BBC Drama III

 
 
F:\BBC Drama III
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A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt
 

A Man for All Seasons 1.2 (1959) 
A Man for All Seasons 2.2 (1959) 
A Very Meticulous Death 
 

Are You Still Awake
 
Are You Still Awake 1.2 
Are You Still Awake 2.2 
Bedtime Stories
 

Beyond the Sun 
 
Beyond the Sun 1.2
Beyond the Sun 2.2
Fathers and Sons 
 
Front Page 
 

Haunted Hospital 
Haunted Hospital 1.2 
Haunted Hospital 2.2  

"M"
by Fritz Lang







                                                                    

                                                             
Incomplete Recorded Works of a Dead Body by Ed Hime


Small Island by Andrea Levy 
 01.15 - Andrea Levy's award winning book 'Small Island' is a 
story about prejudice: Britain's and American GI's racism towards the "invading darkies"; 
middle-class Londoners snobbery towards the Cockneys; the Jamaicans towards the 
"small islanders"; the British empires treatment of its Caribbean and Indian colonies.
Small Island 02.15
Small Island 03.15
Small Island 04.15
Small Island 05.15
Small Island 06.15
Small Island 07.15
Small Island 08.15
Small Island 09.15
Small Island 10.15
Small Island 11.15
Small Island 12.15
Small Island 13.15
Small Island 14.15
Small Island 15.15
Midsomer Murders 
 Midsomer Murders - Days of Misrule
Midsomer Murders - Talking to the Dead - Barnaby and Jones are whirled into a distinctive case about superstition 
and antiques, when two married couples disappear without leaving a trace from their houses on a great estate. 
The likely forests are said to be haunted by a group of monks, who were massacred many years ago. But when 
the clairvoyant Cyrus LeVanu finds the corpse of an obscure man in the forest, it turns out to be of a later date ...

The Hex by Gregory Evans
  -based on M.R.James' "Casting the Runes". 
An excellent tale of suspense.

Devil's Kiss
 

Funeral Games by Joe Orton
 
 - Orton's black comedy about adultery and murder, which takes a wry swipe at religion, helped create the 
climate of change that would end the power of the official censor over British theatre productions. Murder's 
never seemed quite so holy.
Blaze
 
The public image of Scottish designers and entrepreneurs Paul and Mhairi Blaze is that of two people with 
the Midas touch. But as a young film maker follows their every move, their personal and professional world 
goes into freefall.
A Night With Johnny Stompanato
 
 - Jonathan Holloway's hard-boiled Hollywood drama is based on a true story. One night in 1958, police 
were called to the home of superstar Lana Turner. The actress's current boyfriend Johnny Stampanato lay 
in a pool of blood, stabbed to death by Lana's daughter Cheryl. At the subsequent inquest, Turner gave the 
performance of her life


  
Just War
 Just War 1.2 - An archaeologist from the future gets involved with murder 
and espionage among the Nazis. Under questioning, she is given injections to tell the truth. 
Just War 2.2
Sabina by Chris Dolen
 - a bittersweet comedy set in Glasgow, which won an Edinburgh Festival Fringe award. 


The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
  1.4 - Tey's sleuth Alan Grant is stuck in hospital; 
looking a pictures of faces to while away the time - he is interested in the reflection of the 
personality in the face - he becomes fascinated by Richard III, as shown in his best known 
portrait. Not seeing the monster who murdered his nephews in the picture, he begins to 
investigate, with the help of various friends who provide books, or spend time in the British Library.

The Daughter of Time is by no means the first vindication of Richard III - there is a fair amount of evidence 
suggesting Henry VII as the instigator of the deaths of the princes in the Tower of London - but it is certainly 
the best known. While never pretending to be an academic history, it does contain a lot of information, which 
is presented in a remarkably entertaining if somewhat one-sided manner.
Daughter of Time 2.4
Daughter of Time 3.4
Daughter of Time 4.4

A Room Full of Mirrors by Patricia Finney
  - In 1597, Queen Elizabeth I was the most powerful 
ruler in Europe - except for Philip of Spain.


Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov 
 - The novel is presented as a poem titled "Pale Fire" 
by John Shade, a fictional author, with an introduction and commentary by a fictional 
friend of his. Together these elements form a narrative in which both authors are 
central characters.
The novel's unusual structure has attracted much attention, and it is often cited as an 
important example of metafiction. Pale Fire has spawned a wide variety of interpretations 
and a large body of written criticism. The Nabokov authority Brian Boyd has called it 
"Nabokov's most perfect novel". 
A bizarre, three-legged race of a novel, Pale Fire is composed of a long, narrative poem followed by a much longer set of 
footnotes written by an obsessive, increasingly deranged annotator. Charles Kinbote, a gay professor at a small New 
England college, may or may not be a noble-born expatriate from the exotic Eastern European principality of Zembla. 
He may or may not have stolen the manuscript he's annotating, which he is convinced is really all about him. He is 
unquestionably unhealthily obsessed with John Shade, the placid, Robert Frost-like poet who composed the poem. 
Beyond that all bets are off, and the questions ramify without end. Pale Fire is the kind of novel you can happily get 
lost in: a house of mirrors with no exit, a labyrinth with no endpoint.

The Heat of the Day by  Elizabeth Bowen
 
 - The suspenseful tale of life in London during the bombing raids of World War II. Bowen, 
like her character in the novel, remained in London during the raids (refusing the relative 
security of Ireland). 
Originally published in 1949.




HMS Saracen by Douglas Reeman
 
1.2 - HMS Saracen is a monitor, a type of ship already obsolete when it was launched 
and now almost entirely forgotten. Nevertheless, Saracen is Richard Chesnaye's first ship, 
and it is aboard her that he makes a name for himself during the Gallipoli campaign. 
Twenty-five years later, both the ship and the man are recalled to active service during 
Hitler's war. And while few people are willing to say anything good about the ugly old ship, 
Chesnaye sees an opportunity to prove the old girl still has one more heroic act left.
HMS Saracen 2.2
Birthright
 

 The TARDIS has died. Stranded in early twentieth-century London, 
Bernice Summerfield can only stand and watch as it slowly disintegrates.
In the East End a series of grisly murders has been committed. 
Is this the work of the ghostly Springheel Jack or, as Bernice suspects, 
something even more sinister?

In a tiny shop in Bloomsbury, the master of a grand order of sorcerers is nearing 
the end of a seven-hundred year quest for a fabled magic wand.

And on a barren world in the far-distant future the Queen of a dying race pleads 
for the help of an old hermit named Muldwych, while Ace leads a group of guerrillas 
in a desperate struggle against their alien oppressors.

These events are related. Perhaps the Doctor knows how. But the Doctor has gone away.
Birthright 2.2


Book of Secrets by M.G. Vassanji
 - Vassanji won the inaugural Giller Prize in 1994 for The Book of Secrets, a 
spellbinding novel of generations and the sweep of history which begins in 1988 
in Dar es Salaam when the 1913 diary of a British colonial officer is found in a 
shopkeeper’s back room. The diary enflames the curiosity of a retired 
schoolteacher, Pius Fernandes, whose obsession with the stories it contains 
gradually connects the past with the present. 
(44 min.)
The Dresser by Ronald Harwood







 - The Dresser is the story of Sir, an aging Shakespearean actor, and his dresser Norman, sort of a valet, 
putting on a production of King Lear during the blitz of London in World War II. These are two men, 
each dependent upon the other: Sir is almost helpless without the aid of Norman to cajole, wheedle, 
and bully him into getting onstage for his 227th performance of Lear. And Norman lives his life 
vicariously through Sir; without Sir to need him, he is nothing, or thinks he is, anyway.The play was 
nominated for Best Play at the Laurence Olivier Awards for 1980. 

 
Zack by Harold Brighouse
- Zack, by Harold Brighouse, is a comedy 
which reminds us that a head for business can only get you so far in life - a reassuring message 
for those of us still suffering from our Christmas excesses. Set in northern England in the 1920s, 
the play follows the story of Zack and his family of caterers. Zack is the black sheep in the Munning 
family, an impractical but kind-hearted man at the mercy of the hard-fisted business minds of his 
mother and his brother. When their wealthy cousin Virginia comes to stay, Zack's brother Paul 
contrives to win her affections, aided by his mother who sees their marriage as an economic advantage. 
Meanwhile, Zack's natural empathy and dislike for argument sees him reluctantly engaged to Martha Wrigley. 
Both Zack and Virginia are on the verge of marrying for the economic and political benefit of others - 
however, a shift in power in the village cripples Paul's social status, whilst Zack is recognised as an invaluable 
member of the community. Finding self-respect and recognition from his contemporaries, Zack is finally able to 
reach out for the woman he loves.


Action of the Tiger


 - The story of Mick Mannock, Britain’s highest scoring Great War fighter “ace.” 
Sensitive, rather too old for flying, a Socialist, Mannock is transformed by his experiences into a 
ruthlessly efficient and obsessive pilot. He became obsessively fearful of one thing - a flaming death. 
It was a horror he had seen and inflicted often enough. He took to carrying a loaded pistol with him. 
"They'll never burn me," he resolved.
Wrong Hero by Mark Burgess
In 1943 a commercial airliner carrying film star Leslie Howard was shot down with the death of all on board. Was he 
the intended target or was it a strange case of mistaken identity? Mark Burgess’s play improves as it gets into its 
true story, that of film star Leslie Howard shot down by a whole squadron of German planes in 1943 on his return 
flight to Britain. The official papers remain closed until 2025. Burgess speculates here that the real target was not 
Howard but his manager, Alfred Chenhalls

Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen
- Should the truth be pursued whatever the cost? The idealistic son of a 
wealthy businessman seeks to expose his father's duplicity and to free 
his childhood friend from the lies on which his happy home life is based. (131 mins.)


We Will Know Them by Gordon McKerrow
Trials of conscientious objectors in WWII Britain and how the British Army dealt with them. 
Many were sentenced to death by firing squad.

The Forgotten Army
The British Fourteenth Army was a multinational force comprising units from 
Commonwealth countries during World War II. Many of its units were from the Indian Army as well as 
British units and there were also significant contributions from West and East African divisions within the British Army.
It was often referred to as the "Forgotten Army" because its operations in the Burma Campaign were overlooked by the 
contemporary press, and remained more obscure than those of the corresponding formations in Europe for long after the 
war. The Fourteenth Army, like the Eighth Army, was made up from units that came from all corners of the 
Commonwealth. In 1945 not only was the Fourteenth Army the largest army in the Commonwealth, it was 
the largest single army in the world with about half a million men under the command of General Slim. 
Men of the 81st and 82nd West African and 11th East African Divisions served with great distinction. 
There were many units and formations from the British Army but the majority of the army was built around 
the British Indian Army, which was stated to be the largest all-volunteer army in history.

The Vienna Connection
A thriller. Doris and Michael get another trip courtesy of Her Majesty, this time to Vienna. The only requirement 
is that they allow two people - Geoffrey Wimbledon and a mysterious woman named Madeleine - to join them on 
the flight there. But once they arrive, trouble really begins. 

The Affair at Grover Station by Willa Cather.
- A geological student asks an old friend about the recent murder of a station agent. A ghost story.

When Greed Becomes Fear by DJ Britton - 
A graduate investigates mis-selling of bank loans. 'inspired by the current sub-prime lending fiasco in America'


There Are Such Things by Steven McNicoll
Focusing on Lugosi and his well documented struggle to escape from the role that 
had typecast him, the play went on to receive The Hamilton Dean award for best 
dramatic presentation from the Dracula Society in 2002.









When We Dead Awaken by Henrik Ibsen
Ibsen's final play, "When We Dead Awaken," is one of his most adventurous and 
intensely personal works. As the author intended, it is a "dramatic epilogue" to his 
naturalism and a return to the poetic symbolism of earlier plays like "Peer Gynt" 
and "Brand." In it, an artist, a surrogate for Ibsen, suffers "remorse for a forfeited life.
According to one of Ibsen´s contemporaries, When We Dead Awaken was written 
"with such labour and such passionate agitation, so spasmodically and so feverishly, 
that those around him were almost alarmed ... He seemed to hear the beating of dark 
pinions over his head." If the great dramatist did indeed have a premonition of his 
impending death, this play, subtitled "a dramatic epilogue," may be regarded as a sort of last 
confession, Ibsen's final communication to the world at large.


Smoke Screen
A man tries to attend his uncle's funeral but cannot find the uncle's body.


Sherlock's Last Case by Charles Marowitz

Picking up where the famous stories ended, the play centers on a death threat against 
Sherlock Holmes by the supposed son of his late nemesis, Professor Moriarty. Oddly 
enough, however, Holmes is warned of the plot by Moriarty's daughter, to whom Holmes 
(who turns out to be quite a ladies' man) is strongly attracted. The plot then twists and 
turns until Holmes finds himself imprisoned in a dank cellar, trapped not by young Moriarty 
but, to his shocked surprise, by the good Dr. Watson—who, it turns out, has long 
been bitterly resentful of his second-class status as Holmes' lackey. After Holmes' demise 
Watson comes into his own, or seems to, until a number of impostors turn up claiming to be
 the real Sherlock Holmes. In sorting all this out the play mixes humor and suspense in equal 
amounts, leading to a stunning final twist that will surely catch audiences by complete and 
breath-stopping surprise.




The Ring and The Book by Robert Browning
In "Ring and the Book" Browning takes the sordid event of an enraged husband 
murdering his helpless bride--the daughter of a prostitute and rescue project of 
a priest--to "explain the ways of God to man." The Ring and the Book is based 
on a real-life murder trial in 17th century Rome. The story is told from multiple 
perspectives, changing with every new section of the book; we hear from the 
"Man on the Street", the murderer, the victim on her death-bed, and even the Pope.

Ring and The Book 1.2
Ring and The Book 2.2



Billy Bunter's Christmas Party by Frank Richards
William George Bunter, or Billy Bunter, the "Fat Owl of the Remove", is a fictional 
character created by Charles Hamilton (using the nom de plume of Frank Richards) 
for stories set at Greyfriars School in the boys' weekly magazine The Magnet 
(published from February 15, 1908 to 1940). It then became a boys' comic strip.


Campari for the Fishes by Teresa Collard


The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan
Pizan presents an allegorical society in which the word "lady" is 
defined as a woman of noble spirit, instead of noble birth. The 
book deals with a number of women of past eras, mostly saints, 
whom Pizan wished to offer as examples of the potential that 
women had to lead noble lives and contribute to society. Written 
in 1402, it was probably one of the first books by a woman.
In The Book of the City of Ladies France's first professional woman of letters confronted 
head-on the misogyny of fourteenth-century Europe. Here, with the help of Reason, 
Rectitude, and Justice, Christine de Pizan constructs an allegorical city in which to defend 
womankind, using examples of female virtue and achievement both from the past and her 
own day as the stones with which to build the city's walls and towers.
 Book of the City of Ladies 1.5
 Book of the City of Ladies 2.5
 Book of the City of Ladies 3.5
 Book of the City of Ladies 4.5
 Book of the City of Ladies 5.5

Larry the Lamb by Peter Thompson
Based on stories by Kafka

Just a Gypsy by Ian Cullen
Interesting play about prejudice and a group of travellers. 

Redemption by Joanna Murray-Smith
Redemption follows the confrontation of Edie and Sam, 
a woman and man brought back together via the murder of Jack. 
Both have different familial associations with the deceased. 
Both share a relationship with each other as well. 
The two mourning lives must confront what drove them apart as they 
attempt to unravel the event's surrounding Jack's murder.

J Edgar Hoover by Mike Walker
J Edgar Hoover 1.4 - Red Scare
J Edgar Hoover 2.4 - Public Enemy
J Edgar Hoover 3.4 - They Call Him Bobby
J Edgar Hoover 4.4 - Private And Confidential


Ten Sorry Tales by Mick Jackson:
What happens when the everyday meets the surreal, when the adult world of middle 
England meets the imagination of children? In a series of dark and magical tales, 
Mick Jackson explores the possibilities, and revives the art, of storytelling. From the 
only child who falls asleep for fifteen years, to the hermit-like Pearce sisters, who prey 
on the strangers on 'their' beach; and from the homemade row boat that leads one old 
man from his cellar to a magical cavern for the retired, to the little boy who discovers the 
secrets for bringing butterflies back to life, 
Ten Sorry Tales is an exquisite collection at turns funny, gothic, moving and sad. 

We have five of those stories here.
Five Sorry Tales 1.5- A Rowboat in the Cellar
Five Sorry Tales 2.5- The Lepidoctor
Five Sorry Tales 3.5- The Pearce Sisters
Five Sorry Tales 4.5- Alien Abduction
Five Sorry Tales 5.5- Hermit Wanted



The Shaughraun by Dion Boucicault
The play is about a Fenian fugitive, 
Robert Ffolliott, fiancee of Arte O'Neil. A country squire, Kinchela, his rival for Arte's 
hand, tries to hunt Robert down and arrest him, with the help of a police informer, 
Harvey Duff. Robert escapes various melodramatic cliffhanger situations with the 
help of Con the Shaughran (Irish seachránaí = wanderer, errant person), a roguish 
stage Irish poacher who provides a great deal of comic relief.






 Being Mussolini by  Boothby Graffoe
Aldo is a very ordinary man, save for one thing - he looks and sounds exactly like Benito Mussolini. 
Being Mussolini's lookalike is no easy matter, .especially when Italy is at war 
and your wife prefers your new identity...



Plots Have I Laid


Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book About Depression by Gwyneth Lewis

Gwyneth Lewis BA MA D.Phil (born 1959 in Cardiff) is a Welsh poet, 
and was the first National Poet for Wales.





 Revolution on St Barbara


Shoemaker's Holiday by Thomas Dekker

First performed in 1599 by the Admiral's Men. It falls into the sub-genre of city comedy.