Radio Plays XXXX
  
  



Jam Yesterday by Peter Nichols
******

Dream On by Paul Ekert
******Robert is having a dream. Breakfast with his wife. His ex-wife. His dead ex-wife. The next 
night, there she is again, hauntingly familiar in the full personification of her monstrous 
personality. His current wife is unamused at his nocturnal flirtation with the dead past and 
as dreams and reality began to overlap, Robert begins a desperate hunt to find out why this 
is happening and if he is really losing his mind. Dream on. Be careful what you dream for… 



Cormorant by Sarah Hutchings and Hil Cooke
******Unworldly John and injured sailor McKinney wash up on an uninhabited island, 
the only survivors of a terrifying shipwreck. When the pair is finally rescued John 
isolates himself in an anonymous bed-sit owned by the grotesque Mrs Paskins. 
Haunted by the sounds of the island, he shies away from human contact 
communing only with the disturbing voices in his dreams. John’s new neighbor 
Crow sees life through a haze of delusional paranoia and finds it hard to respect 
John’s need for solitude. Edgy, secretive John is the perfect focus for Crow’s 
over-active imagination and he becomes obsessed with investigating John’s nocturnal rituals. 
However, his surveillance soon turns to clumsy overtures of friendship. Despite his protestations John is forced 
to turn to Crow for help when his ‘voices’ start to blur his sense of reality. A strange, funny and touching story 
about finding friendship in the most unlikely places.





Medusa on the Beach by Marty Ross
******Biddlecombe. A perfectly ordinary, past-its-best English seaside town. 
Except why has everyone there been turned to stone? Two seriously 
out-of-their-depth police officers uncover the strange tale of what happened 
when middle-aged and romantically disappointed hairdresser Marjorie Briggs 
found something in a polythene bag on the beach that didn’t belong there, 
something ancient and terrible – something with the power to seriously muck 
up the lives of Marjorie and all those she loves and hates, as surreal comedy 
shifts towards a very strange sort of Greek tragedy.... 



Ceremony by Anthony Sergeant
******On a quiet coast lies the seagulls, a distressed ship and the home of lonely lady 
and her gardener. Then the quiet is broken by the doorbell, the peace shattered by the past. 
Beautifully complimented with original music score by Daniel Brett.


Frozen by Gareth Parker and Andrew Swann
******a dark tale of two very opposing worlds colliding; the affect two total strangers can have 
on each other when events spiral out of control, when people are thrown together 
one night by chance. 



Bastion West by David Stone
******Somewhere in the future Bastion West, the famed Bon Vivant and his friends 
become marooned in the internet as they are beamed from one cyber party to the next, 
as their identities break down,their situation becomes desperate, then they meet a 
strange entity that may help.



The Importance of Shoes by James Johnson
******Vanessa's an addict. Marise is a collector. London-boy Sebastian sells. Polish Doctor 
Dylan tells people to stop. Four lives in Belfast revolve around a story of shoes. 
Contains some scenes that maybe of a disturbing nature for younger listeners. 



Gino Ginelli Is Dead by Stephen Hill
******Charles and Ollie Ginnelli haven't seen their father for over twenty years when out 
of the blue they discover he has passed away and they must go to their childhood 
hometown of Swanborough on sea to organise his funeral. What begins as an unfortunate 
family accident mounts into a disaster of unparallelled proportions for the two brothers 
as they encounter the strange, the incompetent and the unusual during the ceremony 
and remember why they were so glad they left in the first place. 
Still, at least they get to leave straight away. Don't they?




Galaxicabs by Peter Davis
******Space. The year 2168. Galaxicab 3, an interstellar taxi, is on route to pick up the 
most famous singer in the galaxy. It's only crew - a Captain, his co-pilot and a galactic 
stewardess with three arms. Let's hope there isn't a psychopathic serial killer on the loose ...




Spook Squad by Jim Spiers
******A mismatched bunch of oddballs, geeks and a borderline-psychotic TV presenter 
venture to a haunted inn in Somerset to record the first ever episode of ‘Spook Squad’ 
- a groundbreaking TV show investigating the supernatural and the bizarre. 



The Youth Of Old Age by Stuart Price
******Wickedly acerbic new writing ‘The Youth Of Old Age’ shows Prunella Scales 
at her ‘dragon tongued’ best as the matriarch determined her heir should not 
marry 'out of sorts'





No Cause For Alarm by Gareth Rubin
******No Cause For Alarm is a silly play. It has no comment to make about the human condition, 
love in the 21st century or the Iraq war.



The Pool by Simon Block
******Annie and her husband book a cheap holiday at 
the last minute and look forward to a week lounging by the pool.
But it doesn't turn out that way.



Glasnost by John Mortimer
******


All Passion Spent 1.5 by Vita Sackville-West
All Passion Spent 2.5
All Passion Spent 3.5
All Passion Spent 4.5
All Passion Spent 5.5
******Echoing the themes in A Room of One's Own by her great friend Virginia Woolf, 
Vita Sackville-West remaps the destiny of the gentle, gracious eighty-eight-year-old 
Lady Slane in this classic modern novel. Having surrendered seven decades of her life 
to the exemplary, if often hollow fulfillment of her marriage, to the expectations of her 
statesman husband and the demands of her children, Lady Slane finally, in her widowhood, 
defies her family. She dismisses the wishes and plans of her six pompous sons and 
daughters for her future, and instead retires to a tiny house in Hampstead, where she chooses 
to live independently and free from her past. There she alters, and not without some success, the 
course of her personal history. There, too, she recollects the dreams of her youth and at last, 
with one last "strange and lovely thing," acts upon the passion she forfeited seventy years 
earlier to the narrow conventions of a proper Victorian marriage. "...Sackville-West has borrowed 
in her prose writing some ... function of poetry, the ability to suggest far more than she says."--
New York Times "Witty and charming and graceful and brilliant."--Chicago Tribune 




Coda 1.5 by Simon Gray
Coda 2.5
Coda 3.5 
Coda 4.5 
Coda 5.5
******The playwright and diarist's frank, moving and often painfully funny 
account of coming to terms with his terminal cancer



The Moscow Prodigal by Michael Butt.
******This is the first of three plays in the mini-season 'Russia Actualnyi' 
which sets out to explore life in Russia now.

Vasily returns to Moscow after ten years in England. His attempts to build a new life 
there have not been a success - he has been eking out an existence as a minicab driver. 
At the airport he is met by his childhood friend, Andrei, who now works for the Minister 
of the Interior. Andrei's expansive manner and expensive air of money and power seem 
to hint at a more thuggish way of climbing the ladder.

Back at his mother's flat Vasily embraces his brother, but there is little brotherly love. 
Whilst their ailing mother celebrates her eldest son's return, Vasily begins to calculate 
the value of her central Moscow flat.

His brother Sasha simmers with resentment at the way he has been left to care for their 
mother, but he still has scruples when Vasily explains his plans to profit from the sale 
of the flat. Soon Vasily is drawn into the world of new money and old power struggles.

The play strips away contemporary Russia's veneer of newly-acquired wealth to expose 
the brutal networks of self-interest where ties of friendship and family are all too easily 
broken by the lure of easy dollars.





Sunny Afternoon by Doug Lucie
******The normality of a sunny London afternoon is brutally shattered 
when a man is killed in the street. Testimonies from passers-by and 
residents who witnessed the event reveal the personal, unforeseen 
and lasting repercussions of such an incident. Their lives will 
never be the same again.


The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
******Things look up for a depressed area when
an elderly plutocrat visits her home town
for the first time in forty years.
But there is a catch ...



The Glass Bead Game 1.2 by Hermann Hesse
The Glass Bead Game 2.2
******The title of this novel refers to an ultra-aesthetic game played by scholars i
n the kingdom of Castalia around the year 2400. The game involves all branches 
of knowledge and spiritual values, especially those of the East.





The Quiet Willoughbys by Neil Flynn
******Larry Willoughby and his wife Norissa are parents to Caoimhe and Matthew. They live in a leafy estate 
called Ashgrove on the outskirts of Tralee. But Larry is haunted by a feeling of not belonging there, and 
haunted too by the memories of his late father. On the night on which the play begins Larry is determined 
to resolve once and for all his sense of worthlessness, with little mind of the potential consequences for 
him and his family. Praised by the PJ O Connor Awards Jury for “its skilfully drawn characters, its beautiful 
evocation of suburbia and its sense of surprise.” 



Pratt's Fall by Stewart Parker
******If you were an attractive, strong-minded female academic, and a Glaswegian 
ex-monk sporting a small gold earring offered you a map proving that the Irish 
discovered America in the 9th Century, would you fall for it?



The Female Husband by Sheila Hannon
******Fictionalised account of dyke/transvestite Mary Hamilton,
who, in 1746, was tried and punished for marrying as a man.

Sandy Toksvig, who makes no secret of her sexual leaning,
plays the lead in a not quite Scottish accent.

The case was made famous by Henry Fielding's 'anonymous' pamphlet:
"The Female Husband or the Surprising History of Mrs Mary
alias Mr George Hamilton, who was convicted of having married
a young woman of Wells and lived with her as her husband,
taken from her own mouth since her confinement." 1746


From Morn to Midnight by Georg Kaiser
******Georg Kaiser's great German expressionist classic of 1912.

One of the most frequently performed works of German Expressionist theatre, 
its plot concerns a Cashier in a small bank in W. (ostensibly Weimar) who is 
alerted to the power of money by the visit of a rich Italian lady. He embezzles 60,000 
Marks and absconds to B. (Berlin) where he attempts to find transcendent 
experiences in sport, romance and religion, onlyto be ultimately frustrated.

Kaiser's classic expressionist plays, written just before and during the Great War, 
often called for man to make a decisive break with the past, rejuvenating contemporary 
society. He eschewed characterization, and particularly character psychology, 
instead making his protagonists and other characters archetypes, employing 
highly anti-naturalistic dialogue often comprisinglengthy individual speeches.



The Physicists by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
******Mental home. One patient says he's Newton. Another
says he's Einstein. The third says that King Solomon
visits him. 

There is method in this madness.



Smiles of a Summer Night by Ingmar Bergman
******A delightful `fairy tale for adults', set in Sweden at the start of the 20th century.
Fredrik Egerman thinks himself content with a child bride the same age as his son, 
until he sees a past love, the vivacious Desiree Armfeldt.



Autumn Sonata 1.3 by Ingmar Bergman. 
Autumn Sonata 2.3 
Autumn Sonata 3.3 
******Following the death of her lover, a concert pianist visits 
her estranged daughter, and a dark story of a divided family 
unfolds as the two women start to reveal the sorrow and 
bitterness of their shared past. 





Gurney by Tim Sanders
******A life of Ivor Gurney, Cotswold man, composer
and poet, who came through WWI seemingly
undamaged, but later descended into madness.


The 78s by David Zane Mairowitz
******A man experiences life through his collection of 78s.


A Kind Of Loving 01.10 by Stan Barstow
A Kind Of Loving 02.10
A Kind Of Loving 03.10
A Kind Of Loving 04.10
A Kind Of Loving 05.10
A Kind Of Loving 06.10
A Kind Of Loving 07.10
A Kind Of Loving 08.10
A Kind Of Loving 09.10
A Kind Of Loving 10.10
******Iconic Modern Classic set in late 1950's/60's Yorkshire. Compelling, poignant 
and humorous account of twenty year old Vic Brown's infatuation for Ingrid which 
develops into an emotional crises. This is the 50th Anniversary of the publication 
of the book which was first published in July 1960.



No Help When Dead by David Ashton
******A state of the nation play set during a Paisley pub's first ever poetry slam.

As an ultra-nationalist and an ultra-morbid poet prepare to compete against 
a scantily clad Biblical-rapper, a man professing to be William McGonagall 
arrives to take stock of Scotland's brave new lyrical world.

David Ashton is a writer and actor best known for his radio drama series McLevy staring Brian Cox.



Gentleman and Ladies 1.5 by Susan Hill
Gentleman and Ladies 2.5
Gentleman and Ladies 3.5
Gentleman and Ladies 4.5
Gentleman and Ladies 5.5
******The ties, friendships and loneliness of a family living in a small Midland village.



The White Chameleon by Christopher Hampton
******A witty and sad memory play by Christopher Hampton, set in Alexandria in the years 
up to and during the Suez invasion.

It is about his father, in Egypt working for Cable and Wireless, his mother, also from a 
Cable and Wireless family, and Ibrahim, the Egyptian servant who has been running the 
house for 20 years and who helps 10-year-old Chris, the future playwright, make up dramas for homework.

As it turned out, his first play was on in the West End when he was 20. His best-known plays 
include Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Total Eclipse, The Philanthropist and Tales From Hollywood. 
His films include Carrington, which he wrote and directed and which won the Jury Prize at Cannes, 
and Dangerous Liaisons for which he won an Oscar.

This autobiographical play is about the sense he has of his roots in this particular place, his early 
realisation that he was born to be a writer and also of the experience in his own life, as a child in Egypt, 
of the sudden dislocations that marked the end of Empire.

Alex Jennings plays Chris's father, Amanda Root his mother and Mido Hamada the redoubtable Ibrahim. 
The play is narrated by Christopher Hampton himself.



Between Two Worlds by Adrian Bean and David Hendy
******Sir Oliver Lodge is a strange and forgotten figure from the Edwardian era: 
an Establishment scientist, the unacknowledged inventor of the wireless before 
Marconi, a dabbler in psychic phenomena, the friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 
and Albert Einstein. He was also a tragic figure: destined to spend his life searching 
desperately for a way to communicate, using seances, with his son, Raymond, killed 
on the Western Front in 1915. Sir Oliver believed he had cracked the thin veil that 
separates two worlds.




SS Glencairn Quartet by Eugene O'Neill 
******Eugene O'Neill wrote four one-act plays about the crew of the SS Glencairn.  
This quartet of plays, like much of O'Neill's earlier, shorter works, has been overlooked-
-but the sea plays are still considered the best of these earlier specimens.
1.4 The Moon of the Caribbees  (26:50)  The S.S. Glencairn, anchored off a Caribbean Island, 
is visited and troubled by chants, women, and whisky from the shore.

2.4 Bound East For Cardiff  (28:21)  The dying Yank and Driscoll confess to each other the 
unexpressed dream that has lain at the heart of their friendship.

3.4 In the Zone  (30:15)  In a zone of war the enemy may already be aboard in the form of a 
"little black box" which Smitty hides under his mattress.

4.4 The Long Voyage Home  (27:30)  Home is a longing never to be realized by those who have 
given themselves to the sea.



National Velvet 1.2 by Enid Bagnold
National Velvet 2.2 
******A young girl trains and rides her own horse in the Grand National. Age group 8+.



One Man On A Stage by Judith French
******Based on Jerome K Jerome's memoir 'On The Stage And Off'
Tragicomic biodrama about Jerome J Jerome.
Orphaned at the age of 18, JKJ set out to make a career
among the frauds of the provincial stage, until, almost
by accident, he discovered his comic talent.

JKJ is best known for his novel 'Three Men in a Boat'.


Writing the Century 14 A Burden to Strangers 1.5 by Steve Gough
Writing the Century 14 A Burden to Strangers 2.5
Writing the Century 14 A Burden to Strangers 3.5
Writing the Century 14 A Burden to Strangers 4.5
Writing the Century 14 A Burden to Strangers 5.5
******The series which explores the 20th century through the diaries and correspondence 
of real people, returns with "A Burden to Strangers" by Steve Gough. Inspired by the diaries 
of Rachel Minshall, a spirited and politically active octogenarian who lived alone in the Welsh Valleys during the 1980s.



The Eulogy of Harry Brogan by Alan Archbold 
******Second Runner-up, PJ O'Connor Awards 2010 
Between elegy and eulogy one finds epiphany in the posher dictionaries; and that’s as true of a father’s death 
as it is of the fifth letter in the alphabet. Harry Brogan’s dead and gone, but the different, double life his 
memorabilia embody destabilize the son who’s grieving for a paterfamilias that isn’t paternal or familiar all 
of a sudden. Producer: Aidan Mathews


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.


Dr Freud Will See You Now Mr Hitler By Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran
******.At the age of six, Adolf Hitler suffered from recurring nightmares.

The village doctor recommended a child psychiatrist in Vienna, a young man named Sigmund Freud.

Adolf's brutal father, however, wouldn't hear of it.

But what if....



Unlawful Occasions by Henry Cecil
******The denizens of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn begin receive visits from the sinister 
Mr. Sampson, starting with Mrs Vernay and her downstairs neighbour, Brian Culsworth Q.C. 


Deal With Murder
 by Peter Cornish
******Harker, a young painter, receives a death threat over the phone from an unknown caller.


While The Sun Shines by Terence Rattigan
******On the eve of his marriage, the Earl of Harpenden puts up a drunken American 
Lieutenant for the night.  The Earl decides to fix the American up with a former 
girlfriend but the Earl's fiancŽe turns up instead.  A French officer, the fiancŽe's 
spendthrift father, and the amorous ex-girlfriend are part of the frothy mix.  
First staged in 1943 at the Globe Theatre, London



From Fact to Fiction- S08E01- Motorway Man by Tony Grounds.
From Fact to Fiction- S08E02- None of the Above by John Finnemore
From Fact to Fiction- S08E03- Double Dip by Neil Brand
From Fact to Fiction- S08E04- Menace by Kate Clanchy
From Fact to Fiction- S08E05- Grounded by Terence Blacker
From Fact to Fiction- S08E06- I Want My Life Back by A L Kennedy
From Fact to Fiction- S08E07- Fourteen Units a Week by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti.
From Fact to Fiction- S08E08- Solitudinem faciunt et pacem appellant by Marina Warner.
******the series in which writers create a 15 minute fictional response to a story in the week's news, 
from British politics to the BP mess.







Writing on Wigan Pier by David Pownall
******In 1936, George Orwell embarked on a visit to Wigan, a typical coal-mining town 
in industrial Lancashire in order to write a book about the people, their experiences 
and their struggle to cope with the effects of the Depression.

Determined not to be dismissed as a dispassionate observer, he resolves to spend time 
living with and amongst the people. However, he brings with him his self-guilt, his 
obsession with the English class system, his fiercely-held preconceptions of the 
working-class and his remarkable cut-glass voice, of which he is all too painfully aware. 
The visit is both revealing and humorous.

He stays in an appalling doss-house above a tripe shop, tries to work down a pit, 
stays with a family, makes a pass at the wife, upsets the local Women's Institute
and meets a priest escaping from fascism in Spain. Whilst most who meet him take 
him for who and what he is, for Orwell the experience develops into a journey of self-discovery.



Vote for Conan Doyle! by Bert Coules. 

******
Drama commissioned to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of the writer. 
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was many things, but few people know that in 1900 he ran 
for Parliament for Edinburgh, his home town. This was in the national election of 1900
 - the "Khaki Election" - in which the continuing and controversial war in South Africa 
was a key issue: Doyle's experiences as a volunteer surgeon in newly-liberated 
Bloemfontein figure in the play, as does his friendship with Bertram Fletcher Robinson 
and the birth of the Hound of the Baskervilles. 

John Sessions plays Doyle




Trouble and Shame by David Ireland
******Hunter's a Glaswegian with big plans for Northern Ireland. The First Minister and the 
Deputy First Minister are from opposite ends of the political spectrum and they're not 
getting on, but Hunter thinks he knows how to help. The answer is to kidnap them. 




LA Theater Works - Going to St. Ives 1.2  by Lee Blessing.
LA Theater Works - Going to St. Ives 2.2
******In our story this week, we'll hear about a doctor-patient relationship that has 
harrowing repercussions far beyond the operating room. Dr. Cora Gage is an English 
eye surgeon who has been chosen to operate on the mother of a ruthless African dictator. 
But each woman has a favor to ask the other, and the consequences are a matter of 
life and death.
Starring Caroline Goodall as Dr. Cora Gage and L. Scott Caldwell as May N'Kame. 
Directed by Shirley Jo Finney.




Toad of Toad Hall 


******Adapted by A. A. Milne in 1929 from Kenneth Grahame's 1908 story, 
'The Wind In The Willows.'

'Toad of Toad Hall' chronicles the adventures 
of the well-known characters from 'The Wind in the Willows', including 
Mr. Toad, Rat, Mole, and Badger, who inhabit the River Bank, and their 
enemies, the weasels and ferrets of the Wild Wood. Toad's wild motor car 
escapades get him in trouble with the law, and only by disguising himself as a 
washerwoman can he escape prison and take back his home, Toad Hall, from the pesky 
Wild Wood creatures



In the Garden of the Asylum by Thomas Kilroy
******the story of Lucia Joyce, daughter of James Joyce and Raymond Douglas, 
son of Bosie (Lord Alfred Douglas). Both spent time at the Psychiatric institution in North Hampton, England. 
Thomas Kilroy fashions this drama based on a fictionalised meeting in the garden of the asylum.



Me and Cilla by Lee Mattinson.
******Pricilla's Stephenson's preparations are well underway for her perfect Christmas Eve party, 
but with her son about to make his first public appearance in a mini skirt, and her husband's affair 
with the neighbour about to rear its ugly head, will the glue holding this family together be strong enough? 
Will the powerful truth in Cilla Black's lyrics give them the words to show each other their wounds and start to heal?
(The Wire)



The Sofa Of Time - S01 - E01 - There's A World In My Locker 
The Sofa Of Time - S01 - E02 - Where The Brave Go Shopping  
The Sofa Of Time - S01 - E03 - And The Hackett March On...  
The Sofa Of Time - S01 - E04 - Captain Chapel And The Crabs 
The Sofa Of Time - S01 - E05 - Night Of The Sexicle
The Sofa Of Time - S01 - E06 - Here Comes Bod  

******It is said that those who sit on the Sofa can be transported to anywhere and to any time....

Milford and Parker get sacked from their jobs in a soft furnishings factory in Crouch End and, 
as they are clearing out their lockers, they fall into the magical world of Gravy. There Milford is 
regarded as the chosen one who has come at last to save the people from Raamen Bod who plans 
to find the Sofa of Time and use it for evil purposes.



The Light of Darkness by Louis Nowra
*******When Leslie Davis suddenly takes up a diplomatic posting in Harput, 
a remote province of Turkey, he is determined to find commercial opportunities 
for America. Instead, soon after his arrival, Turkey enters World War One on 
Germany's side. Davis finds himself playing poker to save the lives of his young 
secretary, his interpreter and many other Armenians. Later he wrote up the account 
of his Harput experience in a book called Slaughterhouse Province.
Louis Nowra is a playwright who has researched Davis's life and work and the history 
of Harput. He is based in Australia and was drawn to this story by way of his admiration 
for the music of the Armenian composer Komitas, which features in the play.



Love and Animals by Philip Davison (RTE – Ireland)
An absurdist piece, charting a mid-wife/mid-life crisis in the life of a very poorly parented individual.
It stars Michael McElhatton as the culprit/casualty, Des Cave as a paternalistic police-officer 
investigating the trespasser (in both the theological and the legal sense), John Olohan as the 
delinquent dad from way back, and Barbara Brennan as the demented mother – or, more precisely, 
as an Irish mother, which is to say as a ‘mam’. Marx was wrong about the proletariat: it is Mam 
who drives human history.



Torchwood - The Dead Line by Phil Ford.
******When a Cardiff hospital is inundated with patients who have fallen into coma -like 
trances, Torchwood move in to investigate. The trances appear to have been triggered 
by phone calls, all received on retro phones and made from a number that hadn't been 
active for over 30 years.

Determined to find out who has been calling the unfortunate victims, Jack rings the 
mysterious number, but the line is dead. But then it calls Jack back...




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