Radio Plays XXXVI
Radio Plays XXXVI
Norman Conquest 1 of 4 by Berkeley Gray
(Edwy Searles Brooks) - Conquest Marches On
Norman Conquest 2 of 4 - Blonde For Danger
Norman Conquest 3 of 4 - Miss Dynamite
Norman Conquest 4 of 4 - Killer Conquest
******Norman Conquest is sort of cross between Sir Peter Wimsey and Batman.
He made his first appearance in 'The Thriller' in January 1937.
Conquest is strong - but it is the strength of an athletic and normal being -
not the strength of six men. He is not impervious to pain, and certainly not
to bullet wounds. Conquest tackles only those men whose crookedness
is beyond the law and who can stand to be robbed of their ill-gotten gains.
The innocent never suffer at the hands of Conquest. Moreover, Conquest
is not hunted by the police. After the initial story written under his own name,
all subsequent Conquest stories and novels were written under the pen-name of Berkeley Gray.
RTE Sunday Playhouse - Appearances by Liz Nugent
******Jack and Elaine Maxwell are a typical Celtic Tiger couple. Jack is one of Dublin's premier
solicitors and his wife, though childless, fulfils all the other criteria of a successful man's wife.
But Jack is harking back to the days when they were young university students, hanging out
in the Stag's Head pub and pulling their first business strokes with the album of Madonna's
Borderline. He revisits the Stag's Head where he meets Megan, a barmaid, and falls in love.
But, 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' and Elaine is not about to give up her
upper middle class status to a barmaid.
The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol
******Gogol's landmark nineteenth century satire on corruption and sleaze.
A penniless clerk is mistaken for a Government official by a corrupt town council.
Starring Toby Jones and Paul Ritter.
RTE Sunday Playhouse - Mogs by Hugh Leonard
******The adventures of three precocious cats. With an introduction by Hugh Leonard.
Darwins Devon by Jo Loosemore
******Charles Darwin travelled the world. Now his adventure in Devon is the subject of a radio play.
BBC Radio Devon cast local actors to play the real life characters who shaped the time Charles Darwin
spent in Devon.While waiting for the Beagle to set sail, the naturalist lived in Plymouth for two
months during 1831.
The Donor Trail - 1.5 by Richard Monks - Steven
The Donor Trail - 2.5 - Clare
The Donor Trail - 3.5 - Miranda
The Donor Trail - 4.5 - Terry
The Donor Trail - 5.5 - Jean
Greed All About It by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman.
******It is 1986 and Alice longs to be taken seriously as a proper journalist.
So when Greg 'from management' takes a shine to her and mentions that
he is involved in setting up a new newspaper in a high tech office in
Wapping, she senses an opportunity.
A sharp, satirical look at the Wapping dispute.
Cash Me A Portrait by Andrew Sachs
******Farce about a will and the provenance of a painting.
The Jubilee Singers by Adrian Mitchell.
******Writer Adrian Mitchell's drama about the extraordinary
Jubilee Singers of Fisk University, Tennessee, who in the years
immediately after slavery brought their great Sorrow Songs
from the plantations to Europe.
The late Adrian Mitchell, who died suddenly last year, was a much
loved and revered poet, playwright and human rights campaigner. He was inspired to write
this musical play by the true story of the Welsh journalist who toured with the
black American Jubilee singers in their first European tour in the late nineteenth century.
The singers enchanted Queen Victoria and Gladstone, and Swing Low Sweet Chariot
was heard in England for the first time when they sang it to packed concert halls throughout
the country. Mitchell's play was conceived for the theatre but it has not yet had a stage production;
this is its premiere; adapted for radio under the guidance of Adrian's widow Celia Mitchell.
The play stars a London black gospel choir, with Musical directors Felix Cross and Allyson Devenish
and a stellar black cast; Adjoa Andoh, Felix Dexter, Bonnie Greer, Nadine Marshall, Alibe Parsons,
Clive Rowe and Ray Shell are joined by Jonathan Pryce who plays the Welsh journalist captivated
by a completely new kind of song. He hears each singer's own story and begins to be entranced
by one of them in particular, though their love appears to have no future, developing as it does
under the shadow of war in Europe, and the inevitable barriers which nineteenth century culture
placed between men and women of different race.
Tiger Tiger 1.2 by Alfred Bester
Tiger Tiger 2.2
******Gully Foyle, Mechanic's Mate 3rd Class, is the only survivor on his drifting,
wrecked spaceship. When another space vessel, the Vorga, ignores his distress
flares and sails by, Gully Foyle becomes a man obsessed with revenge. He endures
170 days alone in deep space before finding refuge on the Sargasso Asteroid and
then returning to Earth to track down the crew and owners of the Vorga. But, as he
works out his murderous grudge, Gully Foyle also uncovers a secret of momentous
proportions...
Aka 'The Stars My Destination'
The Silver Sky by Tanith Lee
******Two time travelers from separate worlds are drawn to the same location--
a beach on a strange unknown planet with no way back home and stalked by deadly predators.
LA Theater Works - Gross Indecency - The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde 1.2
by Moises Kaufman
LA Theater Works - Gross Indecency - The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde 2.2
******In three short months, Oscar Wilde, the most celebrated playwright and wit
of Victorian England, was toppled from the apex of British society into humiliation
and ruin. Drawing from trial documents, newspaper accounts, and writings of the
key players, Moises Kaufman ignites an incendiary mix of sex and censorship,
with a cast of characters ranging from George Bernard Shaw to Queen Victoria herself.
A L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring: JB Blanc, Dakin Matthews,
Ian Ogilvy, Peter Paige, Julian Sands, Simon Templeman, John Vickery,
Douglas Weston, Matthew Wolf
LA Theater Works - In the Name of Security 1.2 by Peter Goodchild.
LA Theater Works - In the Name of Security 2.2
******In the 1940s and 50s, fears of a widespread Communist subversion
gripped the United States. Members of the House Committee on Un-American
Activities, and later a demagogue senator from Wisconsin, set out to expose
and expel people from all walks of life believed to be Soviet spies and sympathizers.
We present two controversial espionage trials from this period, with re-enactments
from courtroom transcripts and historical analysis.
Now, Voyager by Olive Higgins Prouty
*******A dowdy, frustrated spinster from a wealthy New England family,
living with her overpowering mother in the stiflingly repressive Boston
of the inter-war years, suffers a nervous breakdown after an unhappy love affair.
Partially restored under the wise guidance of a psychiatrist, she is urged by her
fashionably elegant sister-in-law to have a beauty makeover and to undertake a
Mediterranean cruise. Physically transformed, she meets on board an architect,
Jerry Durrance, with whom slowly, as she gains confidence in her new image,
she falls in love. But he is married with children he loves, and the affair cannot
have a happy ending.
Circumstances lead her to form a special bond with his vulnerable 12-year-old daughter,
and finally she settles for a loving relationship with him and the child. The famous last line,
of both the film and the book, is: "Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars!"
******Embers by Samuel Beckett (2010)
In 1976 Stephen Rea worked with Samuel Beckett on a production
of the play, Endgame. During rehearsals Beckett said, 'don't think
about meaning think about rhythm' and he regularly emphasised
the humour in his work. Stephen Rea has translated his experience
of working with one of the great modern dramatists into a funny and
moving new production of this wonderful radio play, Embers.
Henry (Michael Gambon) sits on the strand haunted by the sound of the sea.
He conjures up voices, evocations, stories and sounds from his past as he
tries to drown out the inescapable presence of the sea.
The cast includes: Michael Gambon, Sinead Cusack, Rupert Graves,
Alvaro Lucchesi and Carly Baker.
The music is performed by Maebh Martin and arranged by Neil Martin
Directed by Stephen Rea
Produced by Stephen Wright.
Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett (2010)
******Samuel Beckett's classic stage play broadcast as a tribute to actor
Corin Redgrave who died in April 2010.
On his sixty ninth birthday Krapp sits down to record a tape as he has done every year.
One of Our Aircraft is Missing
by Jonathan Myerson.
******
An excellent thriller stemming from the discovery of a crashed Spitfire
in the East Anglian fens, and the gradual uncovering of the highly secret
and highly illegal mission it was engaged in. Naturally, the military want
to lose the evidence of how it got there ..
The Sanctuary Seeker by Bernard Knight
******November, 1194. Appointed by Richard the Lionheart as the first coroner
for the county of Devon, Sir John de Wolfe, an ex-Crusader, rides out to the lonely
moorland village of Widecombe to hold an inquest on an unidentified body. On his
return to Exeter, the coroner is incense to find that his own brother-in-law, Sheriff
Richard de Revelle, is intent on thwarting the murder investigation, particularly when
it emerges that the dead man is a Crusader and a member of one of Devon's finest
and most honourable families.
So Very Secret by Barbara Pym
******`So Very Secret' has another Cassandra heroine, `a country woman in early middle age ...
My life is filled up with all the activities of a country village in wartime -- Red Cross and canteen
work, besides church brasses and flowers'. We see Cassandra doing her canteen duty before
she enjoys an espionage adventure in familiar Oxford, a London hotel, and a train from Paddington 
to the countryside, with an escape into another Red Cross lecture...
The Servant by Robin Maugham
******an ambiguous smooth character is taken on as a servant by young man returning
from abroad, degeneration and complex sexual happenings result
Silver 1.2 by Jonathan Smith
Silver 2.2
*****A play to mark the centenary of the death of Robert Louis Stevenson. When W.E.Henley
the Gloucestershire poet visited Edinburgh for an operation in 1874 he became friendly with Stevenson.
It was a friendship that was to survive many storms. Starring Bill Paterson as Stevenson,
John Franklin Robbins as Henley and Maureen O'Brien as Fanny;
Upstairs by Susan Knight
******Radio’s the right medium for a séance of sorts when the lodger in the loft turns out to be
a duplicate of Dracula. Starring Andrew Bennett, Dawn Bradfield, Jack Lynch and Joe Taylor
as the Transylvanian toff.
The Missing Wife by Peter Whalley
******Has she walked out on him, or has she come to harm. ...?
KJAV's 'Book Of Job'
******Play derived from the King James Authorised Version's 'Book of Job'.
Job's KJAV text adapted to turn reported speech into direct speech,
and the plot tweaked to highlight Job's dilemma, the play does full
justice to Tyndale's sonorous tone. Lovely stuff.
Paul Scofield plays Job.
The Giant's Cause by David Rudkin
******Modern telling of the Ulster folk-tale about
Finn MacCoul and the Giant's Causeway.
The Rabbit House 1.5 by Laura Alcoba - Going Underground
The Rabbit House 2.5 The Reunion Doll
The Rabbit House 3.5 The Rabbits Arrive
The Rabbit House 4.5 A Dangerous Mistake
The Rabbit House 5.5 5. Exile and Return
******Dramatisation by Sheila Yeger of Laura Alcoba's moving account of her childhood
in Argentina during the 'Dirty War' of the 1970s
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
******A wounded bird brings together a disfigured artist and a young girl
and helps in a courageous act of bravery in World War II.
Sacred Statues by William Trevor
******Gifted Sculptor Corry is struggling to make ends meet for his pregnant wife Nuala
and their children. He may be left with no choice but to sacrifice his beautiful statue
carving and take a labouring job. Surely, Nuala reckons, there must be a way to
safeguard his talent? She must find a way...
City Of The Mind by Penelope Lively
******An architect forced to deal with corrupt practices
& brutal modernism comes to terms with his disjointed
life through his family and a new romance.
A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell
******A loss of memory drives Dorothy, one of England's old maids, from her drab life as
"the rector's daughter" onto the streets of London, to the hop-gardens of Kent and the
grimness of a fourth-rate private school.
Crossed Lines by David Halliwell
******Thriller
A man with large debts thinks he's found a
way out when a woman on the other end of
a crossed line offers to help him.
The Broughton Butcher by William Ash
******A small town is shocked when a nutter butchers
some ladies in the night.
Paint Her Well by Iain McClure
******A woman in a painting is identical to
a woman in a painting that is far older.
The artist seeks an explanation.
Artists And Admirers by Aleksandr Ostrovsky
******An able ambitious young actress faces a choice - languish
in the provinces with her poor but true love, or accept the
help of an aristocratic masher and move on.
Red Rock Grey Rock by Jeff Young
******Jeff remembers his grandfather, whose ghost he thinks
he saw the day he was caught up in an armed robbery.
The Mouse That Roared by Leonard Wibberley
******The basis of the 1959 film starring Peter Sellers, this classic cold war
satire-cum-parable-cum-political farce was first serialized in the Saturday
Evening Post almost 50 years ago, appearing under the title The Day New
York Was Invaded. At the time, the U.S. was afraid of a nuclear attack by
Russia - the idea of an attack by a small country was so absurd as to seem
comical. Wibberley's tiny European nation is furious about unfair U.S. trading
practices, so they send an army to invade New York City, march up Broadway,
and accidentally capture the world's newest and most destructive bomb. Then
they have to figure out what to do with it. A whimsical cross between Kubrick and
Kafka, The Mouse That Roared is a quirky classic of world literature, a poignant
tale of political morality, and a hilarious, ultimately triumphant portrait of international
relations from the perspective of the little guy.
Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland
******The date is 15 December 1979. Karen Ann McNeill goes into a deep coma after a teen party
and remains in it until 1997. When she wakes up, the voices in her head keep telling her the world
is about to end, but Karen doesn't believe them.
Hippomania by Snoo Wilson
******WWII. Southern Ireland. Strident Laurence Olivier is preparing
to film his Henry V, and blithe John Betjeman has attracted the
attention of the IRA.
Snoo Wilson's play is drawn from events in Betjeman's life.
No End To Dreaming by Peter Barnes
******Performed by Lawrence Olivier
Nathan and his recurring dream.
Specially written by Peter Barnes for
Lawrence Olivier to perform on his 80th birthday.
The Researches of Herodotus by Tom Holland
*******Celebrated writer Tom Holland's new adaptation of his own translation
of Herodotus' Histories - one of the most important books in literature and
history writing.
It is an extraordinary account by an Ancient Greek of how his country and people
came into being through their encounters with other people. Described as the first
history book, the work is also the first book of anthropology. It is an action novel,
full of battles and blood and a political parable that warns its audience, and so the
whole of Greece, of the dangers of getting embroiled on foreign soil.
Almost Always African by Anne Caulfield
******Frank (Bill Nighy) brings an African Musician to England in this fish out of water story.
Vongole by Michael Butt
******Bill Nighy plays Tristan, a professor of Italian, who enjoys his female students and pasta with clam sauce.
Related Variations by Douglas Slater
******More is revealed than is usual during a music master class.
Hobson's Choice by Harold Brighouse
*******1880. Salford, Lancashire. Goings on in the shoe trade.
Originally written by Harold Brighouse in 1916 the story revolved around
Henry Horatio Hobson, his three daughters and his struggle to run his boot
making business whilst still maintaining control over his increasingly strong
willed girls. In Tanika Gupta's brilliant adaptation the story remains the same
but the harassed widower is Hari Hobson who lives in Salford with his three
daughters Ruby, Sunita and Durga. His dress-making business is doing very well,
until he makes the mistake of informing Durga (his eldest daughter and the brains
behind the business) that she has to give up all idea of ever getting married and
leaving the family.The incensed Durga turns the tables on her father by marrying
Hari's best tailor, Ali Mossop, and setting up their own rival shop.
With her fate firmly in her own hands Durga faces the tough decision of fighting
against her father, or finding a way to join forces.
The Cure At Troy by Seamus Heaney
******A version of Sophocles' 'Philoctetes'
During a stopover on the way to Troy, Philoctetes' foot is injured.
It festers and the smell's so bad that he's left behind. During the
siege it's revealed that the city will not fall without Philoctetes
present. He is sent for, and a debate ensues about the duties of the
indivudual to the many, and the many to the individual.
Iph by Colin Teevan
******Adapted from Euripides' 'Iphigeneia In Aulis'
The Greek fleet is becalmed. A bad omen for the Troy expedition.
A sacrifice is demanded. After much deliberation, Agamemnon slits
his daughter's [Iphigeneia] throat and anoints his ships with her blood.
A fair wind ensues, and the venture feels better fated, but Agamemnon
has gone too far, and nemesis waits to catch up with him.
The Big Bazoohley by Peter Carey
*******Young tourist visiting Toronto is entered into a competition
to choose the 'perfect kiddo' and win a large cash prize -
The Reluctant Debutante by William Douglas-Home
******When 17-year-old Jane Broadbent comes to London to live with her wealthy
father Jimmy Broadbent, her stepmother Sheila feels compelled by her social
aspirations to introduce her to society. Jane is bored by the debutante balls
she attends and the young men she is introduced to, but becomes interested
in a drummer named David Parkson (Saxon), who has a reputation for
leading young women astray.
Priestley On Air
******Alan Plater examines the life and legacy of J B Priestley -
essayist, novelist, playwright, and broadcaster.
Includes many archive recordings of Priestley.
JB Priestley - A Workmanlike Man by Ed Thomason
******celebrating the life and work of JB Priestley
made just before his death in 1984, and broadcast soon after.
Rebroadcast in 1994 to mark the centenary of his birth.
Riders Of The Purple Sage 1.3 by Zane Grey
Riders Of The Purple Sage 2.3
Riders Of The Purple Sage 3.3
******1871. Cañon Country. Utah. Things unravel when a
woman doesn't want to wed the man chosen for her.
Good depiction of Zane Grey's famous novel about mormon
brutalisation of women and non-members of the sect.
The Anonymous Venetian by Donna Leon
******Commissario Brunetti investigates a murder in which
the male victim was found wearing female clothes.
Aristophanes Against The World by Martyn Wade
****** A romp through many of the funnier
scenes from several of Aristophanes' comedies knitted together around Diciopolis,
whose business is being wrecked by the war with Sparta, his father, who spends his
days on juries at the criminal courts convicting anyone who comes before him, his
profligate teenaged son who still rides a hobby horse, and his fawning dogs.
Meanwhile Clive Merrison, in the guise of Aristophanes, comments on the action,
and gives a good lesson in the elements of Greek drama.
Very funny.
Based on material from plays: Wasps, Clouds, Peace, and Frogs.
Rocco Don't Eat Greens 1.2 by Nick Pullin
Rocco Don't Eat Greens 2.2
******A surreal, dark comedy of music, class, sex, murder and, well, Philip Marlowe....
The Dark Lady of Doona by Jane Cassidy
******The tale of the Irish Pirate Queen Grace O'Malley (Gráinne Mhaol) and Queen Elizabeth I.
The Iceman by Simon Bovey
*******London. 1860. When three girls are found murdered the only clue
D.I. Burdett has is a trace of ice found in the victims' throats - a clue that
leads him into very deep water indeed.
Nuremberg by Richard Norton Taylor
******Another take on the Nuremberg War Crimes' Trial. This time a
dramatised reconstruction of key statements, cross examinations
and judgements. Concludes with a discussion about the court we
now have to try cases of 'Crimes Against Humanity'.
The Nuremberg Trial by Peter Goodchild (3 hrs)
******A drama documentary of the post WWII trial at Nuremberg*
of many of the leaders of the Nazi war & extermination
machines. Important parts of the trial are acted and
intercut with eye witness accounts and commentary.
*These weren't the only post WWII War Crimes' trials.
Some were held in Moscow, others in most of the countries
attacked by Germany. In the East more were held in Tokyo.
Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban
******The turtles in London Zoo become the mutual obsession of two lonely strangers who dream
of setting free the turtles and themselves. Detail by detail their diaries record a world in which
thought leads to action and action brings William G. and Neaera H. to their own open sea.
Bright Day 1.2 by JB Priestley
Bright Day 2.2
******Disillusioned scriptwriter Gregory Dawson is remembering his youth in 1912,
before the slaughter of the First World War when he was an 18-year old in Bruddersford,
Yorkshire: Now in 1946, encounters with the same characters from his past unlock
secret events, buried yearnings and give potential for the future.
Roaring Trade by Steve Thompson
******Described by The Times newspaper in the UK as "the liveliest satire on the city
since Caryl Churchill’s Serious Money 20 years ago."
This witty and candid play looks at the personal and professional relationships between
traders - and how rivalry in the city can spiral out of hand.
The Ingenious Mind of Rigby Lacksome by Ernest Bramah
******A blind detective tangles with suffragettes and the Bard.
The Rock Station by Ger Fitzgibbon
******An intense and creepy two-hander set in a remote Irish lighthouse in October 1866.......
Peter, the duty keeper, has lost his collegue Harty somewhere "down on the rocks".
Eddie, his relief, turns up - somehow, but not by the usual boat - to keep him company
and address the mystery of the missing man.........
But how do lighthouse keepers stay sane in such an isolated place?
Kissing the Gargoyle 1.2 by James Stock
Kissing the Gargoyle 2.2
******This coming of age drama was a winner of the prestigious Imison Award
for Radio Drama from the Society of Authors in 1994.
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