on how to talk to strangers, a migrant worker decides 
to spend his one day off each week attempting to get to know the people of Britain and prove to his 
disillusioned flatmate that there is such a thing as the British Dream after all.


Afternoon Play - You Don't Feel a Thing by David Marshall
******


Afternoon Play - The Owls by Paul Evans
******An old man and his sister are found dead in an isolated moorland house, 
               both of them bound by a shared wish that becomes a fatal curse.


Afternoon Play - Ninety Percent Penetration in Finland by C.Seal and D. Black 
******a love story with a difference; two people seek refuge in the same telephone box during a storm. 
They are six inches apart; can they communicate with each other?


Afternoon Play - The People's Princess by Shelagh Stephenson
******Facing financial ruin, George, Prince of Wales was obliged to marry his first cousin Princess Caroline of Brunswick.


Afternoon Play - Pips by Stephen Davis
******Gentle melancholic comedy set in a dentist's waiting room.


Afternoon Play - The Perfect Husband by Anji Loman Field
******Joan is the new office assistant at Bridlington Brides. After many lonely years living 
as her mother's carer Joan is eager to please and desperate to fit in, but the lunchtime 
culture in the bridal shop revolves around talking about men. Sadly Joan's one attempt 
at romance was cunningly stopped by her controlling mother and she soon discovers 
that her colleagues can be very unkind to those who have never made a trip up the alter. 
Rather than be ostracized by the staff in the bridal shop, Joan invents Charlie her loving husband.


Afternoon Play - Places Where They Sing  by Ellen Dryden.
******Thomas has composed his first work for the amateur choir he founded. 
The performance is imminent. Thomas' unpredictable behaviour 
is upsetting the choir - and his wife Joanna


Afternoon Play - The Playwright and the Grammarian by Marcy Kahan
******A playwright and a retired civil servant confront one another over a Radio 4 microphone 
and go on to transform each other's lives, to the consternation of their best friends.


Afternoon Play - The Poetry Disease by Adam MacDonald
******With poems by Char March. A council official finds that his prose is being infected 
with poetry, his reports are coming out in rhyme, and his boss is beginning to notice.



Afternoon Play - The Point Of The Story by Perry Pontac
******All Perry Pontac's plays are fun. He dispels gloom and invites listeners to relish absurdity 
and delight in his wit. (...Barry Pike)This one is a story within a story within a story and back again...... 


Afternoon Play -  Polar Wife by Patricia Hannah
******A rather odd comedy starring Lady Franklin, John Franklin, Charles Wood, Florence Nightingale and others...
                   it's about the lost navigators and the North-West Passage. 


Afternoon Play -  Poor Pen by Laurie Graham
******Pen Browning was the son of brilliant parents, poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
Set in Italy, poor Pen's story is told through the astute eyes of down-to-earth Lily, his faithful 
servant from the time of his birth until the day of his death. 
                    'Mr Roert Browning were nobutt a little body, but he did cast a long shadow'.


Afternoon Play -  Poor Echo by Matthew Dunster. 
******Three women overhear the same story in the hairdresser's and react in very different ways. 



Afternoon Play - In Afghanistan -  Poppy Seeds by Rachel McGill
******An aid worker in Afghanistan decides that the fight to contain 
the opium trade is not working and that a fresh approach is needed.


Afternoon Play -  Postcard from Shannon by George Rosie. 
******Shannon Davis was a 19-year-old student at Syracuse University in upstate NEW YORK. 
At the end of 1988 she had been studying in LONDON and travelling around Britain and Europe. 
On the afternoon of Wednesday 21 December, she was one of 259 people who boarded 
                     Pan Am flight 103 bound from LONDON to NEW YORK.




Afternoon Play -  The Price of a Fish Supper by Catherine Czerkawska
******Rab is a fisherman, like his father and grandfather before him. 
The decline of the Scottish fishing industry and the loss of his brother at sea have hit him hard.



Afternoon Play -  Take One Night by Rachel Joyce
******On the eve of their son's 10th birthday, Alan and Alice start work assembling his present. 
                   The only instruction they can find simply says, 'Take one night'.



Afternoon Play -  Signs, Horizon by Steve May
******Contemporary stories about the way technology determines our lives. 
1/2: Horizon. Comic thriller. Different people plan for the future in different ways.


Afternoon Play -  Signs, Perfect Day by Hattie Naylor
******Can technology locate someone's perfect life partner?


Afternoon Play -  Silent Nights by David Nobbs 
******Gordon's hatred of noise is threatening his marriage. 


Afternoon Play -  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Simon Armitage
******A new translation of the famous poem, narrated by Ian McKellen.

Set in Arthurian Britain at Christmas time with the knights of the Round Table, whose festivities at Camelot 
are disrupted by the appearance of a green knight. The stranger has come to lay down a challenge - 
a test of courage and heart which Sir Gawain, King Arthur's nephew, accepts.

Sir Gawain ...... Samuel West
The Green Knight/Sir Bertilak ...... David Fleeshman
Bertilak's wife ...... Deborah McAndrew
Arthur/Servant ...... Conrad Nelson


Afternoon Play -  Slightly Larger Than West Virginia by Hugh Costello
******Redeployed in Ireland, former CIA high flyer Sam Taft has had to alter his view of the world, 
                                         and he is starting to like it.


Afternoon Play - Steinbeck in Avalon by Ray Brown
******Dramatised from John Steinbeck's recollections of his sojourn in Somerset.

In 1959, the great novelist went to live in Somerset for a while to write 
                      a modern treatment of the Arthurian legend.


Afternoon Play -  Love in A Glass Jar by Nancy Harris
******Eve and Patrick are two strangers who begin chatting on a dating website and agree to meet 
face-to-face in a hotel room in order to carry out an unofficial sperm donation. 
They both know why they are there, but do they know what they want?



Afternoon Play -  Good Evening by Roy Smiles
******Roy Smiles' celebration of the Beyond the Fringe team takes a funny and affectionate look 
at how four young men from Oxbridge changed the face of British comedy.


Afternoon Play -  Hoffnung - Drawn to Music by Alan Stafford 
******exploring the bizarre world of musical humorist Gerard Hoffnung.

It is 1956, and the fruity-voiced raconteur, tuba player and occasional 
Quasimodo impersonator Gerard Hoffnung is about to unveil his latest 
madcap scheme, a Hoffnung Music Festival: a full-scale symphonic concert 
that will bring many of his cartoon creations to life and poke fun at the pomposities 
of classical music. Will he succeed in filling the Royal Festival Hall with laughter, 
or will the whole enterprise come crashing to earth like a barrel of bricks?


Afternoon Play -  The Stowaway by Tanika Gupta
******Vikram's family has been swindled out of its land; Vikram, after half a life in servitude, 
pays his meagre life savings to a man who promises to stow him away on an airliner. 
Disaster follows disaster as he fights for survival in the wheel bay. After plays like this one realises 
that living in the UK is a privelege which one should not take for granted. 

Afternoon Play -  Septimus Greabe by Mike Harris
******In the early 19th century, the Society for the Suppression of Vice, inspired by William Wilberforce, 
would stop at nothing in their efforts to stamp out sin and corruption - even if this meant employing 
the most unscrupulous of characters to carry out their good work.


Afternoon Play -  Love by Ian Curtis
******

Afternoon Play -  Lot 103, The Man Inside the Suitcase by Judy Upton. 
*****Helen and Naomi attend auctions of unclaimed airport luggage, contents unseen, 
in the hope of finding valuables that they can sell on the internet.