Afternoon Plays XVI
  
  



Afternoon Play - ID by Tajinder Singh Haye
******Dark thriller about Asian identity in modern Britain. A confused Asian man 
walks into a Manchester police station and says he needs help because he thinks 
he's going to kill. He can't remember a thing, not even his name. An attention seeker? 
Maybe an amnesiac? Or is it something more complicated?


Afternoon Play - The Forgetting Curve by Hugh Costello
******Though Greg's expert testimony is sufficient to acquit a vicious murderer, 
he little expects that the fallout from the trial will threaten his marriage, and even his life.


Afternoon Play - The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch
******13-year-old Miles escapes the fallout of his parents' impending divorce by taking 
his kayak out on the nearby mudflats at night looking for rare sea creatures to sell to 
the local aquarium. One night, he comes across a startling and remarkable sight.
 - a giant squid. A news team arrives to report on the monster and Miles becomes a local celebrity. 
Before you know it, the area is abuzz with predictions of freak high tides 
and even more amazing discoveries.




Afternoon Play - The Night They Tried to Kidnap the Prime Minister 
by Martin Jameson
******fictionalised account of the incident in 1964 when a group of 
students attempted to kidnap the then-Prime Minister, 
Sir Alec Douglas-Home, in Scotland. From The Radio Times

: 
The background to this glimpse into the mindset of someone 
at the top of the political tree stems from the decoded diaries 
of Lord Hailsham, who in 1964 wrote that a posse of students 
attempted to snatch the then prime minister.



Afternoon Play - Crime and Trial Rage on the Road by John Taylor
******


Afternoon Play - Inappropriate Behaviour by Rob Shearman
******


Afternoon Play - Arabian Afternoons 1.3 - The Casper Logue Affair
******A darkly comic thriller by Sebastian Baczkiewicz, set in Baghdad.
Junior diplomat Bob Goldacre is in trouble: the American businessman he was looking after has 
vanished from a Baghdad street. As the suspects pile up, Goldacre is going to have his work cut 
out if he wants to save his career and make sure that justice is done.

Afternoon Play - Arabian Afternoons 2.3 - The Porter and the Three Ladies 
******A wild, dark modern fairytale by Rachel Joyce, set in Damascus. The second in a series of 
contemporary plays inspired by stories from the Arabian Nights.

It is time for Shahrazad to tell another tale to save her life. In this story within a story, we find out 
that if Joe doesn't find the exclusive to satisfy his ruthless editor, he will lose his job. He finds 
three beautiful women in Damascus but what is the truth behind their secret life?

Afternoon Play - Arabian Afternoons 3.3 - A Dish of Pomegranates by Peter Jukes
******Shared roots and scattered families in the melting pot of modern Jerusalem. Tired after a stressful trip, 
Ajib is stopped by security officers as he tries to fly out of Ben Gurion airport on his way home to the U.S. 
They don't think his story adds up. Can he make them believe him? 
  And does he actually know the whole story himself?
 

Afternoon Play - Clear Air Turbulence by Dana Fainaru.
******Mel's idyllic existence is turned upside-down when she suddenly stops sleeping. 
As the sprawling nights become filled in increasingly risky fashion, a would-be 
accomplice demands to join in the nocturnal adventures.



Afternoon Play - Books by Tessa Hadley
******


Afternoon Play - Last Family Standing by Paul Watson
******Britain, newly emerged from the shadow of war is in a time of austerity. Five million 
victorious men and women have returned from the war effort to a peacetime of few jobs. 
Money, food and decent housing are also scarce. The Government has failed to stem 
accumulating social problems. The jubilation of VE day has evaporated. Life is difficult. 
The party is over.

Today, 2010, we are told our economic output is falling. The nation is suffering the worst 
contraction of GDP since 1946.

Politicians wave their hands and offer excuses. Bankers sit in isolated splendour seemingly 
impervious to social need. And the people wait!

Like our grandparents who waited for the tank and munitions factories to re-adjust to the 
needs of peace, to the building of cars, kettles and cookers, we all again wait, as unemployment 
and its consequence affect the finance of home life.

Paul Watson's play is the account of one waiting family in 1946, the Truscott family. Charles, 
Marjorie and their grown-up children's struggle to survive "at any cost" brings tragic consequence 
as remembered by the only surviving family member, Dorothy. It is her anger and contempt for the 
Establishment of "then and now" that fuels 'Last Family Standing'.


Afternoon Play - The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Marlbourne Point Mystery 1.2 by Bert Coules
******starring Clive Merrison as Sherlock Holmes and Andrew Sachs as Dr John Watson

Featuring James Laurenson as Mycroft Holmes

Part 1: a disused lighthouse on a remote stretch of the Kent coast is the scene of a bizarre double death.

In his accounts of the career of his friend Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson often makes 
passing reference to a mystery which his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, never wrote 
about in full. Bert Coules, the chief writer behind BBC Radio 4's celebrated dramatisations 
of the complete Sherlock Holmes canon of fifty-six short stories and four novels, 
once again takes up the pen where Sir Arthur left off.

This is what Holmes buffs call a 'canonical pastiche': a new story written faithfully in the style of the original.


Afternoon Play - The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Marlbourne Point Mystery 2.2
******

Afternoon Play - A Small Piece of Silence by Katie Hims
******Joe who has been Deaf since he was born , works in an ordinary council office . 
Every day he makes the same journey to work on the bus, seeing the same people . 
Then one day a young girl signs her name to him. A_N_G_E_L.

Joe has been working in the council's housing office for 17 years. Apart from one 
small promotion he has remained in the same job surrounded by the same people . 
Vernon has been there for the same amount of time. He eats Joe's food and talks 
too fast in the pub ..but Joe goes along with it.
Into their world comes new office recruit Shelly who begins to fall for Joe. Until Joe 
realises that she is having a relationship with Richard Humble , the leader of the council
At the end of Shelly's first week there is a huge fire in a nearby block of flats. Joe learns 
that Angel was one of the people who has died.
And so Joe's life is changed forever as he embarks on a quest, turning detective to find 
out what has happened.
A Small Piece of Silence is a love story, detective story but, using sound, it attempts 
to give us a picture of the world of someone who can't hear. It examines the issues 
around how society deals with Deafness through the character of Joe.


Afternoon Play - The End of the Alphabet by CS Richardson
******'When Ambrose finds out that he has just one month to live, he and Zipper, 
his loving wife, embark on a round-the-world journey, alphabetically, from 
Amsterdam to Zanzibar.

From The Telegraph

Juliet Stevenson and David Haig star, 
Adam Godley narrates this delicate and moving drama. It's about a loving marriage. 
The husband discovers, on or about his 50th birthday, he has a month to live. 
He's in the travel business, she's a literary editor. They decide to take a journey, 
all the way across the world and through the alphabet, Amsterdam to Zanzibar. 
It's one of those for which you'll need to take the phone off the hook, 
stop the car, hold a hankie.



Afternoon Play - The Guest Before You by Peter G Morgan
******Eavesdrop on a week in the life of hotel room no. 33


Afternoon Play - Homestead by Francis Turnly
******Daniel Brennan and his family downsize to a small farm holding in the country. 
Struggling to fit in, their hopes of a new start are dashed when a campaign 
of intimidation is directed at them. Who can they trust?




Afternoon Play - Highgate Letters by Jeff Young 
******A quirky and darkly comic drama - inspired by a true story - 
about life in the ghetto aka Highgate, North London.

Joe Lives in Highgate but is originally from Liverpool, he's married 
with a six year old daughter, Megan. Megan is Joe's best friend, 
well his only friend really. When Joe's daughter chalks on the 
pavement it creates near war with the chairman of the resident's 
committee, Mervin Dawson, and Joe.


Afternoon Play - Lost In Space by Amanda Dalton
******In his mind, Alan is an astronaut, floating in space in 1969 - the year of the first human on the moon. 
In reality its 2003 and Alan is suffering from dissociative amnesia. He shares a secret with his sister which 
he has suppressed, until a shock fragments his fragile world and his memory begins to return. 


Afternoon Play - Albert Speer's Walk Around the World by Michael Butt
******Patrick Malahide stars as Albert Speer or Prisoner Number Five, 
as he was known throughout his twenty years in Spandau Prison. 
Michael Butt's play 'Albert Speer's Walk Around the World' takes us 
on the imaginary journeys Speer devised to engage his mind and 
keep him from despair. A sympathetic American guard orders him 
travel books from the library and he plots his routes methodically. 
But he can't escape from the demons of guilt about Nazi war crimes. 
Sometimes the scenes he witnesses on his trips are exhilarating; 
sometimes the people are seductive but sometimes he is glad to be 
disturbed by the prison guard yelling for him to get back into his tiny 
cell where he is forbidden to look out of the window. Of the other six 
inmates, he is closest to Rudolf Hess (Jack Klaff) who he sees as 
vulnerable and wants to protect, whereas Admiral Karl Donitz 
(Nicholas Woodeson) constantly baits him and tries to pull rank with him. 
Donitz can't forgive Speer for his admission of guilt at the Nuremberg Trials.

Speer was Hitler's chief architect and his very efficient Minister for Armaments and War Production. 
In prison, he is rigorously self-disciplined and sets himself a tough regimen. Prison rules are strict 
but even as they relax and prisoners start to talk to each other, Speer keeps aloof. To disract himself 
nine years into his sentence, he designs and creates a garden in the spacious yard of Spandau and 
is particularly fond of his rockery and flowers. As an architect, he enjoys working out how the great 
buildings he visits were created and planning his routes so that when he sets off, he will see and 
hear and meet the people he has carefully researched. However thoughts come unbidden and there is 
one judgemental voice in his head that travels everywhere with him.


Afternoon Play - The Disappearance by Peter Whalley
******A compelling psychological thriller with fraudulent identity at its heart.
Alice moves into a converted Victorian house and rents the top floor. 
The landlord lives below. Both tenant and landlord are not who they 
say they are, and as each discovers the truth, 
 its clear one of them is going to die.


Afternoon Play - Funeral Games by Joe Orton
******A scabrous black comedy from Joe Orton on the subject of religious hypocrisy. 
A play that helped create the climate of change that would end the power of the official 
censor over British theatre productions.


Afternoon Play - HMS Surprise 1.3 by Patrick O'Brian
Afternoon Play - HMS Surprise 2.3 
Afternoon Play - HMS Surprise 3.3 
******Naval battles, political intrigue and romantic rivalry in Roger Danes's 
dramatisation of Patrick O'Brian's novel, set in 1804 in England, 
India and on the high seas.

Tragedy halts the ship's journey to the East Indies. In Calcutta, Stephen 
makes a proposal of marriage and takes part in a duel.


Afternoon Play - The Six Loves of Billy Binns by Richard Lumsden
******110-year-old Billy wants to remember what love is like before he dies. 


Afternoon Play - A Man in Pieces by Michael Symmons Roberts
******Conor volunteers to test a new medical sonic scanner which records 
the sounds inside the body. From this recording an analysis of the patient's 
health is drawn. The Goldberg Scanner could revolutionise medical science. 
No-one knows what effect this scanner has on human health. Conor finds 
himself a prisoner in a secure research facility, brought back day after day 
to spend another hour in this massive dark metal tunnel. He gradually realises 
that he's being mapped, being searched so deeply that he feels he's losing his 
identity and being taken over by a doppelganger released when he enters the scanner.


Afternoon Play - Nyama by David Pownall
******cautionary tale about a money-crazed entrepreneur who transports a pickled whale 
from the Cape of Good Hope round Southern Africa and makes a fortune.


Afternoon Play - The Girl Who Touched the Stars by Mahesh Dattani
******Bhavna's childhood dream of becoming an astronaut has come true. But her childhood 
is about to come back and haunt her in the most unexpected way.


Afternoon Play - Lifecoach by Nick Walker
******Nicola Walker and Stephen Tompkinson star in Nick Walker's real-time drama about a life coach 
who gets the job of a lifetime. But is she up to it?


Afternoon Play - Mercy by Frances Byrnes
******Carl Prekopp stars in this first world war drama about one of the first 
major operations by the Red Cross.

In 1916, soldiers who had been living terrible, deprived lives in German POW 
camps were taken to Chateau d'Oex, a holiday resort in Switzerland, to be nursed 
back to health amongst the clean air and spring flowers, courtesy of the Red Cross. 
Some of their wives even made the long train journey from Britain to visit them.

It sounds like a fairy tale ending to the horrors of war and captivity, and for many 
it must have been just that. But what if a man doesn't want to be found and what 
if he thinks he doesn't deserve to be made better?

Based on newspaper reports of events at the time, Frances Byrnes' play follows two 
fictional soldiers: number 2301, an angry young sergeant who is ashamed to have been 
captured and won't reveal his identity, and Havildar Gurung, a young Ghurka who is going 
blind and longs for the hills of home.

Thrown together in this beautiful, gentle place, and with the winter snows now 
beginning to fall, is kindness and mercy enough to cure these damaged men?


Afternoon Play - East Of The Sun West Of The Moon by Louis MaCneice
******A Norwegian fairy tale.




Afternoon Play - Bette and Joan and Baby Jane by Tracy-Ann Oberman.
******On 23 July 1961, filming started on "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?" 
at the Producers Studio, Hollywood. It was a film that industry insiders thought 
would never be made, as its two female stars had an ongoing feud as famous 
and as long lasting as both of their glittering screen careers. Bette Davis "the actress" 
and Joan Crawford "the movie star" both arrived on set determined to prove 
everyone wrong, including each other...

Tracy-Ann's first radio play tells the story of the making of a legendary film, of the creation 
of two iconic stars and of the origins of a deep seated hatred that spanned five decades.

Bette Davis .....Catherine Tate
Joan Crawford ..... Tracy-Ann Oberman 


Afternoon Play - The Weighing Room  by Justin Hopper.
******Noel is a jump jockey anxious to get his career back on track after a spell 
on the sidelines. Just what does it take to survive in the demanding and 
dangerous world of National Hunt racing?





Afternoon Play - Gentleman Jim by Raymond Briggs
******"Gentleman Jim" is the story of Jim Bloggs, a lavatory attendant who, 
dissatisfied with his station in life, devotes his time to envisioning a world 
beyond it. His walls are lined with books like "Out in the Silver West", 
the "Boys' Book of Pirates" and "Executive Opportunities", which provide 
fodder for his ruminations on career change. Encouraged by his wife Hilda, 
also eager to incorporate more adventure into her life, Jim sets out to bring 
these dreams to fruition by accumulating various accoutrements, only to 
discover that the life of an executive, an artist or a cowboy is more complicated 
and costly than it appears.




Afternoon Play - Brief Lives 1.4 
Afternoon Play - Brief Lives 2.4 
Afternoon Play - Brief Lives 3.4 
Afternoon Play - Brief Lives 4.4 
Afternoon Play - Brief Lives s02e01 
Afternoon Play - Brief Lives s02e02 
Afternoon Play - Brief Lives s02e03 
Afternoon Play - Brief Lives s02e04  
******Series of plays by Tom Fry and Sharon Kelly, set in a Manchester legal practice.

From The Telegraph:
New serial, by Tom Fry and Sharon Kelly, about legal representatives. They’re not exactly solicitors 
but they are people who advise anyone who’s been arrested on what their rights are, where to turn. 
Their job? To get people off. And so, using common sense and street wisdom, they often do. 
The stories here are based on hard research. They shock, amuse, enlighten. Good cast, very fast pace.

Afternoon Play - Brief Lives - s03e01 by Tom Fry and Sharon Kelly
Afternoon Play - Brief Lives - s03e02
Afternoon Play - Brief Lives - s03e03
Afternoon Play - Brief Lives - s03e04
******Frank Twist and his bunch of legal reps return for another series of adventures 
on the mean -ish streets of Manchester.
Frank's best mate Mickey has finally met a young Russian woman who will put up with him, 
his music and his socks. But is she just using him?



Afternoon Play - Stones by Shirley Gee.
******


Afternoon Play - Mr. Parker Comes To Town by Roger Wood.
******


Afternoon Play - Can't Live Without You by Kellie Smith
******A psychological thriller about a man's craving for control in his marriage.

When Greg's partner Anna becomes ill and needs constant care, Greg flourishes 
as her carer and becomes intoxicated by her dependency. Greg's apparent overwhelming 
love for his partner, his deepening desire to feel needed takes him to the limit in their relationship.


Afternoon Play - Confessions of Nostradamus by Tony Coult
******Born 500 years ago in December 1503, Nostradamus lived in dangerous times. 
He was hounded by the inquisition, especially when rumours circulated that he could 
cure the plague. Somehow, he had to protect himself and his family.


Afternoon Play - After Scarborough by Rob John
******Elvis fanatics plan a trip.


Afternoon Play - Aiden Dooley's Homecoming by Alan Butler 
******a deceased poet is shipped back into the remote Irish village of Kildargon, 
where his grave gives the local economy a much needed boost. 


Afternoon Play - Aperture by Linda Marshall Griffiths
******