Radio Plays XXXIII
Radio Plays XXXIII
The Promise by Aleksei Arbuzov
******As Russians fight off the Nazis in the siege of Leningrad,
three teenagers are thrown together in a war-tornapartment block.
Having lost everything, they forge relationships with the hope of
a better future.
The play begins with a sixteen young old girl, Lika, sheltering in an
almost deserted apartment building during a sensational early time
in the siege of Leningrad and the return of the eighteen year old
resident, Marat. Over two early scenes the besieged develop a
relationship over two weeks only to have a third person, seek refuge,
Leonidik. The new arrival adds complications to the developing
relationship and the rest of the play shows us the dynamic growths,
as they distort and evolve in unpredictable ways through Soviet history.
Talk of Love and War by Don Haworth
******Bill ("William") Nighy as Tom and Hugh Ross as James, two young bomber pilots during World War II.
Don Haworth's play conveys an authenticity that could only have come from one who'd been there:
Haworth himself had flown similar harrowing assignments during the war, and lived to write about the experience.
The play was awarded the Giles Cooper Award as one of the Best Radio Plays of 1981.
The Importance Of Being Frank by Tom Holland
******A trivial comedy for serious people.
Ernest Worthing, wit and aesthete, bearing more than a passing resemblance
to Oscar Wilde, is prosecuted for indecent acts in the cloak-room of Victoria Station.
An account of the final years in the life of Ernest Worthing/Oscar Wilde
as seen through the lens of his most famous play.
Hughie by Eugene O'Neill
******O'Neill wrote Hughie after The Iceman Cometh and during the time
he was writing Long Days Journey Into Night. It was intended as a series
of obit plays but became the lone survivor when O'Neill destroyed the others.
Hughie is set in the lobby of a seedy Times Square Hotel in the early hours
one morning in the late 20's. We encounter the night clerk Charles Hughes
and Erie Smith, a penny-ante gambler who has spent most of the last fifteen
years at the hotel between periods of drunkenness. His most recent bender
was prompted by the death of the title character who was the night clerk's
predecessor. This is a touching revelation of Erie's terror of being alone,
he babbles through tales of imaginary successes and has a panicky optimism
towards the futile future. The night clerk can only listen to this study in fraudulent
glibness which is moving, revealing and a telling measure of what is behind this man's delusions....................
The Cast:
Night Clerk.........Jack Dodson
Erie................Jason Robards
RTE Sunday Playhouse - A Tale With Two Joes In It by Sebastian Barry
******Although it airs on the high holy day of the Christian calendar, Sebastian Barry’s
A TALE WITH TWO JOES IN IT is not a play about resurrection or even redemption.
Nor, on the other hand, is it the portrait of an historic atrocity, which would make it
a fitting Good Friday drama. Instead, the story of the aged Padraig, a veteran of the
violence which founded the Irish state in the War of Independence and the Civil War,
is in a sense the tale of Holy Saturday, of a space between death and life, between the
lethal memories of a terrible event and the vitality of a belated contrition. It’s also a
masterclass with two of the finest radio-actors in the world, Niall Tóibín and Fionnula Flanagan.
The Eliza Stories - s01e01 by Barry Pain - Eliza
The Eliza Stories - s01e02 - Eliza's Husband
The Eliza Stories - s01e03 - Eliza Getting On
The Eliza Stories - s01e04 - Exit Eliza
The Eliza Stories - s01e05 - Eliza's Son
The Eliza Stories - s02e01 - Eliza Returns
The Eliza Stories - s02e02 - Eliza's Progress
The Eliza Stories - s02e03 - Eliza At Home
The Eliza Stories - s02e04 - Eliza The Mother
The Eliza Stories - s02e05 - Eliza's Family
******Eliza's husband sees himself as the perfect Edwardian upwardly mobile near-gentleman.
And if it weren't for Eliza's constant interfering, his life would run very smoothly.
That's not quite how Eliza, or anyone else, sees it.
Archangels Don t Play Pinball by Dario Fo
******The plot is, literally, something of a shaggy dog story. Tiny is duped
during a drunken party into believing that he has married a street-walker,
Blondie. Then begins a dream in which Tiny becomes Sunny, Blondie
becomes Angela, and through a bureaucratic snafu, Sunny discovers that
he is actually registered as a dog, rather than a human being. He enters a
dog-pound,switches roles with a Senator whose pants he borrows on a train,
is arrested, interrogated, adopted by an illusionist who has dogs because he
loves cats, and generally enters a sphere of possibility where little makes sense,
normality is regulated and licensed, and anything is possible. Nothing goes
particularly well, except his relationship with angelic Angela, and when he
returns to the presumably conscious world at the end of the play, she is the
only thing that remains. This is the anti-human, mechanized world of silent-film
comedy, with the hero as innocent victim, imperiled by authoritarian and industrial forces.
The comedic influences here are clearly Chaplin, Keaton, the Three Stooges, Mac Sennett
and so forth, but Fo also borrows his moral outrage from Aristophanes and Greek high-comedy.
Talk of the City by Stephen Poliakoff
******Stephen Poliakoff's haunting play questions how the newly
emerging BBC responded to the growing crisis in Europein the late
1930's. In Broadcasting House, the Variety and Talks departments
join forces in a humorous but deeplypoignant attempt to inform
listeners about events in Europe.
A Small Town Murder - s02e01 by Scott Cherry
A Small Town Murder - s02e02
A Small Town Murder - s02e03
A Small Town Murder - s02e04
A Small Town Murder - s02e05
******Jackie Hart (35) is a Family Liason Officer solving cases by winning the trust of those
caught up in the nightmare of serious crime and murder.
Police guidelines: The primary function of a Family Liaison Officer is that of an investigator.
In performing this role the officer will support the family, but will also gather relevant
information and intelligence.
The crimes, mainly murders, are presented as mysteries which Jackie solves in the whodunit
tradition where events and characters never turn out to be what they at first appear.
Jackie makes frequent use of VOI in the form of an audiolog to confide her thoughts and suspicions.
Police guidelines: The Contact Log will be used to record details of contact with family members
and other parties connected to the family.
Jackie is a serving copper, not a social worker, working as part of an active team of investigating
CID officers .. but because she works in liaison she gets closer to the people involved in the crime,
closer to the raw emotions and is able to investigate in a way her colleagues can't - combining
empathy and intuition with the keen observation of a clever detective.
And this is what defines the series - other officers are kept to the far periphery as we focus intimately
on Jackie and those she is both supporting and suspecting, in stories which feel more like sensitive
character studies than police procedurals.
Naked by Luigi Pirandello
******Ersilia Drei, a young woman, is hounded by the press after the death
of a child entrusted to her care. She is offered refuge by a middle-aged
novelist, and gradually her story emerges. Ersilia is exploited by four
men in turn and seen in a different light by each one.
Ultimately, she attempts to reveal her true self.
A Patriot for Me by John Osborne
******Osborne’s piece was a cause célèbre at the Royal Court in 1965.
It was denied a performance licence by the censor, the Lord Chamberlain,
and the theatre was forced to become a private members’ club in order to
stage it.
The play is based on the life of Alfred Redl, an able and ambitious officer
in the Austro-Hungarian army in the early 1900s. Redl has two career
threatening secrets: he is part Jewish and all homosexual. He suffers greatly
for the latter “flaw” in his initially impeccable character. First he is beaten,
then blackmailed and corrupted by the Russian Army
into a series of treasonous betrayals..................
Anyone Can See I Love You by Marilyn Bowering
******Marilyn Monroe recalls her life.
Grim in parts, but engrossing throughout.
Not a drum was heard by Henry Reed
******The penultimate play in the Hilda Tablet series was "Not A Drum Was Heard", being the memoirs
of General Gland, played by Deryck Guyler (superbly cast). It was first broadcast on
Wednesday 6 May, 1959 from 8 o'clock until 9.10 p.m.. The BBC Interviewers were played
by Michael Flanders, Dorothy Primrose and Frank Duncan, Herbert Reeve by Hugh Burden,
Hilda Tablet by Mary O' Farrell, Elsa Strauss by Marjorie Westbury, Stephen Shewin
by Carleton Hobbs, The Russian Interrogators by Michael Flanders & Donald Swann,
the latter also being responsible, once again for the music, including the "Rangoon March".
Reed said : "These recollections, elicited with some difficulty from General Gland, are not to be
regarded as a continuation of the Shewin-Tablet saga, which ended with 'The Primal Scene,
as it were.......". They are to be considered merely as a parergon, if that".
The private life of Hilda Tablet Henry Reed - (1961)
****** Mary O' Farrell brings this fearsome woman to vibrant comic life and every detail of her Coptic Street
ménage is cherished by Tablet groupies, from Evelyn's equivocal welcomes to Elsa's threats to return home.
It's supremely clever and irresistibly funny - and there will never again be anything like it.
Barry Pike/ Diversity website.
Meeting Jack by Shaun Mckenna
******1907-1908. Jack London, Charmian Kittredge (his wife),
and crew sailed across the Pacific to Australia, calling
in at various island groups along the way.
This is a dramatisation of some of that voyage.
City of Spades by Colin Mcinnes
******MacInnes's landmark debut, set in Notting Hill's immigrant community,
was one of the first novels to vividly explore racial issues in modern Britain.
Inferno Revisited
by Peter Howell
******an extraordinary, evocative, large-scale production written and produced
by staff composer Peter Howell, in which Alec McCowan takes the lead role.
This stunning Radiophonic work, originally broadcast in 1983, mixes drama,
opera, electronic and accoustic sound, to reinterpret Dante in a modern-day
setting.
The piece was inspired by a visit to Pompeii and a tour of what survived
from the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. Howell decided to take a group of
present-day pilgrims to another hellish place, the Inferno of Dante's 'Divine Comedy',
in which the pilgrim experiences a downward spiral into Hell, an itinery Howell sought to
recreate in sound. It took six weeks to make, and practically wore out the Workshop's Fairlight.
Lennon's Guitar by Philip Davison
******Jemmie is a band manager for whom .the big break, the big gig, the big record deal are always
just around the corner. Unfortunately his band are losing faith.
Leaving by Vaclav Havel
******Vaclav Havel's new absurdist tragicomedy, "Leaving" - his first play
since 1988 - depicts a womanizing former political leader who grudgingly
confronts the political wilderness. Much has been made of the parallels
between the plot and Havel's life.The main character, Vilem Rieger,
the chancellor of an unnamed country, is ousted from power and his
extravagant government villa by a pompous former deputy,
Vlastik Klein. He just happens to share the initials of Vaclav Klaus,
Havel's arch-rival, who succeeded Havel
as president of the Czech Republic...................................
The Dreams
by Barry Bermange and Delia Derbyshire
******In 1964 the BBC Radiophonic Workshop produced one of its most distinctive
programmes, 'The Dreams'.
It was compiled by writer Barry Bermange, who interviewed
people talking about their recurring dreams and then made a collage of those recordings.
The programme - in five 'movements' - was an attempt to recreate the sensations of
dreaming, specifically of running away, falling, and of being in dream landscapes,
waterscapes and colourscapes. Radiophonic Workshop composer Delia Derbyshire
then set to work, creating sounds - from ethereal hums to electronic throbs - to create
a suitably dreamy soundtrack, and conjuring from the sparcest of resources an entire
dream world.
Approx. 40 minutes.
The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice
******Mr Zero has spent the past 25 years adding up columns of figures
and dreaming of advancement. But when the boss finallycalls him into
his office, Zero doesn't get the promotion he was expecting...........
The Assassin (Les Mains Sales) by Jean Paul Sartre
******Written by the existentialist, French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre,
this rarely performed play is set during the second world war in a fictional
country.
The tension and focus are on the main character, Hugo Barine, who has
joined Illyria's Proletarian Party to forget his past. In order to gain
acceptance and to escape the label of a mere bourgeois intellectual,
he begs the leaders of his faction to allow him to take direct action -
to become an assassin. His target will be the Party leader, Hoederer
who has agreed to negotiate deals with the Fascist leaders of Illyria
to get his hands dirty for the party's political survival.
The worlds of politics and philosophy collide as Hugo struggles to find the
psychological moment. Tortured by his own indecision and self-loathing, he
finds comfort and purpose from a most unlikely source. The Assassin highlights
our own fragile world order where political fundamentalism lead to acts of terror
against fellow human beings and where faith is not what some die for,
but what they are prepared to kill for.
A Christmas Card by Paul Theroux
Adapted by Nick Warburton
******Lost in a New England snowstorm, a family is sheltered by a
mysterious old man who disappears the next morning,
leaving behind a magical "Christmas card."
The Art Of Success by Nick Dear
******Ten years in the life of William Hogarth.
Set in the 18thC, but uses modern speech patterns.
A bit coarse at times, but Henry Fielding's journal
shows that much of this detail is factual.
Worth listening to just for the bits where Hogarth
explains his working methods and the visual clues
he used to indicate sounds and smells.
It also throws light on the issues surrounding
establishment of the law of copyright.
I'm The Boss by Karen Brown
******She's 'The Boss', a busy and successful professional woman whose life
is turned upside down by a sinister online bullying campaign.
When an anonymous campaign of prank messages begins at Diane's
work place, she struggles to keep her equilibrium. Under a hail of
disruptive and increasingly abusive texts, emails and network messages
she begins to suspect those nearest to her.
When she finally discovers the culprit her world disintegrates...
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot by A.J. Walton
******The Gunpowder Plot story drawn from contemporary records.
Other Paths to Glory by Anthony Price
******Paul Mitchell spends his days researching World War One. His quiet life
in the library could hardly be in greater contrast to the carnage he studies.
Until, that is, the present catches up with him in the shape of Doctor Audley
of the Ministry of Defence. Why does Audley want to know what really happened
during the battle for Hameau Ridge on the Somme in 1916?
The answer is complex and dangerous.
A Vital Flaw by Neville Watchurst
*******A quite remarkable true story. Dr. Felix Kersten is a true World War II hero and his tale is one of great courage
and skillful manipulation.
In May 1940, as Nazi panzers over-ran the Netherlands, Felix Kersten received a summons he dared not refuse.
A successful and prosperous physical therapist who had ministered to the Dutch royal family, Kersten was 'asked'
to forsake his adopted home in the Netherlands and become personal physician to Nazi Reichsfuhrer-SS
Heinrich Himmler.While others might have spent the ensuing years paying fearful obeisance to this monstrous
and unpredictable master, Kersten discovered that he had both the means and the courage to manipulate the
surprisingly naive Himmler.He secretly collaborated with the Dutch underground, conspired with the head of
Nazi intelligence to steer Himmler against Hitler and, in his crowning achievement, facilitated the release of thousands
of Jews still remaining in death camps during the waning days of the Third Reich.
The Gene Factor by Eric Saward
******Stolen secrets and exciting chases.
Spin a Loving Thread by Alick Rowe
*****A fifteen year old boy meets an old lady as part of his school's community work scheme.
He learns a lot more than he expected.
The years stretch flat, all time is late
To be fulfilled the patterns wait.
Now trust the heart and not the head
To spin a loving thread.
Remember Me by Jill Hyem
******This is the ultimate revenge play, pushing even Nick Fisher's "Turning of the Tide"
into second place. A woman who rents out rooms entertains some guests... it's only
after some odd coincidences that her plan, and the reasons for it, are revealed...
we slowly realise that she is mad.. Her revenge does not work out in the way she expected,
but there's no doubt that it is complete.
(Giles Cooper award)
Last Tango in Aberystwyth 1.3 by Malcolm Pryce.
Last Tango in Aberystwyth 2.3
Last Tango in Aberystwyth 3.3
******A new case for Louie Night - Aberystwyth's favourite detective. To the girls who came
to make it big in the town's 'What the Butler Saw' movie industry, Aberystwyth was the
town of broken dreams. To Dean Morgan who taught at the Faculty of Undertaking, it was
just a place to get course materials. But both worlds collide when the Dean checks into the
notorious bed and breakfast ghetto - a dark labyrinth of druid speakeasies and toffee apple
dens, where every spinning wheel tells the story of a broken heart - and mistakenly receives
a suitcase intended for a ruthless druid assassin. Soon he is running for his life, his heart
hopelessly in thrall to a porn star known as Judy Juice. Louie Knight, the town's only private
eye knows that in order to find the Dean, he has to discover what was in the druid's case.
It turns out to be something so evil it makes even the hard-boiled gumshoe gasp...
Sultan and Bob by Thomas McLaughlin
******The circus, an elephant stampede. Whipcracks, shouts, screams, trumpetings. A gunshot. Silence.
A news report tells us that one of the elephants - Betty - was shot dead. Bob, Betty's partner0 in the act,
doesn't know why Betty ran, doesn't know she's dead, doesn't know what death is. Bob is a very innocent
elephant. He also doesn't know why he's been put in a cage with Sultan. And so the adventure begins.
Faustus by David Mamet -
******British Premiere of David Mamet's new play Faustus. In a timeless setting Mamet
directs his own working of the Faustian legend.
Neglectful of his son on his birthday, Faustus is drawn into a deadly wager with the party
'entertainer' in which logic and reason are shown to be feeble weapons against the power
of chance, mystery and magic. Will intellectual pride precede the ultimate fall of man?
At Swim Two Birds by Flann O'Brien
******The undergradute narrator of this novel lives with his uncle in Dublin,
drinks too much and invents stories peopled with hilarious and unlikely
characters, one of whom creates a means by which women can
give birth to full-grown people.
The play takes place in Dublin, in the 1930s,in the 'kingdom of the mind'
of its main character, Myles, a student.
Myles believes that "one beginning and one ending for a book was a thing
I did not agree with", and he accordingly sets three apparently quite separate
stories in motion. The first concerns the Pooka MacPhellimey, "a member
of the devil class". The second is about a young man named John Furriskey,
who turns out to be a fictional character created by another of the student's
creations, Dermot Trellis, a cynical writer of Westerns. The third consists
of the student's adaptations of Irish legends, mostly concerning Finn Mac
Cool and mad King Sweeney. The stories soon become intertwined with
each other and the characters rebel...............
The Memorandum by Vaclav Havel
******The Memorandum opens in the office of Josef Gross, the managing
director of an office. He isreading his mail when he comes across an
important memorandum written in what seems like an incomprehensible
language. His secretary, Hana, informs him that it is written in Ptydepe,
a new language that is supposed to be more efficient for communication.
Gross learns that his deputy director, Jan Ballas, has ordered its introduction
without his knowledge. Gross asks him to cancel its introduction, and while
Ballas agrees at first, he later convinces Gross that the use of Ptydepe would
be best for everyone. This is endemic of the growing power struggle between
Gross and Ballas. While Gross wants to work on a humanist principle, Ballas
is ready for a conflict and believes he has everyone in the organization on his side.
What follows is ludicrously comic..........
Aberystwyth Mon Amour 1.3 by Malcolm Pryce
Aberystwyth Mon Amour 2.3
Aberystwyth Mon Amour 3.3
******Schoolboys are being murdered all over Aberystwyth and nobody knows why.
Louie Knight, the town's private investigator, soon realises that finding out what is
happening to the boys is not going to be easy.
How To Make Your First Billion 1.10
How To Make Your First Billion 2.10
How To Make Your First Billion 3.10
How To Make Your First Billion 4.10
How To Make Your First Billion 5.10
How To Make Your First Billion 6.10
How To Make Your First Billion 7.10
How To Make Your First Billion 8.10
How To Make Your First Billion 9.10
How To Make Your First Billion 10.10
******Meet Jake Armstrong, 28 - a serial entrepreneur who has yet to succeed. His friend Subash
is a 26 year old computer whiz from India.
Combining Subash's ideas and technical know-how with Jake's entrepreneurial flair, the two
go into business together with a vision.
They have an idea that they believe will not only make their mark in Silicon Valley but will change
the world and make them billionaires in the process.
Hum by Laura Wade
******Emma is part of a team in Bristol who are called out to investigate cases
of noise pollution and finds that a number of cases defy explanation.
Can an inexplicable "hum" be to blame?...
'Hum' is about the effects of modern life on a group of disparate characters.
The play begins with the idea of the hum – a noise centred on certain
geographical areas. This low frequency droning noise can only be heard
by a very small portion of the population but its effects can be truly devastating.
The Absent Guest by John Thompson
******
Black Chiffon by Lesley Storm
******On the eve of her beloved son's society wedding, the highly respected Alicia Christie
makes one defiant criminal gesture - a cry for help - when she steals a black chiffon
nightdress from a reputable department store. This play is a psychological study
of a woman driven finally to the edge due to the cumulative stresses and strains placed
upon her by her demanding and divided family. The results are absorbing and
deeply moving to witness.
The Knight the Witch the Dragon by JCW Brook
******Excellent tale about a champion knight who's selected to kill a dragon controlled by a witch.
But the witch has a beautiful daughter, and there's a princess, and the knight's squire, and ......
The Crane by Joe O'Byrne
******a look at the life of two men out on a limb, in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland.
Home At Seven by R.C. Sherriff
******David Preston, a timid middle-class bank clerk living in the London suburbs,
loses twenty-four hours in his life. Upon recovering, he is led to believe that he has
committed murder during the past 24 hours.
Unquiet Hill by John Kirkmorris
******As Christmas approaches, Mr. Meers, a solicitor, visits his client, Charles Kavanagh,
who is in jail awaiting trial for being the Kingpin in an extortion ring. Kavanagh tells Meers
that the police are bringing his bookeeper, Tommy Dyson, via boat over from Ireland to testify
at his trial. He feels Dyson has probably cut a deal as there is only a small escort with no handguns
or handcuffs which gives him the opportunity to have him abducted. He passes Meers a paper with
the name and address of Eddie Stroud, a 36-year-old Garage owner and mechanic, and that Meers
is to tell him to "go north" with the best motor he's got. He's not asking it as a favour and that
Stroud will know what it means. ...
The Long Fight by D. A. Rayner
******It is nearing midnight on March 1st in the year of Napoleon, 1808. Relentlessly, the aged 38-gun
British warship, San Fiorenzo, a third of her crew laid low with fever, forges her way westward
across the unseasonable gale
The Ringer by Edgar Wallace
******Considered by many Wallace 'fans' to be the best of his thrillers, tells of a killer
known by this name, whose exploits had terrified London - such a master of disguise
that the police had never been able to circulate a description of him. Mixed up with the
Ringer was a tricky lawyer of Deptford, Maurice Meister. Now young Detective-Inspector
Alan Wembury is taking over the Deptford police division, and is hoping to marry
Mary Lenley, who has recently become Meister's secretary. News comes that The Ringer,
who had been traced to Australia and was reported dead, is back in London.
Meister will be his next victim, for he left his sister in Meister's charge and her body
was found in the Thames. Soon a gaunt stranger is shadowing the frightened lawyer,
who seeks police protection. Wembury is involved in an affair of extreme difficulty,
complicated by the fact that Mary's brother, ruined by association with criminals,
is jailed for robbery - and Meister knows more of this than he will admit. Moreover,
the unpopular, bearded Inspector Bliss, just returned from America, is working
along his own lines to solve the problem.
On the Spot by Edgar Wallace
******A melodrama set against the backdrop of Chicago's gangland in the 1920s.
Point Of No Return by Stephen Barlay
******Aviation mystery
The Last of the Sun by Alan Bennett
******Dame Thora Hird's final radio role as old people's home resident
Dolly, recorded a couple of months before her death. A short piece
written by Alan especially for Thora, The Last of the Sun is controversial
and challenging, and yet it has all the pathos and tenderness that we
expect of Bennett's writing. This performance, Thora's last, is very moving
and memorable. Also featured is a specially written introduction and
postscript, in which Alan recalls the experience of knowing and working
with Thora. The total running time is approx. 39 minutes, of which
Thora Hird's monologue forms the middle 14 minutes, sandwiched by
Alan Bennett's introduction and postcript.
Sweet Blood by Elizabeth Baines
******1: Flies.
Ellie is captivated by the dangerous charm of her new boyfriend, Zol.
But she gradually begins to understand his true nature.
******2: Sweet Dreams.
Ellie is frightened but fascinated by her ex-boyfriend, Zol.
She wonders if she merely imagined his vampiric nature.
******3: Sugar Baby.
Pregnant Ellie is "rescued" by Zol from the clutches of
the medical profession.
The Weather In The Streets by Rosamond Lehmann
******Taking up where Invitation to the Waltz left off, The Weather in the Streets
shows us Olivia Curtis ten years older, a failed marriage behind her, thinner,
sadder, and apprently not much wiser. A chance encounter on a train with a man
who enchanted her as a teenager leads to a forbidden love affair and a new world
of secret meetings, brief phone calls, and snatched liaisons in anonymous hotel
rooms. Years ahead of its time when first published, this subtle and powerful
novel shocked even the most stalwart Lehmann fans with its searing honesty
and passionate portrayal of clandestine love.
The Yang Chi Jade by Michael Campbell
******
Tales The Countess Told by Stephen Wyatt
*****ELEANOR BRON stars as the Countess D'Aulnoy, who read her fairy tales to enraptured
audiences in the salons of 17th-century Paris. The adventures of princesses, serpents, yellow
dwarves and tiny pagodas mirror the equally colourful life of the Countess.
Called To Account by Richard Norton-Taylor
******: The indictment of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair for the crime of aggression against Iraq - a Hearing.
Earlier this year two leading barristers: Philippe Sands QC (for the prosecution) and
Julian Knowles (for the defence) tested the evidence of the grounds for an indictment
of the British Prime Minister for the crime of aggression against Iraq.
The arguments and testimony gathered have been edited into a play which examines the criminal
implications of the British Government’s decision to use force against Iraq.
"should be seen by everyone in this country."
[Independent on Sunday]
"...at least the theatre has now called Blair to account...there is no doubt about the evening's importance."
[The Guardian]
"This is theatre both as confected sensation and as direct civic engagement."
[Financial Times]
Giving Up The Ghost by Lynne Truss
******In a house full of carbon monoxide, firefighter Scott gets separated from his colleagues
and begins to experience the last terrible moments of his friend Jacko's life, who had died in
similar circumstances eight months earlier.
The Number of the Dead by Mark Lawson
******Timothy Freeman, newscaster and voice of the nation's major news
network, is facing a crisis, seeing himself overlooked by younger
colleagues. His teenage son Tom is holding up a bank at gunpoint and
demands to speak to him live on air, broadcasting Timothy's failings as
a father and a man to a million-strong audience who listen aghast.
Einstein At Cromer by Mark Burgess
******a pleasant story based on Einstein's stay in Norfolk a few years before World War II
about his being forced to flee Germany in the wake of Hitler's rise to power. He develops
a strong relationship with his hosts, and he learns to look at the world in a different way
through the simple honesty of a local man. Einstein was a great communicator, and this
comes through. David Suchet plays Einstein
Pentecost by David Edgar (2 hours 30 mins)
******People beseiged in a Balkans' church debate the provenance of a mural
while brutal civil war and societal collapse surround them.
If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi
******Based on a true story told to Levi. It follows Mendel,
a Red Army artilleryman, separated from his unit at the
Battle of Kursk, who links up with a group of Jewish
partisans who fight their way west across the Ukraine,
Poland and Germany hoping to reach Palestine via Italy.
An absolute must read about the experience of Jewish partisans
operating behind german lines, and the widespread anti-semitism they encountered.
The Tennis Court by Jonathan Smith.
******Brothers Sam and Arthur confide in each other about everything. In 1943 Sam is posted to India,
while the haemophiliac Arthur remains at home in Kent. In 1944 the Japanese surround British forces
in Kohima and, as the two sides face each other across the tennis court at the back of the deputy
district commissioner's bungalow, Sam is haunted by a secret he hasn't told Arthur.
The Sound of Fury by Mike Walker
******Anton Lesser, as Billy Fury, leads a star-studded cast in a dramatised
reconstruction about the 'British Elvis'.
The Brighton Trade by T.D. Webster
******A former small-time crook, Jimmy Marsden, comes to see Edgar Fenton,
an ex-CID who had left the force to set up his own investigative business,
on a personal matter. He wants Edgar to check up on his wife - she's been
putting a lot of mileage on her car but says she hasn't gone anywhere.
Edgar follows her and finds that she's going to Brighton and meeting in a pub
with someone called Vincent Crane, who owns a hairdressing shop.
The meeting appears more to do with business than a sexual liasion. When she
is found later dead in her car, Fenton tries to find the killer.
The Loneliest Road by Gregory Whitehead
******A pirate radio broadcast from the occluded heartland of the American Dream,
haunted by dead poets, Marilyn Monroe, and an angel's solemn whisper.
Directed by Gregory Whitehead.
From the judges:
"This highly original masterclass in sound, built an eerie sense of suspense and isolation
as we travelled with it through Middle America in a collage of intimate monologues. Its genius
was that it put the voices inside our heads and, alarmingly, left them trapped there: these
weird but 'normal' narratives got under our skin and made our flesh shudder."
Gregory Whitehead: "I would like to commend my editors at the BBC for their adventurous spirit,
permitting me to drive the road entirely on my own; my remarkable ensemble of actors, who never
blinked when asked to forget everything they knew about normal acting; and Paul de Jong and
Nick Zammuto, whose musical ideas shaped and deepened the script from an early stage."
Bravos to all!"
Goodnight to Flamboro by Martyn Wade
******Martyn Wade’s poignant radio play about the Yorkshire composer
and pianist William Baines who died in 1922 at the age of 23
after a long illness.
Baines left a wealth of beautiful music, much of it never performed
and this drama traces the most prolific period of his life.
Breakfast With Mugabe by Fraser Grace
******The year is 2001. President Mugabe and his wife are holed up in the
State House in Harare, with Mugabe in paranoid terror. He is being stalked
by an ngozi or bitter spirit, the murderous ghost of a long-dead comrade.
Fearing for his sanity, Mugabe turns to a white psychiatrist for help.
Witty and provocative, Fraser Grace's new play imagines the combative
relationship between the black president and his white psychiatrist.
In a series of bruising encounters, Breakfast with Mugabe explores
the conflict between despotism and liberalism in modern Zimbabwe.
The Human Chord by Algernon Blackwood
******As a boy, Robert Spinrobin created vast worlds in his imagination,
naming and bringing things to life. In later years this inner world of
childhood fades, but he retains the mystical vision of the poet.
Bored and disappointed by his humdrum adult existence, and seeking an
adventure of the soul, he comes across a strange advertisement in a newspaper.
Attracted by the promise of adventure, he travels to the remote mountains of Wales
where he is to assist Philip Skale in his enigmatic 'experiments in sound'. Caught up
in the mystical adventure he has yearned for, Robert begins to feel in touch with the
greater elemental scheme of the universe.
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
******touching stories about people caught up in the aftershock
of a natural disaster, inspired by the 1995 Kobe earthquake.
20 Cigarettes by Marcy Kahan
******This play was a runner-up in the Peter Tinniswood competition.
Oscar attempts to give up cigarettes and win the woman of his dreams.
East of the Sun by Carey Harrison.
******Intrigued by the unexpected death of Thomas Harrell, the last and greatest
of Britain's Victorian explorers, journalist Daniel Bacon attempts to retrace
Harrell's journey in one of the loneliest deserts in the world. As he journeys
into the unknown - in tantalising but apparently fruitless pursuit of his hero -
Bacon's view of himself and the world undergoes a sea change.
Aerodrome by Rex Warner
******An outstanding parody of the conflict between the military and the ordinary citizen.
1930s England, and the village is slowly taken over by the RAF. Roy and Bess's romance
is shattered, and the rector is shot dead during machine gun practice. The Air Vice-Marshall
gives the address at his funeral: "We are here today to bury a man. Death is often a matter
of accident, and there are, it must be said, few reasons to be particularly dismayed by it.
The rector's family is, I believe, well provided for. Now we shall bury the body".
THE AERODROME was first published in 1941, a time of enormous peril in Britain. Understandably
it took a while for the book to catch on. But when it took root, it flowered mightily. To this day
it receives praise not only for its inherent drama and excitement, but for its political and human
statements as well.
THE AERODROME is an allegory that pits the order and ruthlessness of a military organization against
the sensible muddle of a middle-class village. In the author's view, adaptability is all; judged by this
test, the military cannot get its bat up.
"Probably the only work of its time to understand the appeal of fascism and the less confident,
though finally stronger, answer of democracy."
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