Audio Productions on BBC Radio 4, Radio 3 and World Service 1991-2022
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2023
The Hound of the Baskervilles BBC4 TV Christmas Day Evening 2023
The Wire Cutters
Executive Producer for a new play for Radio 4 for the Burning Bright production company – Tx: 5th July
The Hound of the Baskervilles – BBC Radio 3
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle scored and dramatised by Neil Brand for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and seven actors. With Mark Gatiss as Sherlock Holmes and Sanjeev Bhaskar as Dr. Watson. To be broadcast on Radio 3 on 22.01.23 and BBC4 TV tbc.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra with Clare Corbett, Ewan Bailey, Mark Gatiss, Neil Brand, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Sam Dale, Ryan Early, Carl Prekopp onstage at the Barbican Centre.
Mark Gatiss and Sanjeev Bhaskar
2022
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Doblin, dramatised by Simon Scardifield from the translation by Michael Hofmann (2 x 117′, 5 & 6.02.22)
Shortlisted for both Dramatisation and Sound (Commendation) in 2023 Audio Drama Awards.
Project initiated by Marc Beeby and Emma Harding. Brought in as Lead Producer to cast, direct and oversee post-production alongside Gemma Jenkins.
Claes Bang, Lee Ross, Samuel James, David Hounslow, Clare Corbett, Mark Edel-Hunt, Neil McCaul, Ria Marshall, Jasmine Hyde, Michael Begley, Justice Ritchie, Grace Cooper Milton, Christine Kavanagh, Chris Jack, Hannah Genesius, Ryan Whittle. Sound by Cal Knightley & Keith Graham.
MY DAD’S WARDROBE by Frazer Flintham (10.01.20) Afternoon Drama
A comedic adventure about a 12-year-old boy’s attempts to recover his father’s clothes. But there’s much more to Louie’s mission than merely getting out of trouble.
Aaron Gelkhoff, Luca Evans, Heather Craney, Ikky Elyas, Clive Hayward, Gerard McDermott, Will Kirk, Lucy Reynolds, Neil McCaul, Jessica Turner, Adam Courting, Sinead MacInnes, Laura Christy, Scarlett Courtney, Greg Jones
2019
MAUREEN AND FRIENDS (2 x 30) (27.12.19) recorded before an audience in the BBC Radio Theatre
From pesky rodents to Jane Austen. The irrepressible Maureen Lipman delivers her comic monologues in the BBC Radio Theatre.
GUT by Frances Poet (15.10.19) Afternoon Drama
GUT is a psychological thriller about the difficulties facing today’s generation of increasingly isolated parents. LUCY and RORY return from their first night away from their young son, JOSHUA, to celebrate their anniversary. RORY’s mother, MORVEN, who has been babysitting casually reveals that she let a stranger take the newly potty trained JOSHUA to the toilet while she waited in a busy cafeteria queue. For MORVEN it’s an afterthought but for LUCY and RORY this revelation is a bomb shell – what might this stranger have done to their son? When JOSHUA bites another kid at soft-play the following day their concern intensifies. But their journey to discover whether JOSHUA has been harmed, ultimately involving the police, begins to cause fractures in the triangle of relationships between LUCY, RORY and MORVEN, leaving LUCY increasingly isolated in her anxiety. All strangers seem threatening now and LUCY begins to believe only she can keep JOSHUA safe.
Jeany Spark, Joe Kloska, Jessica Turner, Neil McCaul, Will Kirk, Greg Jones
BLEND by Archie Maddocks (28.08.19)
A young, mixed-race couple debate the ethics of having a child.
Rebekah Murrell, Jake Fairbrother, Mika Osei-Owusu
HOLD YOUR BREATH, CHINA (INSPECTOR CHEN 10) by Qiu Xialong dram. Joy Wilkinson (11.08.19) Saturday Drama
Inspector Chen has fallen from the Party’s grace, but he is back on the case when a serial murderer is on the loose in the ever-thickening smog of Shanghai.
Daniel York, Jamie Zubairi, Dan Li, Liz Sutherland-Lim, Andrew Leung, Rebecca Boey, David Hounslow, Sean Baker, Chris Pavlo, Kenny Blyth, Debbie Korley
FLYING VISITS by Charlotte Bogard Macleod (5 x 15) (27.07.19)
Claire Rushbrook stars as Hayleigh, a resourceful and conscientious care-worker pushed to the limits by a system that still relies on 15 minute homecare visits.
“Hello Charlotte, Congratulations on you drama series’ Flying Visits.’ Absolutely hit the proverbial nail. My late father received such visits: the carer had to phone her office when she arrived and when she left. Nothing like trusting your workforce! A fair part of the visit was taken up with the carer having to fill in paperwork. People needing care need someone to talk to, never mind the dust! Again, well done you for highlighting all this.”
Claire Rushbrook, Karl Johnson, Elizabeth Counsell, Debbie Korley, Emily Meechan, Paul Hickey, Shaun Mason, Catherine Cusack, Jonny Holden
THE MACEFIELD PLOT by Daniel Thurman (14.05.19) Afternoon Drama
When fractious and enigmatic Edith Macefield (Sian Phillips) refuses to move out of her Seattle home the developers build a five-storey mall around her. Construction Manager Barry Martin (Stanley Townsend) endeavours to smooth troubled waters.
Sian Phillips, Stanley Townsend, Joseph Balderrama, Helen Clapp, Christopher Harper
Exec Producer for 2020 World Service Playwriting Competition
BY GOD’S MERCY by Colette Victor (02.02.19) Winner – World Service Play Competition 2018 World Service Drama
Set in the Cape Flats township in South Africa, and narrated by a mattress who’s worried that its time on earth is coming to an end, this comedy, with an underlying social message, is the story of Mercy and her “house of pleasure”. She has to make tough decisions and sacrifices to put food on the table, look after her sickly husband Sollie, send her talented daughter to college and provide work for Prudence, the daughter of an old friend.
Chipo Chung, Vincent Ebrahim, Lynne Anne Rogers, Keeran Blessie, Don Gilet, Tonderai Munyevu
2018
THE HAUNTING OF M R JAMES by Neil Brand (22.12.18) Saturday Drama
Every Christmas, the master of the ghost story, M.R. James would read a tale to his Cambridge students. In this original chilling drama he finds horrific events from those stories are echoed in reality alongside the inevitable forces of change and modernism.
Mark Gatiss, Fenella Woolgar, Ryan Whittle, Gerard McDermott, Cameron Percival, Ronny Jhutti, Michael Bertenshaw, Tony Turner, Ewan Bailey, Christopher Harper, Sam Dale, Lewis Bray
M R JAMES SHORT STORIES dram. Neil Brand (5 x 15) (17-21.12.18)
The Mezzotint
The new engraving Dr Williams orders for the university collection reveals a disturbing story.
Mark Gatiss, Patrick Brennan, Tony Turner, Don Gilet, Jeanette Percival, Michael Bertenshaw
Casting the Runes
The tale of a curse passed on by a curiously inscribed slip of paper.
Mark Gatiss, John Bowler, Ewan Bailey, Paul Heath, Saffron Coomber, Ronny Jhutti, Lewis Bray
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral
A tale of likely murder, mysterious cats and ecclesiastical carvings.
Mark Gatiss, Sean Baker, Carolyn Pickles, Saffron Coomber, Michael Bertenshaw, Neil Brand, Cameron Percival, Lewis Bray
A Warning to the Curious
The unearthing of an Anglo Saxon crown in the dunes unleashes supernatural forces for unfortunate medievalist Paxton.
Mark Gatiss, Paul Heath, Michael Bertenshaw, Tony Turner, Ewan Bailey, Saffron Coomber, Clare Corbett
Rats
A remote inn, a locked room and young Thomson, the only guest, is curious.
Mark Gatiss, George Watkins, Michael Bertenshaw, Carolyn Pickles, Sean Baker
(2014-2018) Executive Producer for TOMMIES – 42 x 44’ Afternoon dramas. Each based on a real events on one of the various Fronts of the 1WW and is titled for the day on which the action is set. Each episode was originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4, exactly one hundred years later.
TOMMIES 12 November 1918 by Jonathan Ruffle (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Western Front: Major Mickey, Sergeant Jack, Lt Colonel Harry, Celestine and Florrie are all in Mons – where sabotage, occupation and rebellion make the first day of peace a shaky prospect. Jack dies.
Lee Ross, Pippa Nixon, Matthew Tennyson, Karen Bartke, Ashley Kumar, Alexander Devrient, William Brand, Don Gilet, Tony Turner, Lewis Bray, Cameron Percival, Liam Lau Fernandez, Alex Constantinidi, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 11 November 1918 by Avin Shah
Russia: Between the signing of the Armistice at 5am, and coming into force at 11am, we are with the 2/10 Royal Scots in the forgotten war of the North Russian Expeditionary Force – whose war ended in September 1918.
Ryan Whittle, Andrew Byron, Chris Reilly, Monty D’Inverno, Liam Lau Fernandez, Madeleine Worrall, Ivana Basic, Elizabeth Counsell, Sean Murray, Lewis Bray, Cameron Percival, Indira Varma
THE MOORS OF ENGLAND by Rex Obano (04.11.18) Radio 3
England is divided as never before. The country has turned its back on Europe. Not Britain today but the 16th century. The story of Sir Robert Cecil and his black Muslim servant Fortunatus.
Ray Fearon, John Heffernan, Sope Dirisu, Tristan Sturrock, Youseff Kerkou, Elizabeth Counsell, Philip Bretherton, Sean Murray, Lucy Doyle, Ella Glendinning, Emma Handy, Cameron Percival
THE BIG BROADCAST (Quiz & Location) by Neil Brand (21 & 28.10.18) recorded before an audience in the BBC Radio Theatre
QUIZ Neil Brand’s fast-talking musical comedy set in a 1930s Chicago Radio Studio starring Samantha Spiro and Chris Jarman. The Hour of Charm team defend their show.
LOCATION. A comedy with music. It’s 1933 and Chicago Beefsteak’s Hour of Charm is the most successful on Midwest US radio …. and today the studio team use new technology to entice a Hollywood superstar to sing on the show.
Samantha Spiro, Ryan Early, Ryan Whittle, Kerry Gooderson, Stephen Hogan, Emma Handy, Elizabeth Counsell, Chris Jarman, Ian Conningham, John Lightbody, Lauren Cornelius
Singers: Helen Neeves, Katherine Nicholson, Chris Bowen, Jamie W Hall
THE GIFT by Vickie Donoghue (18.09.18)
Carol is good at looking after vulnerable young mothers but she is knocked off balance when Hayley turns up on her doorstep.
Claire-Louise Cordwell, Rebekah Murrell, Lucy Phelps, Don Gilet, Cameron Percival, Liam Lau Fernandez
TOMMIES 22 August 1918 by Patricia Cumper and Jonathan Ruffle (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Western Front: One of only four black women YMCA secretaries sent from the States to supports its 200,000 black soldiers in France, uncovers the operation of Jim Crow on the Western Front, and the disproportionate losses of US troops.
Clare Perkins, John MacMillan, Buom Tihngang, Ryan Whittle, Daniel Betts, Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong, Alexander Devrient, Peter Bankole, Cameron Percival, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 15 August 1918 by Avin Shah (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Turkmenistan: a real-life battle between armoured trains in the Transcaspian desert: Bolsheviks and freed Austro-Hungarian POWs, fight white Russians and the British Indian Army.
Simon Scardifield, Dolya Gavanski, Aaron Vodovoz, Tony Jayawardena, Waleed Akhtar, Omar Malik, Ryan Early, Stephen Hogan, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 8 August 1918 by Jonathan Ruffle
Western Front: Intelligence, technology and planning finally pay off – Mickey is part of the stunning British advance. Harry de Tullio guides a tank from a plane with real-time voice comms. Florrie brings news that Evadne is dead.
Lee Ross, Karen Bartke, Sam Valentine, Ryan Whittle, Trevor White, Sagar Radia, Parth Thakerar, Ryan Early, John Lightbody, Joseph Ayre, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 1 August 1918 by Neil Brand
Western Front: Mickey’s attempts to reconcile with Jack are confounded by the secret signals war he’s running, to fool the Germans that a huge fictional Canadian force are in the line. Evadne is now a WAAC controller.
Lee Ross, Ashley Kumar, Ryan Whittle, Joannah Tincey, Philip Desmeules, Stephen Hogan, Kerry Gooderson, Rupert Simonian, Emma Handy, Joseph Ayre, John Lightbody, Ryan Early, Indira Varma
ROTTERDAM by Jon Brittain (01.07.18) Radio 3
In Jon Brittain’s Olivier-winning comedy about gender, sexuality and transitioning Alice is about to email her parents when her girlfriend drops a bombshell.
Felix Moore, Jeany Spark, Lucy Phelps, Paul Heath
Writing for Radio Drama Course at The Arvon Foundation at Lumb Bank – May 2018
INSPECTOR CHEN 7,8,9
Poet and gourmand Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police Bureau returns in another drama based on Qiu Xiaolong’s crime novels. Chen’s lakeside holiday is interrupted by the violent death of the boss of the Wuxi Number One Chemical Company. Will his blossoming relationship with a young environmental engineer compromise his covert investigation?
Inspector Chen: Don’t Cry Tai Lake by Qiu Xiaolong dram. Joy Wilkinson (12.05.18) (dir. Toby Swift)
Jamie Zubairi, Elizabeth Tan, Andrew Leung, Neil McCaul, Alice Hewkin, Clive Hayward, Luke Bailey, Rupert Holliday-Evans, Ryan Early
Inspector Chen: The Enigma of China by Qiu Xiaolong dram. John Harvey (19.05.18)
Poet and gourmand, Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police Bureau is called in to oversee the investigation into the death of the Director of The Shanghai Development Committee while under house arrest. He has to negotiate the power of the Party, an internet campaign and a new potential romance.
Inspector Chen: Shanghai Redemption by Qiu Xiaolong dram. John Harvey (26.05.18)
Jamie Zubairi, Daniel York, Sarah Lam, Chris Pavlo, Elizabeth Chan, Anna Leong Brophy, Ryan Early, Ryan Whittle, Philip Bretherton, Neil McCaul, Amber Aga
Inspector Chen finds himself “promoted” sideways from the Shanghai Police Bureau before narrowly escaping a night-club trap and exposing a web of financial and sexual corruption.
Jamie Zubairi, Daniel York, Sarah Lam, Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Kerry Gooderson, Rupert Holliday-Evans, Paul Courtenay Hyu, Georgie Glen, Lauren Cornelius, Clive Hayward
TOMMIES 11 April 1918 by Avin Shah (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Western Front: the day the British nearly lose the 1WW. Mickey pursues Dixon and Gubanda through the chaos of retreat for the truth about the atrocity, but certain defeat wipes it all away. Dixon dies.
Lee Ross, Daniel Weyman, John MacMillan, Tom Vallen, Mark Edel-Hunt, Philip Bretherton, Ryan Whittle, Luke Bailey, Ryan Early, Neil McCaul, Amber Aga, Georgie Glen, Kerry Gooderson, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 4 April 1918 by Neil Brand
Italy: Harry de Tullio is now a pilot in the brand new RAF. His service takes him to the Italian Front, where his estranged mother Celestine has founded a hospital rather than go home, and is researching trench fever.
Pippa Nixon, Ryan Early, Sam Valentine, Waleed Akhtar, Georgie Glen, Cesare Taurasi, Nancy Crane, Emily Bruni, Rupert Holliday Evans, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 28 March 1918 by Nick Warburton
Western Front: WAACs are not under army command, but with the British Army in pell-mell retreat, they must decide whether to stay and serve – or run. Florie and Evadne.
Clare Corbett, Karen Bartke, Ryan Whittle, Emma Fielding, Lauren Cornelius, Ryan Early, Luke Bailey, Kerry Gooderson, Rupert Holliday Evans, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 21 March 1918 by Jonathan Ruffle (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Western Front: Juma Gubanda is surrounded by Germans in the fog as the German Spring Offensive begins. Dixon is returned to the Front with one arm. They kill German prisoners out of hand – atrocity story. German Spring Offensive. Florie appears.
Lee Ross, Daniel Weyman, John MacMillan, Tom Vallen, Philip Bretherton, Simon Wilson, Ryan Early, Nick Underwood, Karen Bartke, Luke Bailey, Ryan Whittle, Indira Varma
THE GOOD COMPANIONS by J.B. Priestley dram. John Retallack (24.02.18)
JB Priestley’s classic story of a 1929 concert party tour charts new adventures for factory worker Jess Oakroyd and newly independent Miss Trant.
Ralph Ineson, Fenella Woolgar, Roy Hudd, Oliver Gomm, Isabella Inchbald, Gerard McDermott, Ellie Darvill, Clive Hayward, Gary Duncan, Philip Bretherton, Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong, Adam Fitzgerald, Rupert Holliday Evans, David Reakes, Katherine Weare
OFFSHORE by Penelope Fitzgerald dram. Michael Butt (06.01.18)
Penelope Fitzgerald’s 1979 Booker Prize-winning novel is set amongst a small community of eccentric barge-dwellers on the River Thames. Nenna and her two daughters have tricky decisions to make.
Hattie Morahan, Rosie Boore, Molly Pipe, Joel MacCormack, Clive Hayward, Neil McCaul, Isabella Inchbald, David Reakes, Rupert Holliday-Evans, Philip Bretherton, Kath Weare, Ellie Darvill
2017
TOMMIES 11 November 1917 by Jonathan Ruffle and Avin Shah (pt2) (dir. DH & JP)
Two part adventure: In Gaza, Mickey’s depression becomes suicidal. In Cairo (where Celestine is still adjusting to life as a paraplegic), disaffected Jack gets caught up in a terrorist attack on the British Protectorate, and Zarbab Grewal has survived the desert to adopt a new identity.
Lee Ross, Indira Varma, Avin Shah, Antonio Aakeel, Pippa Nixon, Lara Sawalha, Amir El-Masry, Nathalie Armin, Selva Rasalingam, Clive Hayward, Adam Fitzgerald, David Reakes, Gary Duncan, Rupert Holliday Evans, Neil McCaul
TOMMIES 10 November 1917 by Jonathan Ruffle and Avin Shah (pt1) (dir. DH & JP)
Lee Ross, Indira Varma, Avin Shah, Antonio Aakeel, Pippa Nixon, Narinder Samra, Lara Sawalha, Amir El-Masry, Nathalie Armin, Selva Rasalingam, Adam Fitzgerald, David Reakes, Gary Duncan, Rupert Holliday Evans
THE LAMBETH WALTZ by Daniel Thurman (26.10.17)
A comedy featuring Rosemary Brown the psychic dinner lady from Balham to whom some of history’s greatest composers dictated new music from beyond the grave.
Marion Bailey, Matthew Steer, Chetna Pandya, Kerry Shale, Charlie Clements
CAN’T GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD by Charlotte Bogard Macleod (01.10.17) – Pod Play for listening on headphones – shortlisted for Audio Drama Awards
Leah and Milo are best friends but actually Leah loves Milo but is not sure if he loves her back? Leah is forced to climb right inside his head to find out.
Starring George MacKay as Milo and Valene Kane as Leah. Binaural play directed by David Hunter, Sound Design, Catherine Robinson. Can’t Get You Out of My Head formed part of the BBC’s special commission of a 360 degree binaural drama. It was nominated for a BBC Audio Drama Award.
THE MAN WITH THE HAMMER by Phil Porter (25.07.17)
A Tale of Two Wheels. Why do we cycle and why do we cheat? Widowed father Tony and teenage daughter Jodie’s relationship is navigated on the the road.
Harriet Slater, Jonathan McGuinness, Jonny Holden, Chetna Pandya, Phillip Fox, Emilio Doorgasingh, Charlie Clements
TOMMIES 21 June 1917 by Nick Warburton
Western Front: Nieuport. Fighting back from injury too soon, Mickey discovers huge technical preparations for a surprise attack on the Belgian Coast, and fails to stop a devastating new German weapon: remote-controlled unmanned speedboats full of explosives. Jack runs away from London, determined to get home to India.
Philip Fox, Lee Ross, Clare Corbett, Simon Ludders, David Sturzaker, Antonio Aakeel, Samuel James, Charlie Clements, Robert Blythe, Sarah Ridgeway, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 14 June 1917 by Jonathan Ruffle
Western Front: the journey of a beech slab to the Front Line reveals the huge scale of the civilian war machine, as engineers from the UK and New Zealand fight to make preparations for Passchendaele without enough time.
Samuel James, Tom Forrister, Tyler Read, David Sturzaker, Harry McEntire, Charlie Clements, Simon Ludders, Emilio Doorgasingh, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 7 June 1917 by Avin Shah
Tanzania: Pavan makes a desperate attempt to lift the siege at Mklama Fort, as Empire troops from all over Africa and Asia meet on the deadly East African Front.
Akbar Kurtha, Rick Warden, Fiston Barek, Ladi Emeruwa, Emilio Doorgasingh, Daon Broni, Emmanuel Kojo, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 24 April 1917 by by Jonathan Ruffle (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Macedonia: Celestine dreads returning to her son Harry and life as a rich British widow, and combat in Macedonia proves irresistible. She’s wounded in Salonika and invalided to Cairo.
Pippa Nixon, Nicholas Murchie, John Dougall, David Sturzaker, Yavor Baharov, Tom Forrister, John Bowler, Shaun Mason, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 17 April 1917 by Nick Warburton (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Behind the lines: Le Touquet Officer’s Hospital. Mickey is deaf and traumatised. Wife Vera and son Jack arrive reluctantly from India to nurse him. Evadne joins the WAACs.
Lee Ross, Clare Corbett, Pooky Quesnel, Antonio Aakeel, Kevin Trainor, Sarah Ridgeway, John Bowler, Georgie Glen, Pippa Nixon, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 10 April 1917 by Avin Shah (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Western Front: The Canadians and new tactics bring victory at Vimy Ridge. Trapped in the tunnels, Dixon is wounded. Mickey is shelled.
Lee Ross, Philip Desmeules, Daniel Weyman, David Sturzaker, Tom Forrister, Simon Bubb, Indira Varma
THE AMATEUR MARRIAGE by Anne Tyler dram. Rebecca Lenkiewicz (10 x 15) (10.04.17)
An unexpected romantic encounter over first aid between young Michael and Pauline is the beginning of this story of a turbulent relationship.
Julianna Jennings, Ian Porter, Barbara Barnes, Maeve Bluebell Wells, Tom Forrister, John Bowler, Finlay Robertson, Sara Stewart, Pandora Colin, Sarah Ridgeway, Sanchia McCormack, Chetna Pandya, Georgie Glen, David Sterne, Kayla Gal, Finn Monteath, Nicholas Murchie, Noel Brooke, David Sturzaker, Jane Slavin
INSPECTOR CHEN 4,5,6
Inspector Chen: A Case of Two Cities by Qiu Xioalong dram. John Harvey (28.01.17)
When the head of the Shanghai anti-corruption squad is found dead in compromising circumstances Inspector Chen is drafted in as “Special Envoy to the Emperor with an Imperial sword”.
Jamie Zubairi, Dan Li, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Ashley Alymann, Louise-Mai Newberry, Nicholas Murchie, John Dougall, Keziah Joseph, John Bowler, Gavi Singh Chera
Inspector Chen: Red Mandarin Dress by Qiu Xioalong dram. Joy Wilkinson (dir. Toby Swift) (04.02.17) (dir. Toby Swift)
A Qiu Xiaolong mystery featuring the academic turned Special Case Squad detective, set in 1990s Shanghai. A serial killer is loose on the streets of Shanghai but Chen is otherwise engaged on a high-level corruption case. With bodies appearing at the rate of one a week, Homicide are in desperate need of help.
Jamie Zubairi, Dan Li, Daniel York, Vera Chok, Nicholas Murchie, Elizabeth Chan, Natasha Cowley, John Bowler, Alison Belbin, Gavi Singh Chera, David Sterne, John Dougall, Finlay Robertson, Catriona McFarlane
Inspector Chen: The Mao Case by Qiu Xiaolong dram. Joy Wilkinson (11.02.17)
It’s a dangerous and politically sensitive case for Inspector Chen when he’s asked to investigate the sudden change of fortune of the granddaughter of Chairman Mao’s mistress.
Jamie Zubairi, Daniel York, David Yip, Alice Hewkin, David Hounslow, Chike Chan, Paul Chan, Keziah Joseph, David Sterne, John Dougall, John Bowler, Natasha Cowley, Catriona McFarlane
2016
A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Neil Brand @ Barbican (02/12/16) and Saffron Hall (03/12/16) with the BBCSO and the BBC Singers – new outing, new cast
Patrick Brennan, Hannah Genesius, Paul Heath, Philip Jackson, Evie Killip, Shaun Mason, Tracy Ann Oberman, Carl Prekopp, Liza Sadovy
THE TIDEBREAK by David Constantine (11.12.16) Radio 3
The Tidebreak of Morecambe Bay is a porous barrier separating the past and present, the dead and the living, sweet water and salt water – and the scene for three linked tales across the past one hundred years.
David Sterne, Luke MacGregor, Anthony Boyle, Christine Bottomley, Catriona McFarlane, Struan Rodger, Susan Brown, Natasha Cowley, John Bowler, John Dougall, (Music by Rob Harbron)
TOMMIES 2 December 1916 by Avin Shah (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Turkey: Ahmadullah and Zarbab in a Turkish POW camp after Kut Al Amara. Segregation of British Empire troops by religion. Zarbab escapes. Ahmadullah won’t survive.
Avin Shah, Danny Rahim, Philip Arditti, Bryan Dick, Deven Modha, Selva Rasalingam, Asli Bayram, Gavi Singh, Chera, Antonio Aakeel, John Dougall, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 25 November 1916 by Nick Warburton
Paris: the German peace offer and why it’s turned down. Miss Softley and the Rule of the Dead. Robert dies.
Indira Varma, Christopher Fox, Faye Castelow, Justin Salinger, Gunnar Cauthery, Simon Wilson, John Bowler, Natasha Cowley, Nicholas Murchie
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE by Robert Louis Stevenson dram. Neil Brand (19.11.16)
Neil Brand’s fast-moving version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s disturbing tale of a scientist who experiments on himself to release the uncontrollable dark side of his personality. Set in Edinburgh, Lawyer’s daughter Lorna Utterson, passionate about justice, is determined to bring Hyde to book. With an introduction from David Tennant
(David Tennant), Stuart McQuarrie, John Dougall, Madeleine Worrall, Hugh Ross, Catriona McFarlane, Nick Underwood, David Sterne, John Bowler, Kenny Blythe, Michael Bertenshaw, Nicholas Murchie, Karen Bartke, Natasha Cowley, Luke MacGregor, Keziah Joseph
TOMMIES 18 November 1916 by Jonathan Ruffle
Western Front: Last day of the Somme after 141 days, keeping failure secret, fighting on for the wrong objective, plotting artillery profiles on cine film, Mickey, Robert, and Desmond Dixon.
Indira Varma, Justin Salinger, Christopher Fox, Neil Grainger, George Watkins, John Dougall, Finlay Robertson, Gunnar Cauthery, Luke MacGregor, Nicholas Murchie, Gavi Singh Chera
TOMMIES 11 November 1916 by Jonathan Ruffle (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Serbia: Celestine leads attack as a Sergeant cf. Flora Sandes, secret talking group to combat PTSD and be moral fighters.
Indira Varma, Pippa Nixon, Paul Chahidi, Catriona McFarlane, Karen Bartke, Finlay Robertson, Gavi Singh Chera, Robert Ginty, Nicholas Murchie, Luke MacGregor
MY HEART IN HIDING by Sarah Buckley (30.09.16)
Schoolgirl Chloe has been in trouble in the past. She still likes to party but now she talks to God and has a radical plan for her future.
Sally Messham, Karen Bartke, Sanchia McCormack, Gavi Singh Chera, Clare Perkins, Luke MacGregor, Daniel Weyman, Simon Ludders, Alison Belbin
LANDS END TO JOHN O’GROATS by Stephen Wakelam (5 x 15)(19.09.16)
Part of the series Writing the Century exploring the twentieth century through the journals and correspondence of real people. Whiteways’ resident George Allen’s 1904 diary of his record attempting walk to promote the benefits of vegetarianism, freely adapted by Stephen Wakelam. George has mixed motives for this challenge.
Edward Hogg, Sarah Thom, Tom Forrister, Brian Protheroe, James Lailey, Blake Ritson, Jason Barnett, Kirsty Oswald, Jeff Rawle, Elizabeth Bennett
TOMMIES 30 June 1916 by Nandita Ghose (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Somme Series: the day before the attack. Overhearing story peaks as Germans overhear British preparations and are forewarned.
Lee Ross, Dean Logan, Daniel Weyman, Nick Underwood, Neil Grainger, Raj Ghatak, Munir Khairdin, Anneika Rose, Sargon Yelda, Ewan Bailey, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 23 June 1916 by Nick Warburton (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Somme Series: “Woodbine Willie” and the poetry competition. Kenny Stokoe’s crisis. Facing the reality of killing. Ivor Gurney.
Lee Ross, James Lailey, Dean Logan, Neil Grainger, Nick Underwood, John MacMillan, Joe Sims, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 16 June 1916 by Jonathan Ruffle
Somme Series: behind the lines at Intelligence HQ Paris. Overhearing, signals intelligence and plans for the big push. Robert the spy and Mickey confront each other over Celestine’s letter. Miss Softley.
Lee Ross, Fay Castelow, Justin Salinger, Adie Allen, Pippa Nixon, James Lailey, Ewan Bailey, Nick Underwood, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 9 June 1916 by Michael Chaplin
Somme Series: A whole episode buried in a shell-hole. Mickey, Demanjit Singh, Vasserot. Albert killed.
Lee Ross, Colin Hoult, Sagar Radia, Ewan Bailey, Nick Underwood, Sam Alexander, Sargon Yelda, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 2 June 1916 by Jonathan Ruffle (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Somme Series: Tyneside Scots rehearse for the Somme, Mickey the old duffer training Kitchener’s army, Desmond Dixon, Juma Gubanda, Albert Pinto, and Kenny Stokoe (from Home Front)
Lee Ross, Colin Hoult, Neil Grainger, Nick Underwood, Dean Logan, John MacMillan, Daniel Weyman, Ewan Bailey, Indira Varma
BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley dram. Jonathan Holloway (22.05.16) 2 x Classic Serial
Part of Radio 4’s Dangerous Visions Season of dramas that explore uneasy reflections of the future opens with a Classic. It’s 2116 and Helmholtz Watson and Bernard Marx are token rebels in an irretrievably corrupted society where promiscuity is the norm, eugenics a respectable science, and the drug Soma freely available.
Justin Salinger, Jonathan Coy, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Anton Lesser, Milton Lopes, Karina Fernandez, Nicola Ferguson, Sam Rix, James Lailey, Sean Baker, Scarlett Brookes, Brian Protheroe, Nick Underwood
Tutoring Radio Drama Writing Course at Ty Newydd, North Wales (formerly Lloyd George’s home)
THE WINTER’S TALE by William Shakespeare (01.05.16) Radio 3
Eve Best, Danny Sapani and Shaun Dooley star in the magical product of the Bard’s later years. Treading new dramatic ground The Winter’s Tale embraces tragedy, poetry, folklore, magic realism, music, comedy and the infamous stage direction “exit pursued by a bear”.
Danny Sapani, Eve Best, Shaun Dooley, Karl Johnson, Susan Jameson, Paul Copley, Fay Castelow, Tim Van Eyken, Will Howard, Charlie Brand, Sean Baker, Brian Protheroe, Sam Rix, Scarlett Brookes, Richard Pepple, Nick Underwood, Adie Allen, Nicola Ferguson, James Lailey, Sargon Yelda, Ewan Bailey, (Lisa Knapp – singer, Rob Harbron – music)
AS INNOCENT AS YOU CAN GET by Rex Obano (07.02.16) Radio 3
The story of two men Nathaniel (Freddie Fox) and Tunde (Paapa Essiedu) who depend on each other – one is guilty outside prison and the other innocent within. One a prison psychologist, the other a prisoner convicted under “joint enterprise”.
Freddie Fox, Paapa Essiedu, Katie Redford, Rikki Lawton, Tobi Bakare, Gerard McDermott, Annieka Rose, Caolan McCarthy, Rebecca Hamilton, Richard Pepple, Chris Pavlo, Debra Baker
HUMAN VOICES by Penelope Fitzgerald dram. Michael Butt (16.01.16)
Young Annie Asra finds bureaucracy, camaraderie, eccentricity and love in the BBC of 1940. Based on Penelope Fitzgerald’s Booker Prize-Winner’s comic novel starring Helen George and Toby Jones.
Helen George, Toby Jones, Geoffrey Streatfeild, Katie Redford, Susan Jameson, Chris Pavlo, Ewan Bailey, George Watkins, Sean Baker
2015
INSPECTOR CHEN 1,2,3
Inspector Chen: Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xioalong dram. Joy Wilkinson (T) (05.12.15) (dir. Toby Swift)
A Qiu Xiaolong mystery featuring the academic turned Special Case Squad detective set in 1990s Shanghai. The body of a national model worker is found in Baili Canal. So begins the first of Qiu Xiaolong’s Inspector Chen novels. Poet and translator turned detective Chen Cao now heads the Special Case Squad, an assignment that brings political scrutiny with every move.
Jamie Zubairi, Dan Li, Sarah Lam, David Yip, Chipo Chung, Daniel York, David Hounslow, Chris Pavlo, Debra Baker, Amelia Lowdell, Sam Dale, Jessica Turner, Evie Killip, Richard Pepple, George Watkins, Rebecca Hamilton
Inspector Chen: A Loyal Character Dancer by Qiu Xioaong dram. John Harvey (D) (12.12.15)
Shanghai, early 1990s. A badly mutilated body turns up in Shanghai’s Bund Park. It bears all the hallmarks of a triad killing. Then former dancer and party loyalist Wen Liping vanishes in rural China just before she was to leave the country. Her husband, a key witness against a smuggling ring suspected of importing aliens to the US, refuses to testify until she is found and brought to join him in America.
The US immigration agency, convinced that the Chinese government are hiding something, send US Marshal Catherine Rohn to Shanghai to join the investigation.Inspector Chen, an astute young policeman with twin passions for food and poetry, is under political pressure to find answers fast. When Catherine Rohn joins him he must tread very carefully.
Jamie Zubairi, Dan Li, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Daniel York, Sarah Lam, Liz Sutherland, David Hounslow, Caolan McCarthy, Sam Dale, Debra Baker, Chris Pavlo
Inspector Chen: When Red is Black by Qiu Xioalong dram. John Harvey (D) (19.12.15)
Crime drama set in early 1990s Shanghai. When Chen agrees to do a translation job for a property developer he is given a laptop, a ‘little secretary’ to provide for his every need, and medical care for his mother. There are, it seems, no strings attached . . . and then the murder of a dissident writer is reported.
When the murder of a dissident writer is reported Sergeant Yu is forced to take charge of the investigation. The victim, a middle-aged teacher with a dissident past and a book notorious in the West, has been found dead in her tiny room in a converted multi-family house. It is only when Chen, on leave to complete a lucrative translation project gets involved, and the past excavated, that the murderer is eventually found.
Jamie Zubairi, Dan Li, Sarah Lam, Ewan Bailey, Gerard McDermott, Daniel York, Richard Pepple, Tina Chiang, Chris Pavlo, Debra Baker, Elizabeth Chan, George Watkins, Leo Wan
TOMMIES 11 November 1915 by Jonathan Ruffle (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Western Front: Mickey plays staff politics, Celestine arrives escaping to Serbia, PTSD and the end of romance.
Lee Ross, Pippa Nixon, Colin Hoult, Chris Pavlo, Gunnar Cauthery, Stephen Critchlow, Neet Mohan, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 4 November 1915 by Jonathan Ruffle
Mesopotamia: Ahmadullah and Zarbab on mission across desert, steamboats, camels, wireless, hallucination.
Danny Rahim, Avin Shah, Nicholas Murchie, Neet Mohan, David Acton, Ronak Patani, Kulvinder Ghir, Sudha Bhuchar, David Hounslow, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 28 October 1915 by Michael Chaplin
Neutral Holland/Occupied Belgium: Robert de Tullio as Govt agent risks all to save Celestine from spying charge. Robert becomes double agent. Marjorie imprisoned.
Justin Salinger, Pippa Nixon, Sam Dale, Mark Edel-Hunt, David Acton, Neet Mohan, Anna Madeley, William Brand, Chris Pavlo, David Hounslow, Indira Varma
TOMMIES 21 October 1915 by Nick Warburton (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Western Front: Mickey made 2nd Lt, Pavan demoralised, listening devices, Indian Army ordered off Western Front.
Lee Ross, Jassa Ahluwalia, David Acton, Mark Edel-Hunt, Colin Hoult, Neet Mohan, Indira Varma
THE CHURCHILL BARRIERS by Emma Spurgin Hussey (10.08.15) shortlisted for Audio Drama Awards
Orkney, 1944, and clerk George finds common ground with Italian POW Giorgio as they build the famous sea defences. Featuring a “sand piano”!
Cesare Taurasi, David Dawson, David Hounslow, Mark Edel-Hunt, Stephen Critchlow, Chris Pavlo
TOMMIES 25 May 1915 by Michael Chaplin
London, Robert de Tullio and secret government trading in rubber with Germans, Evadne Bliss survival on the London party circuit, Mickey’s listening device.
Indira Varma, Lee Ross, Patrick Kennedy, Clare Corbett, Carl Prekopp, Clive Hayward, David Cann, Robert Blythe, Eleanor Howell
TOMMIES 18 May 1915 by Michael Chaplin (dir. Nandita Ghose)
Eastern Front, Russia, retreat from Gorlice, Celestine as volunteer doctor is a party to torture, drugs, Marjorie.
Indira Varma, Pippa Nixon, Elaine Claxton, Parth Thakerar, Matthew Watson, David Cann, Jane Slavin, Damian Lynch, Michael Bertenshaw
TOMMIES 11 May 1915 by Jonathan Ruffle (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Gallipoli, inaction, Ahmadullah and Zarbab, the forgotten Punjabi regiments, Ghurkas get the glory.
Danny Rahim, Indira Varma, Avin Shah, Nicholas Murchie, Mark Edel-Hunt, Parth Thakerar, Neet Mohan, Deven Modha
TOMMIES 4 May 1915 by Nick Warburton
Western Front, same men on a rest day behind the lines, warrior survival and punch-ups, Paddon and listening devices.
Lee Ross, Indira Varma, Rudi Dharmalingam, Adrian Scarborough, David Cann, Elaine Claxton, Damian Lynch, Matthew Watson, Mark Edel-Hunt, Pippa Nixon
TOMMIES 27April 1915 by Nick Warburton
Western Front, Mickey and Indian Army Signallers at La Brique, German gas attack, autistic spectrum signaller Spiridon.
Lee Ross, Danny Rahim, Rudi Dharmalingam, Indira Varma, Sam Rix, Mark Edel-Hunt, Damian Lynch
THE CARTER MYSTERIES by Jonathan Holloway (17.04.15)
The 20th Century has left the Carter warehouse crammed with history. When a dodgy pair arrive looking for a long-lost Russian table it’s the beginning of a far-reaching and dangerous tale
Jeany Spark, Stephen Greif, Sharif Dorani, Harry McEntire, Stephen Critchlow, David Hounslow, Sam Dale
THE JOURNAL OF A JOSKIN 2 by Stephen Wakelam (5 x15) (13.04.15)
The series which explores the 20th century through the diaries and correspondence of real people. Further journals of Yorkshire farm labourer and aspiring writer Fred Kitchen adapted by Stephen Wakelam. The Cowman’s first book is finally published.
Ralph Ineson, Sarah Thom, Roslyn Hill, David Acton, Shaun Mason, Paul Stonehouse, Sam Dale, Monty D’Inverno, Paul Heath, Jane Slavin, Gerard McDermott, Ian Conningham
MR REASONABLE by Fred D’Aguiar (10.04.15)
John Reasonable is a freed black slave, a skilled silk weaver, engaged by Shakespeare to make costumes for the Rose Theatre but he also has a jealous apprentice.
Fraser James, Adjoa Andoh, Joseph Kloska, Oliver Coopersmith, Chris Pavlo, Mya Lecia Naylor, Shay Spencer
LADDER OF YEARS by Anne Tyler dram. Rebecca Lenkiewicz (10 x 15)(09.03.15)
An unexpected romantic encounter in the grocery aisle sparks the beginning of a new adventure for homely Delia Grinstead. Anne Tyler’s unsettling story about marriage, family and hope.
Nancy Crane, Ian Conningham, Nathan Osgood, Jessica Turner, Rhiannon Needs, David Acton, Sam Valentine, Mark Edel-Hunt, Roslyn Hill
2014
THE BIG BROADCAST (Culture & Snow, Christmas 2014) by Neil Brand (24 & 25.12.14) recorded before an audience in the BBC Radio Theatre.
SNOW. It’s 1933, Christmas Eve, and Radio Station WKAZ Chicago’s promise to deliver its last Hour of Charm programme from its theatre is threatened by a snowstorm which has trapped a handful of staff in the building. But the festive show must go on.
CULTURE. It’s 1933 and Radio Station WKAZ Chicago delivers live radio every week from its theatre. Today, however, the Dusenberg Hour of Charm is threatened by the disappearance of its sponsor. The arrival of a new owner heralds a new high-culture focus much to the dismay of the regular crew.
Samantha Spiro, Sam Dale, Ewan Bailey, Barbara Barnes, Jane Whittenshaw, Paul Heath, Roslyn Hill, Monty D’Inverno, Jim Norton, Bettrys Jones, Ian Conningham
A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens dram. Neil Brand (20.12.14) recorded before an audience in Studio One Maida Vale with the BBCSO and the BBC Singers – subsequently revived for performances at the Barbican and Saffron Hall. Broadcast on Radio 3 & Radio 4
A new version of the seasonal classic adapted for actors, the BBC Singers and the BBC Symphony Orchestra by Neil Brand and recorded before an audience in the BBC Maida Vale Studios. Ebenezer Scrooge questions his ghostly guides and demands answers to the great questions we all face.
Robert Powell, Sophie Thompson, Ron Cook, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Patrick Brennan, Shaun Mason, Paul Heath, Hannah Genesius, Bettrys Jones, BBCSO & BBC Singers
TOMMIES 11 November 1914 by Nick Warburton (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Western Front, desperate defence at Nonne Boschen copse, Edwin Dolland worst soldier in the army.
Lee Ross, Danny Rahim, Rudi Dharmalingam, Indira Varma, Sam Rix, Mark Edel-Hunt, Damian Lynch
THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING by T.H. White dram. Brian Sibley (09.11.14) (dir. With Marc Beeby & Gemma Jenkins) 6 x Classic Serial
The radio debut of all five books of The Once and Future King, T. H. White’s classic retelling of the King Arthur story, dramatised by Brian Sibley. England is in turmoil. On the night before a decisive battle, Merlyn and Arthur meet to talk about what has brought the King and country to this perilous state.
Lyndsey Marshal, David Warner, Alex Waldmann, Paul Ready, Edward Bracey, Ethan Hammer, Bruce Alexander, Michael Bertenshaw, Paul Heath, Elaine Claxton, Jane Slavin, Monty D’Inverno, Bettrys Jones,
Sam Dale, David Acton, Shaun Mason, Ian Conningham, Kate Fleetwood, Roslyn Hill, Joel MacCormack, Hannah Genesius
TOMMIES 4 November 1914 by Michael Chaplin (dir. Jonquil Panting)
London, Robert de Tullio and War Loans, frustrated Celestine and medical scams.
Pippa Nixon, Patrick Kennedy, Indira Varma, Laura Molyneux, Nicholas Farrell, Ben Crowe, Michael Bertenshaw, Will Howard, Matthew Watson, David Cann, Tony Pitts, Damian Lynch
TOMMIES 28 October 1914 by Michael Chaplin (dir.Nandita Ghose)
Western Front, Neuve Chapelle with Lahore Division soldiers newly arrived, Ahmadullah and Pavan.
Lee Ross, Danny Rahim, Rudi Dharmalingam, Nicholas Farrell, Clive Hayward, Indira Varma, Sagar Radia, Jassa Ahluwalia, Sam Valentine, Mark Edel-Hunt, David Cann
TOMMIES 21 October 1914 by Jonathan Ruffle
Western Front, signallers goes forward in British attack at Zonnebeke, Mickey and Horace Greengrass.
Lee Ross, Indira Varma, Alex Wyndham, Mark Edel-Hunt, Joseph Kloska, Damian Lynch, Monty D’Inverno, Michael Bertenshaw, David Cann
TOMMIES 14 October 1914 by Nick Warburton (dir. Jonquil Panting)
Western Front, behind the lines, Boulougne Field Hospital, Mickey meets Celestine again, Walter dies.
Lee Ross, Pippa Nixon, Elaine Claxton, Indira Varma, Clive Hayward, Scott Arthur, Tony Pitts, Mark Edel-Hunt, David Cann
TOMMIES 7 October 1914 by Michael Chaplin (play 1 of 42)
Western Front, retreat from Mons, Mickey Bliss arrives from Lahore Div, Walter Oddy injured.
Lee Ross, Indira Varma, Tony Pitts, Mark Edel-Hunt, Alex Wyndham, Anneika Rose, Matthew Wernham, Michael Bertenshaw
THE STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT by Charlotte Bogard Macleod (29.09.14)
What are the odds on the earnest statistician Liam meeting the impulsive photographer Sadie? What are the chances of starting a family? Charlotte Bogard Macleod’s tale of love, surrogacy and statistics.
Andrew Scott, Jeany Spark, Hannah Genesius, Karna Majdian
TIME AND THE CONWAYS by J. B. Priestley dram. David Hunter (14.09.14)
Harriet Walter stars in J.B. Priestley’s well-known play from 1937 which toys with the idea of time, telling the story of one family in several scenes set over 19 years. One of Britain’s leading writers of the inter-war years, Priestley was fascinated by the concept of time and was inspired by the theories of J.W Dunne and his book An Experiment WithTime. A World War has just ended. The Conway family gather to celebrate daughter Kay’s 21st birthday party. But 19 years later we see that the future is far from the one they imagined.
Harriet Walter, Anna Madeley, Rupert Evans, Amaka Okafor, Eleanor Howell, Harry Haddon-Paton, Heather Craney, Clare Corbett, Tony Bell, Clive Hayward, Michael Bertenshaw
BLINK by Phil Porter (25.08.14)
Sophie and Jonah are two shy, lonely individuals thrown together in urban London. Their love affair takes a strange and initially contactless route with the help of a baby monitor.
Lizzy Watts, Thomas Pickles, Scarlett Brookes, Clive Hayward, Craig Els, Heather Craney, Jaimi Barbakoff
THE REAL TRIAL OF OSCAR WILDE by Nick Stafford (28.06.14)
Oscar Wilde’s courtroom battle with the Marquess of Queensbury. Wilde naturally assumes that he can take on the man who invented the rules of boxing and win. Based on the book “Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess” by Merlin Holland (Oscar’s grandson).
Julian Rhind-Tutt, Sean Pertwee, Arthur Hughes, Joel McCormack, Stephen Hogan, Michael Mears, Sean Murray, Steve Toussaint, Harry Jardine, David Seddon
A NIGHT VISITOR by Stephanie Jacob (03.06.14) Writers Guild Award Winner 2014
Forced by debt to downsize to an isolated Norfolk cottage, Hilary and Tom have a terrifying visitor one stormy night. But it might be just the thing their ailing marriage needs…
Stella Gonet, David Cann, Carl Prekopp
SOLOPARENTPALS 5 by Sue Teddern (5 x 15) (31.03.14)
Episode 1. I Do Like To B and B. With their wedding imminent and a nascent B and B business things should be looking up for singleparents Rosie and Tom
Liz White, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Karina Jones, David Seddon, Priyanga Burford, Carolyn Pickles, Isadora Dooley Hunter, Arthur Hughes
2013
ARLO by John Retallack (26.11.13)
The story of Grace, a small-time folk singer and Tom a journalist seen through the eyes of their son Arlo who is about to join the Royal Marines. Their passionate youthful affair and marriage at 18 turns sour when Tom feels trapped by his teaching job and side-lined by parenthood. Extended aid trips lead to a career abroad and Grace and Arlo are left behind to fend for themselves in rural Devon.
Mother and son form an especially strong bond, even singing together – a bond that is eventually threatened by Grace contemplating a new relationship and Arlo developing the notion that he has driven his parents apart. And then, having come across groups of training Marines on his increasingly extended wanderings on the Moors, Arlo has a plan.
Arlo has always felt guilty about breaking up the seemingly perfect marriage and there’s nothing he’d like better than bringing his parents back together. Set in the world of small scale folk clubs there are songs from Grace – (Madeleine Worrall sings with THE GREEN HOUSE BAND) accompanied by Neil McArthur.
Madeleine Worrall, Joel MacCormack, Kaspar Hilton-Hille, Jonathan Forbes, David Seddon
PRIX BOHEMIA (PRAGUE NOVEMBER 2013)
THE OUTSIDER by Albert Camus dram. John Retallack (03.11.13) Radio 3
In Camus’s classic existential novel Meursault refuses to pretend and is prepared to face alone the indifference of the universe. To coincide with the centenary of Camus’s birth.
Alex Lanipekun, Michael Bertenshaw, Arthur Hughes, John Norton, Sean Murray, Priyanga Burford, Sean Baker, Stephen Hogan, Sirine Saba, David Seddon, Carys Eleri
NOTHING HAPPENED by Nick Hoare (02.10.13)
They have partners who are friends, children who are friends and friends who are friends. So Tom and Alice agree that their affair can never happen.
David Seddon, Priyanga Burford, Susie Riddell, Mark Bonnar
THE AUTHOR OF HIMSELF by Stephen Wakelam (02.09.13)
One afternoon in 1955 Theatre Manager George Devine sets out in a rickety rowing boat to inspect an actor, John Osborne, living on a Thames barge who has written a play. Look Back in Anger has been returned by many theatres but Devine has seen something in it. The meeting is a pivotal moment in the course of theatrical history.
Look Back in Anger was premiered at London’s Royal Court Theatre on 8th May 1956 by the English Stage Company directed by Tony Richardson with the following cast – Kenneth Haigh, Alan Bates, Mary Ure, Helena Hughes and John Welsh. The press release referred to John Osborne as “an angry young man” – a phrase that came to represent a new movement in British Theatre.
“The Creative Quarter’s very own playwright Stephan Wakelam has a new play coming soon to BBC Radio 4. On Monday September 2nd at 2.15 pm, ‘The Author of Himself’ will be broadcast on the station. It’s about the young John Osborne and his bombshell of a play ‘Look Back in Anger’ and introduces a BBC themed series of dramas on the Angry Young Men (and women) of the 1950s. It stars Sam Barnett (of ‘History Boys’ fame) as John Osborne, and Jonathan Coy as the the legendary theatre producer, George Devine. It’s set almost entirely on a Thames barge, where Osborne was living at the time, ‘on a diet of nettle soup and New Zealand Cheddar’ but fame (and notoriety) were just around the corner.” (from Creative Quarter Folkestone)
Cast: Samuel Barnett, Jonathan Coy, Harry Livingstone, Joanna Brookes, David Seddon
DOTTY ROGERS: HER LIFE IN THE MOVIES by Charlotte Bogard Macleod (24.05.13)
Dotty Rogers has trouble with reality. She shimmies easily from the mundanity of everyday motherhood to star parts in the movies of her own imagining.
Kate Fleetwood, Rick Warden, Lorraine Burroughs, Robert Blythe, Madeleine Power, Lucy Morton, Will Howard, Joanna Brookes
DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT by Anne Tyler dram. Rebecca Lenkiewicz (10 x 15)(20.05.13)
Abandoned by her salesman husband, angry Pearl Tull is left to bring up three children alone in Baltimore.
Barbara Barnes, Lorelei King, Nathan Osgood, Maxim Baldry, Richard Linnell, Eloise Webb, Ben Crowe, Simon Lee Phillips, Fenella Woolgar, Matthew Watson, David Seddon, Joanna Brookes, Amaka Okafor, Paul Stonehouse, Philippa Stanton, Ethan Brooke, Sean Murray
JOURNAL OF A JOSKIN 1. By Stephen Wakelam (5 x 15) (18.03.13)
Cast: Ralph Ineson, Liza Sadovy, Paul Stonehouse, Patrick Brennan, Will Howard
SOLOPARENTPALS 4 by Sue Teddern (5 x 15) (18.03.13)
One year on, Tom and Rosie live together in Bolton with Rosie’s 15-year-old son, Calum, and baby Finn. Care home manager Rosie is climbing the greasy pole at work, while Tom initially enjoys his new role as a stay-at-home-Dad.
Liz White, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Joanna Brookes, Philippa Stanton
FEWER NOT LESS by Sarah Buckley (01.03.13)
John, a compulsive traveller, is in Japan for the weekend to see a famous fire festival in Kyoto. It’s the last item on his list of “50 Things To Do Before You Die” but he hasn’t counted on meeting Sachiko.
Adrian Scarborough, Meg Kubota, Dai Tabuchi, Sadao Ueda, Haruka Kuroda, Nicholas Murchie, Will Howard, Lizzy Watts
WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame dramatist and composer Neil Brand (16.02.13) recorded before an audience in Studio One Maida Vale with the BBCSO and the BBC Singers – Radio 3 & Radio 4
Adapted for actors and orchestra by Neil Brand. On the 90th anniversary of the first Radio Drama broadcast on the BBC, a new version of the Classic tale of Rat, Mole, Badger and Toad combining the talents of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and a special cast. Recorded before an audience in the legendary Maida Vale Studios.
Stephen Mangan, Claire Skinner, Philip Jackson, Carl Prekopp, Patrick Brennan, Liza Sadovy, Paul Stonehouse
2012
LOVERS ROCK by Rex Obano (12.11.12) Radio 3
It is Brixton 1981 and the British brand of reggae, “Lover’s Rock” reverberates from Blues parties. The legacy of the New Cross Fire, in which 13 young people died, spurs young black pacifist Ben into activism. He must grapple with both his politics and his sexuality to come to terms with his own identity. Both he and Monroe, aspiring producer of Lover’s Rock, find themselves at the sharp end of the Riots.
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Tobi Bakare, Ben Crowe, Eleanor Crooks, Will Howard, Gerard McDermott, Patrick Brennan, Paul Stonehouse, Stephanie Racine, Lizzy Watts
DERAILED by Steve Chambers (5 x 15) (12-16.11.12)
Marie discovers that being married to a touring musician is not all plain sailing. After a whirlwind romance and Mediterranean marriage to chirpy cockney George Marie’s plans for a cosy Christmas a deux are derailed when he says the band’s schedule has changed. But at least it will allow her to visit her recently bereaved dad. But is George all that he seems?
Sara Poyzer, Tom Watt, Paul Stonehouse, Adam Nagaitis, Joe Sims, Sarah Thom, Stephanie Racine, Eleanor Crooks, Lizzy Watts
The Torchbearers by Simon Armitage (04.11.12) Radio 3 (Exec Producer)
Award winning poet and dramatist Simon Armitage captures our extraordinary relationship to the Olympic flame in this years Free Thinking Drama transmitted live from the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.
Ray ….. Kevin Whately
Paula ….. Julie Hesmondhalgh
Colin ….. Mark Benton
Chloe ….. Phillippa Wilson
Spencer ….. Christopher Connell
Director: Kate Rowland
TURIN (16-21.09.12) – Chairperson of the Drama Jury for Prix Italia
MARATHON TALES by Colin Teevan and Hannah Silva (11.08.12) Radio 3
A 90min verse drama written by Hannah Silva and Colin Teevan and produced by David Hunter for BBC Radio 3.
Winner of the 2014 Tinniswood Award for Best Radio Drama Script
The award was given for the radio play Marathon Tales, a drama combining the stories of a number of Marathon runners ancient and modern; the original Pheidippides, Atalanta, Hippomenes, Abebe Bikila, John Tarrant the “Ghost Runner”, Dorando Pietri the “People’s Champion”; pioneer of women’s running Kathy Switzer, and contemporary amateur and professional runners preparing for the London Marathon.
Marathon Tales was a special commission for the 2012 Olympics going out on BBC Radio 3 the night before the closing ceremony.
The judges described Marathon Tales as a ‘speedy and sure-footed play’: ‘High-spiritedly ambitious from the start, joint authors Colin Teevan and Hannah Silva pick up radio drama’s potential and run with it in this ninety minute, fifty-character extravaganza.’
Alex Lanipekun, Kathryn Hunter, Daisy Lewis, Richie Campbell, Susie Riddell, Sam Alexander, Harry Livingstone, Marit Kile, Nils Bergstrand, Amaka Okafor, Patrick Brennan, Joe Sims, Robert Blythe, Don Gilet, Lily Teevan, Christine Absolom
THE WOMB WHISPERER by Charlotte Bogard Macleod (27.07.12)
Until the rights of children are met, the Unborn choose to die in the womb. The Unborn choose to die in incubators. The world is ending. Only Martha can help. She is pregnant and persuasive. She is the Womb-Whisperer.
Juliet Aubrey, Shaun Dooley, Ryan Watson, Francine Chamberlain, Rikki Lawton, Adjoa Andoh
ZOLA by Richard Monks (20.07.12)
The story behind barefoot runner Zola Budd’s attempt to win gold at the 1984 Olympics.
Jessica Sian, David Calder, Jack Klaff, Don Gilet, Patrick Brennan, Harry Livingstone, Robert Blythe, Sam Alexander, Amaka Okafor, Joe Sims
A MONTH OF JUNE – four plays to celebrate the talents of June Whitfield (6-27.06.12)
A MONTH OF JUNE: SHANGRI-LA by Andy Merriman and Alison Joseph (27.06.12)
Romance in a council beach hut is alive and well but perhaps a little cramped for our elderly couple.
June Whitfield, Richard Briers, Patrick Brennan, Susie Riddell, Don Gilet, Sam Alexander
A MONTH OF JUNE: NOW YOU SEE ME, NOW YOU DON’T by Andy Merriman and Peter Morfoot (20.06.12)
There’s skulduggery afoot in Mrs. Ramsbottom’s safe house for refugees from the Sorcerers’ Circle.
June Whitfield, Barbara Windsor, Robert Blythe, Joe Sims, Patrick Brennan, Christine Absolom
A MONTH OF JUNE: LOST AND FOUND by Andy Merriman and Alison Joseph (13.06.12)
Retired politician Kate Whittington has agreed to take part in TV reality show ‘Lolly in the Loft’.
June Whitfield, Marcia Warren, Ella Smith, Joe Sims, Don Gilet, Robert Blythe
A MONTH OF JUNE: SPRAY THE GRASS GREEN by Andy Merriman and Peter Morfoot (06.06.12)
It’s 1939 and Lana Garfield is a fading Hollywood star. Contracted to Tantamount Pictures run by the notoriously difficult and womanising studio head, Al Seltzer. Miss Garfield is writing her autobiography with the assistance of British ghost writer, George Creighton. But she’s shocked when her radio reveals Al intends to axe her contract. George and his ex-pat cronies take time off from their cocktails and cricket matches to collude with Al’s ambitious and glamorous assistant Betty Stevens in exacting an appropriate revenge.
June Whitfield, David Haig, Patrick Brennan, Tracy Wiles, Robert Blythe, Amaka Okafor, Peter Morfoot
A SMALL PERSON FAR AWAY by Judith Kerr dram. Beatie Rubens (25.03.12) Classic Serial
It’s now 1956 and Anna is married and settled in London when she gets a worrying telegram about her mother who has been living back in Berlin for 7 years. The third book in Judith Kerr’s trilogy dramatised by Beaty Rubens.
Anna Madeley, Adjoa Andoh, Adam Billington, Simon Treves, Carl Prekopp, Sara Kestelman, Emerald O’Hanrahan, James Lailey, Peter Hamilton Dyer, Harry Livingstone
BOMBS ON AUNT DAINTY by Judith Kerr dram. Beatie Rubens (18.03.12)
Having been forced to flee the Nazis, Anna and her family have now arrived in London. Both Anna and her brother Max face the challenges of life as refugees rather better than their parents.The second book in Judith Kerr’s trilogy dramatised by Beaty Rubens.
Anna Madeley, Adjoa Andoh, Paul Moriarty, Thelma Ruby, Susan Engel, Joanna Monro, Ann Beach, Tracy Wiles, Gerard McDermott, Harry Livingstone, Jack Holden, Malcolm Tierney
WHEN HITLER STOLE PINK RABBIT by Judith Kerr dram. Beaty Rubens (11.03.12) Classic Serial
The story of a Jewish family forced to flee from Germany in 1933 – told from the perspective of nine-year-old Anna. The first book of Judith Kerr’s internationally acclaimed trilogy dramatised by Beaty Rubens.
Lauren Mote, Hugo Docking, Adjoa Andoh, Paul Moriarty, James Lailey, Xenia Mainelli, Eleanor Bron, Tracy Wiles, Sheila Steafel, Gerard Mc Dermott, Christopher Webster, Alex Rivers
RADIO DRAMA COMPANY SHOES 2012
2011
THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL (10 x 15) by Anne Bronte dram. Rachel Joyce (28.11.11)
Helen Graham is the mysterious and striking new tenant of the dilapidated Wildfell Hall. As gentleman farmer Gilbert Markham becomes more and more powerfully drawn to this enigmatic “widow” he finds that her unconventionally independent life disguises a turbulent and painful past.
Robert Lonsdale, Hattie Morahan, Carolyn Pickles, Leah Brotherhead, Carl Prekopp, Victoria Inez Hardy, Gerard McDermott, Samuel Bridger, Tracy Wiles, Leo Bill, Emerald O’Hanrahan, James Lailey, Stephen Critchlow, Christopher Webster, Alex Rivers
SOLOPARENTPALS 3 by Sue Teddern (5 x 15) (24.10.11)
Four months into their long distance relationship single parents Rosie and Tom have only spent five weekends together and they still haven’t told their online pals.
Liz White, Kris Marshall, Karina Jones, Adjoa Andoh, Jane Whittenshaw, James Lailey, Keaton Lansley
THE HISTORY OF TITUS GROAN by Mervyn Peake dram. Brian Sibley (16.07.11 – 20.08.11) (with Jeremy Mortimer and Gemma Jenkins) (6 x Classic Serial) Best Adaptation at 2012 Audio Drama Awards.
Heir to crumbling stone and ancient ritual, the idiosyncratic life of Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan begins.
Luke Treadaway, David Warner, Carl Prekopp, Paul Rhys, Miranda Richardson, James Fleet, Tamsin Greig, Fenella Woolgar, Claudie Blakley, Olivia Hallinan, Adrian Scarborough, Mark Benton, James Lailey, Jane Whittenshaw, Susie Riddell, Simon Bubb, Jonathan Forbes, Peter Polycarpou, Alun Raglan, Alex Tregear, William Gaunt, Gerard McDermott, Hugo Docking, Maureen Beattie, Elaine Claxton, Gerard Murphy, Morven Christie
A MONSTROUS VITALITY by Andy Merriman (07.06.11)
June Whitfield stars as the indomitable actress Margaret Rutherford in a tale of chimpanzees, Jordanian Princes, an adoring husband and falling in love with a musician 30 years her junior.
June Whitfield, Ryan McCluskey, Sean Baker, Gabrielle Lloyd, Adeel Akhtar, Lloyd Thomas, Sally Orrock, Sam Dale
THE BIG BROADCAST by Neil Brand (01.06.11) recorded before an audience in the BBC Radio Theatre
It’s 1932, and the Chicago Beefsteak’s Hour of Charm is the most successful programme on Midwest US radio. Tonight’s live broadcast stars famous husband and wife team of composer/lyricists Grant Thornhill and Jean Forsythe. Gambling Grant is in debt to gangster Brannigan but a new song might just save the day.
Josie Lawrence, Nigel Harman, Sam Dale, Sean Baker, Joanna Monroe, Jane Whittenshaw, Stuart McLoughlin
MY HAUNTED EXPRESSION by Helen Clohessy (12.01.11)
Sue dreams of living by the sea and leaving their tough housing estate behind but husband Finn earns little and won’t borrow. An offbeat 21st Century urban love story.
Rosie Cavaliero, John Dougall, Sally Orrock, Tony Bell, Daniel Cooper, Deeivya Meir, Jude Akuwudike
BELIEVE ME by Stephanie Dale (10.01.11)
When art teacher Rachel, walking home festooned with end-of-term gifts from her pupils, bumps into Tyrone on his first day in London it is the beginning of a passionate love affair. Soon it makes sense for Tyrone, now working as a chef in a local up-market cafe, to move into Rachel’s flat. But it’s not long before there are tiny bits of grit starting to despoil the love oyster. As things get more serious issues of control, jealousy, trust and violence rise to the surface in this thriller exploring a lesser-known side of domestic abuse.
Naomi Frederick, Alex Lanipekun, Leah Brotherhead, Sally Orrock, Lloyd Thomas, Sean Baker
2010
CARNIVAL by Janice Okoh (From Fact to Fiction) (27.11.10) From Fact to Fiction
In a week that once again saw students protesting on the streets Janice Okoh tells the story of single mother Lorraine and daughter Nicole and how they are affected by the proposed changes to student fees.
Clare Perkins, Deeivya Meir, Lloyd Thomas
A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY by J.L. Carr dram. Dave Sheasby (20.11.10)
Shortly before his death from cancer aged 69, Dave Sheasby sat in a hospice bed with a borrowed laptop to complete his radio script for A Month in the Country, based on J.L. Carr’s sharp and rueful novel of Yorkshire life and art. Following Sheasby’s acclaimed dramatisations of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (2008) and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (2009) for the same producer, David Hunter, it completed a late flowering as an adapter of literary fiction for Sheasby, diffident radio producer and playwright who probably never knew how well he was respected.(Paul Allen)
Rupert Evans, Hattie Morahan, Stephen Critchlow, Blake Ritson, Leah Brotherhead, Tony Bell
WIND, SAND AND STARS by Antoine Saint Exupery dram. Rod Wooden (18.10.10)
When Antoine de Saint-Exupery and his co-pilot Prevot crash in the Libyan Desert while attempting to break the record for the Paris-Saigon flight in 1935 the odds are stacked against them. Miraculously they survive the impact – and while the plane doesn’t catch fire or explode the fuel and water tanks are ruptured and supplies are only minimal. With only half a litre of coffee, a little white wine, a few grapes and an orange they only know they are stranded somewhere in a square of inhospitable desert whose sides measure 400km. The days are scorching and the nights freezing. Their signal fires go unnoticed. Their forays to find help are fruitless and increasingly desperate. Physically weak, they become prone to hallucinations. Mirages appear on their horizons. Life is tested to its limits and the increasingly debilitated dialogue between Exupery and Prevot is accompanied by Exupery’s inner thoughts and meditations on their situation. This not only describes their physical journey but, in Exupery’s characteristic fashion, takes us on a journey that deals with previous flying expeditions and his very detailed view of the insights flying, particularly in the very basic sort of aircraft he flew, gives to our perception of our relationship with the planet. Although written 70 years ago the story still has relevant messages for us today in the context of our increased awareness of globalisation and climate change.
Paul Rhys, Adeel Akhtar, Sean Baker
HYSTERIA by Steve Chambers (5 x 15) (20.09.10)
We’ve all done things in the past that we’d prefer to keep under wraps. How much do you tell your new partner if you’re trying to make a good impression? Can one small lie unravel a marriage?
Against the background of rising hysteria in the Middlesborough community over the murders of prostitutes, Denise’s dreams of a happy second marriage, even a family (at 40), are challenged as circumstantial evidence seems to point the finger at husband Phil.
Christine Kavanagh, Michael Hodgson, Celia Hewitt, Colleen Prendergast, Sean Baker, Jude Akuwudike, Sally Orrock, Michael Shelford, Tony Bell
SOLOPARENTPALS.COM 2 by Sue Teddern (5 x 15) (23.08.10)
After a year cyberpals Rosie and Tom still haven’t met in the flesh. Rosie discovers that she quite likes her ex’s new girlfriend and that Tom has a new love interest.
Rosie (Maxine Peake) is a Bolton care-worker whose ex-husband Phil traded her in for a younger model four years ago leaving her to bring up Calum, now 12, alone. Tom (Kris Marshall) is a housing officer in Exeter whose wife and confidence walked out on him eighteen months ago. He only sees his daughter Lily at weekends.
In the first series despite a succession of twists and turns, mistimings and misunderstandings between the rather nervous, disorganised Tom and the mouthy, controlling Rosie, an underlying friendship and dependence seemed to emerge – but an actual meeting in the flesh failed to take place.Now, a year later, Rosie is coming to terms with the fact that Phil has had a baby with his new partner Debbie – a woman that she finds, to her surprise, that she has much in common with, perhaps too much? Tom has meanwhile being going steady with Siobhan, a work colleague and while he enjoys the regular sex, fresh veg and clean towels he can’t help thinking things are going a little too fast
Maxine Peake, Kris Marshall, Karina Jones, Thomas Rollinson, Christine Kavanagh, Alison Pettitt, Sam Dale, David Seddon
A BRIDGE TO THE STARS by Henning Mankell dram. John Retallack (26.07.10)
Young Joel, living alone with his lonely father, heads out at night in an icy cold Northern Swedish town tosearch for a dog he has glimpsed “heading for a star”. He finds new friends, cruelty and a perilous ascent in his winter of discontent and growing up.
Ryan Watson, Jack Klaff, Paul Hilton, Toby Graham, Margaret Robertson, Sean Baker, Alison Pettitt, Jacob Theato
HARRY AND THE ANGELS by Bernard Kops (03.06.10)
Award winning writer Bernard Kops guides us through London’s East End in an impressionistic, idiosyncratic journey of lost love, kite flying, angels and a tube station tragedy. He himself plays Leonard, visiting his old friend, Harry, for the final time. He’s also the narrator of the piece, inside and outside the action; following the main events in the life and death of East End Harry, from his early, idyllic love affair with young Phoebe, sadly curtailed, through his success as an auctioneer and a crucial act of bitterness against Leonard to his dying day in a Mare Street hospice.
Stephen Greif, Bernard Kops, Harry Myers, Louise Brealey, Alan Morrissey, Christine Kavanagh
OTHELLO (Exec Producing for Northern Broadsides) (27.02.10) (dir. Barrie Rutter) Radio 3
Lenny Henry stars in Northern Broadside’s version of Shakespeare’s great tragedy of love turned sour by unfounded jealousy. Othello’s descent into deluded rage is orchestrated by the dazzling villainy of his lieutenant Iago. (Original stage production created by Northern Broadsides and West Yorkshire Playhouse and staged in London by Sonia Friedman Productions)
Conrad Nelson, Matt Connor, Geoff Leesley, Lenny Henry, Richard Standing, David Beckford, Simon Holland, Roberts, Jessica Harris, Andy Cryer, Sara Poyzer, Chris Pearse, Victoria Gee
SAY WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR by Tim Wright (11&12.02.10)
A pair of interactive dramas.
THE STARTUP (Director Jeremy Mortimer) Do you have things you say to yourself? Things you wished you’d said, or wish other people had said? Dotcom entrepreneurs Erik and Mike set up Say What You Want to Hear, a website for people tovoice these secret thoughts – and you can take part on the Radio 4 website.
ENDGAME (Director David Hunter) Dotcom entrepreneurs Erik and Mike set up Say What You Want to Hear, a website for people to voice these secret thoughts. This play follows their adventures as they pursue love, fortune, football and film stars across Europe.
Stephen Tompkinson, Ewan Bailey, Keely Beresford, Alison Pettitt, Bruce Alexander, Rachel Atkins
CARBON CLEANSING by Sophie Woolley (10.01.10)
By Sophie Woolley. When ex-banker Tabitha knocks ‘green’ activist Will off his bicycle with her ‘Chelsea Tractor’, two worlds literally collide. A tale of ecological responsibility, guilt and grimy hot tubs.
Joe Kloska, Doon Mackichan, Gemma Saunders, Tessa Nicholson, John Biggins
2009
HEADLINER by Neil Brand (Jessica Dromgoole directing) (03.12.09)
Important elections are on the horizon in the eastern European state of Khovakhia when up-and-coming stand-up comedienne Katya Kalugin is befriended by US comedy legend Doug Stokowski.
Laura Solon, Ewan Bailey, John Biggins, Piers Wehner, Nigel Hastings, Kate Layden
THE RAILWAY SIDING by Jonathan Holloway (12.11.09)
When struggling architect Jack is forced to take the overnight train from Haverfordwest to Paddington, he encounters a garrulous guard and a spookily familiar young woman. All is not quite what it seems.
Lydia Leonard, Ewan Hooper, Mark Lewis, Sam Dale
SINGLEPARENTPALS.COM by Sue Teddern (5 x 15 ) (2-6.11.09)
Tom nervously logs on to a website for lone parents for the first time and finds new friends, as well as an impatient response from the formidable Rosie.
Maxine Peake, Kris Marshall, Laura Molyneux, Janice Acquah, Matt Addis, Malcolm Tierney, Jonathan Tafler, Annabelle Dowler, Isadora Dooley Hunter
A DOSE OF FAME by Stephen Wakelam (16.10.09)
In the final stages of writing Howards End, and nervous of success, E.M. Forster grapples with a mysterious death, his own sexuality and the seed of an idea for his next novel Maurice.
Stephen Campbell Moore, Diana Quick, Navin Chowdrey, Matt Addis, Benjamin Askew, Sam Dale, Philip Fox, Malcolm Tierney, Caroline Guthrie
SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5 by Kurt Vonnegut dram. Dave Sheasby (20.09.09) Radio 3
Dramatisation of the celebrated anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut. Billy Pilgrim, who hops back and forth in time, relives various moments in his real and fantasy lives, as a prisoner of war, optometrist and time traveller.
John Guerassio, Andrew Scott, Nathan Osgood, Joanne McQuinn, Annabelle Dowler, Sarah Goldberg, Madeleine Potter, Simon Lee Philips, Liza Ross, Kerry Shale, Stephen Hogan, Peter Marinker, Michael Mears,
Philip Fox, Gunnar Cauthery, Orlando James, Michael Shelford
THE INCIDENT AT BOULONVILLIERS by Dave Sheasby (17.07.09)
It’s June 1982 and the Falkland’s War is in its last throes. Three Second World War veterans return on a coach trip to Normandy and are forced to confront a difficult incident back in 1944 – and consequently their own “heroism”.
Geoffrey Whitehead, Michael Mears, David Hargreaves, Ella Smith, Gabrielle Reidy
THE UNDERSTANDING by P.G. Morgan (dir. David Hunter. Prod. Jonquil Panting) (16.07.09)
Alongside the new series of Radio 4’s Inside The Ethics Committee, in which Joan Bakewell and a panel of experts explore the workings of clinical ethics committees through the discussion of real-life cases the Afternoon Play, THE UNDERSTANDING, is one of three dramas which get inside the emotional realities of dealing with ethical dilemmas. In today’s award-winning play by P G Morgan, a young woman is urgently admitted to hospital and prepared to deliver her baby by Caesarian section. What happens in the next few minutes will test the judgement – and the understanding – of everyone in the room.
Philip Fox, Katy Cavanagh, Golda Roshevel, Sam Dale, Ibemisola Ikumelu, Caroline Guthrie
MY NAME IS IQBAL MASIH by Bettina Gracias (25.02.09)
The extraordinary and tragic story of a young Pakistani boy forced into bonded labour in a carpet factory at the age of four and who became a figurehead for the Bonded Liberation Movement aged eleven.
Despite the valiant efforts of many there are still thousands of child labourers in factories across Asia, often working long hours in terrible conditions to provide cheap clothing and other goods for our high street stores. This play, the moving story of Iqbal Masih, brings to the foreground one of the less savoury elements of an increasingly global economy and contributes to the continuing debate about our wider responsibilities as consumers. It also celebrates the tragically short life of a remarkable individual.
Winner of the 2009 Clarion Radio Drama Award.
Sagar Radia, Bhaskar Patel, Kaleem Janjua, Manjeet Mann, Inam Mirza, Gagan Sharma, Saikat Ahmed, Janice Acquah, Chris Pavlo
2008
WHITECHAPEL DREAMS by Bernard Kops (28.11.08)
Widower Leo Silver is about to reluctantly retire as a librarian at Whitechapel Library when he encounters Aleya, a young Muslim girl seeking refuge in the library after a furious argument with her father. He is touched by her plight and, with the help of the literary ‘ghosts’ of the library, tries to help her through her dilemma.
Edward Halsted, Ruth D’Silva, Gunnar Cauthery, Paul Bhattacharjee, Bernard Kops
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT by Erich Maria Remarque dram. Dave Sheasby (09.11.08) Classic Serial
One of the greatest war novels of all time, the haunting, comic, lyrical and desperate story of a group of young German soldiers enduring, and coming to terms with, the realities of the First World War.
Robert Lonsdale, Simon Trinder, Gunnar Cauthery, Lloyd Thomas, Joseph Arkley, Stephen Critchlow, Malcolm Tierney, Stuart McLaughlin, Dan Starkey, Luke Walker, Tim Treloar, Nick Sayce, Janice Acquah, Donnla Hughes, Jill Cardo, Carolyn Pickles, Inam Mirza, Paul Rider, Chris Pavlo, Manjeet Mann
NOWT TO LOOK AT by Valerie Laws (25.10.08) Radio 3
A play about deformity and self-image, telling the tale of Annie, a rose-obsessed, disfigured recluse whose head now floats in a pathology museum jar, a spoilt boy and a shy flower of a girl.
Pat Dunn, Christina Berriman-Dawson, Brian Lonsdale, Janice Acquah, Gunnar Cauthery, Donnla Hughes
BLINDED BY SCIENCE by Paul Viragh (03.10.08)
Professor Michael Hart is a leading figure in genetic and biological research, and in the running for a plum government job. But he has an “unethical” rival, an ailing marriage, a lack of self-esteem and an ungrammatical self-help CD.
James Fleet, Lesley Sharp, Stuart Mc Quarrie, Inam Mirza, Donnla Hughes, Janice Acquah, Chris Pavlo, Stephen Critchlow
DICKENS CONFIDENTIAL 2 (6 x 30) (09.06.08)
Gangs of London by Mike Walker
As a newspaper editor, how might Charles Dickens have covered an old enemy’s return and financial plotting?
Dan Stevens, Eleanor Howell, Freddie White, Andrew Buchan, John Dougall, Gerard Murphy, John Rowe, Stephen Critchlow, Ben Crowe, Chris Pavlo, Liz Sutherland
The Man Who Robbed the Bank of England by Mike Walker
Charles Dickens and his investigative team are determined to find the connection between financier Iron Billy and a plot to strike at the heart of the country’s financial system.
Dan Stevens, Eleanor Howell, John Rowe, Andrew Buchan, John Dougall, Gerard Murphy, Stephen Critchlow, Nyasha Hatendi, Chris Pavlo, Dan Starkey
Dickens and Dizzy by Deborah Davies (dir.Tracey Neale)
Charles Dickens meets Benjamin Disraeli sparking instant rivalry, but what is the young politician’s secret?
Dan Stevens, Eleanor Howell, Andrew Buchan, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Liz Sutherland, Bertie Carvel, Joanne Walker, Nyasha Hatendi, Dan Starkey, Ben Crowe, Stephen Critchlow, Lydia Leonard, Alan Lee
The Deal by Rob Kinsman
Money talks as Charles Dickens battles to prove a timid doctor is not guilty of murdering his wealthy lover.
Dan Stevens, Eleanor Howell, Andrew Buchan, Gerard McDermott, Stephen Critchlow, John Rowe, Liz Sutherland, Simon Treves, Nyasha Hatendi, Dan Starkey, Chris Pavlo
Murder in the Red Barn by Mike Walker (dir. Tracey Neale)
Reporter Dan investigates a disturbing discovery in the Thames, while Charles Dickens has a royal audience.
Dan Stevens, Eleanor Howell, Andrew Buchan, Henry Goodman, Joan Walker, Liz Sutherland, Helen Longworth, Chris Pavlo, John Rowe
Why are we in Afghanistan? By Mike Walker (dir. Tracey Neale)
Agnes interviews the Russian Cavalry maid, while Charles Dickens investigates the prospect of war overseas.
Dan Stevens, Eleanor Howell, Andrew Buchan, Rachel Atkins, Dan Starkey, Chris Pavlo, John Dougall, John Rowe
WELSH COLLEGE WORKSHOP (March 2008 and subsequent years to 2016)
WHAT I THINK OF MY HUSBAND by Stephen Wakelam (31.03.08)
Stephen Wakelam’s dramatisation of the story of Thomas Hardy’s romance with his secretary, Florence Dugdale. The early meetings of young Florence and the “greatest writer in England” hint at a growing intimacy.
Hattie Morahan, Nigel Anthony, Marcia Warren, Sean Baker, Liz Sutherland, Liza Sadovy, Ray Lonnen, Helen Longworth, Chris Pavlo, Ben Crowe
GRAEAE COURSE AT THE HURST (Feb 2008) Course for writers with disabilities.
WHEN TO RUN by Sophie Woolley (21.02.08)
Sophie Woolley adapts her stage show for radio, a bizarre story of three women who run, a dog-walker in search of romance and a man who looks a bit like Tony Soprano.
Katy Cavanagh, Sophie Woolley, Tracy Wiles, Liza Sadovy
2007
THE DOPPLER EFFECT developed by Sheila Goff & Company (14.12.07)
Six characters, each having their own concerns as Christmas approaches, are linked by their reactions to an unexpected urban incident.
Laura Molyneux, Sam Pamphilon, Anna Bengu, Lloyd Thomas, Joanna Tincey, Alex Lanipekun
EXEC FOR FROM FACT TO FICTION (Nov/Dec 2007)
A chance to join forces with a World Service Journalists and produce a topical drama in a week. Producer, Writer and Journalist meet on a Monday morning to scour the weekend’s papers for current stories that might last the week. Having decided on the subject the writer, drawing on the resources of the journalist produces a first draft of a 15′ drama by Wednesday lunchtime. More drafts are tackled, the piece is cast on the Thursday, recorded on Friday morning, edited on Friday afternoon and transmitted after the six o’clock news on Radio 4 on Saturday.
SEEING IT THROUGH by Neil Brand (04.11.07)
Imagine if Alastair Campbell had recruited Tom Stoppard , JK Rowling, Ian McEwan and Jeanette Winterson to write patriotic literature supporting the war in Iraq. In 1914 Charles Masterman used the literary and artistic elite to unite the nation.
Michael Maloney, Clare Corbett, Robert Pugh, Sam Dale, Honeysuckle Weeks, Sam Pamphilon, Ben Crowe, John Dougall, Simon Treves, Peter Marinker
GOLDSMITHS SEMINAR (Oct 2007 and subsequent years)
ARVON AT THE HURST Writing for Radio Course with Sue Teddern (September 2007)
EDINBURGH (Aug 2007)
RDC SHOWCASE (Enda Walsh’s CHATROOM) (Aug 2007)
CAPTAIN CORELLI’S MANDOLIN by Louis de Bernieres dram. Katie Hims (4 x 45) (17.09.07)
Katie Hims’s dramatisation of Louis de Bernieres’s best-selling novel. 1/4: A Pea in the Ear. War is coming to the idyllic Greek island of Cephallonia. 2/4. Invasion of the Italians. Pelagia has written more than 100 letters to her fiance Mandras who is fighting in the Greek army, but she has had no reply. 3/4: Looking for Snails. Pelagia has fallen for the charming Captain Corelli. 4/4. Earthquake. An extraordinarily heroic act, a slow recovery and resolution, two generations later. Mandolin music composed and performed by Alison Stephens and the songs of La Scala performed by the BBC Singers
Celia Meiras, Stephen Greif, Tom Goodman-Hill, Anthony Psaila, Chris Pavlo, Daniel Philpott, Anna Savva, Alexi Kaye Campbell, Mia Soteriou, Sean Baker
SCRIPT FACTORY WORKSHOP
BLUE SKY WORKSHOP Ty Newydd – Set up a workshop of Radio Drama Producers plus an actor (Toby Jones), a magician, a singer (Helen ?), a composer (Nina Perry), a journalist (Alex Clarke), a comedian. Visiting tutors included Gillian Clarke (Poet), David Thomas (Architect) and Ian Brown (Bangor Botanic Gardens).
MAURICE by E.M. Forster dram. Philip Osment (21.07.07) Classic Serial
1/2. EM Forster ‘s tale of passion and sexual awakening. Maurice Hall is an unremarkable suburban man whose journey to self-understanding is furthered by an intense but platonic relationship with the young aristocrat Clive Durham.
2/2. Concluding An encounter with Clive’s gamekeeper helps Maurice make up his mind about his sexuality.
Alex Wyndham, Bertie Carvel, Joseph Kloska, John Rowe, Christine Kavanagh, Eleanor Howell, Jasmine Callan, Amy Hayes, John Dougall, Josh Teeborn, Piers Stubbs, Simon Treves, Sam Dale, Chris Moran, Jot Davies, Ben Righton, Liza Sadovy, William Ellis, Emma Noakes
OVERSEEING FINAL STAGES OF Studio 6A REFIT
OVERSEEING COMPOSER IN RESIDENCE Nicolai Abrahamsen
STRAND MGT OF RADIO 3 AND WOMANS HOUR DRAMA until Sept 2007
DICKENS CONFIDENTIAL 1 (6) (02.05.07)
Charles Dickens was, for a time, editor of a daily paper. This series, conceived by Mike Walker, imagines how Dickens might have brought the news to the masses.
The Railway Kings by Mike Walker
As editor of a new campaigning weekly The Herald Charles Dickens has just appointed a chief correspondent, Jack Marshall, an eager and rather handsome young man. His first assignment is to find who, or what is responsible for a tragic railway accident.
Freddy White, Jasmine Hyde, John Dougall, Sam Dale, Gerard Murphy
Darker Than You Think by Mike Walker (dir. Tracey Neale)
Bodies are being discovered in the Thames with dreadful injuries. The rumours abound that it’s the work of Spring-Heeled Peter. Chief cCharles Dickens attends the state opening of Parliament by the young Queen Victoria. Through his attendance there he finds himself rubbing shoulders with the great and good of the land and, in particular, the alluring Lady Kames. Will this elevation compromise his judgement as editor of The Herald, especially when a shocking and scandalous story emerges close to home? orrespondent Jack Marshall is sent to investigate, but Agnes seems rather more interested in her new beau, a pioneering and seemingly philanthropic doctor, than following the progress of Jack leads.
Jamie Glover, Freddy White, Jasmine Hyde, Nicholas Boulton, Harry Myers, John Dougall, Sam Dale, Anthony Glennon
High Society by Deborah Davies (dir. Tracey Neale)
Charles Dickens attends the state opening of Parliament by the young Queen Victoria. Through his attendance there he finds himself rubbing shoulders with the great and good of the land and, in particular, the alluring Lady Kames. Will this elevation compromise his judgement as editor of The Herald, especially when a shocking and scandalous story emerges close to home?
Jamie Glover, Freddy White, Jasmine Hyde, Robert Bathurst, Juliet Aubrey, Bertie Carvel, John Dougall, Sam Dale, Melinda Walker
Captain Swing by Annie Caulfield
Agnes’s stay at her family’s country residence is disturbed by the return of the notorious Captain Swing, who destroys her father’s beloved steam plough. But as campaigning newspaper editor Charles Dickens begins investigations, Agnes realises there is more at stake than broken and burnt property.
Jamie Glover, Freddy White, Jasmine Hyde, Jasmine Callan, Anthony Glennon, John Dougall, Ann Beach
Foundry by Mike Walker (dir. Tracey Neale)
Dickens asks his chief reporter to investigate the death of a young boy at an iron foundry, but the story hits Dickens uncomfortably close to home
Jamie Glover, Freddy White, Jasmine Hyde, Jonathan Keeble, Charlie Brooks, Harry Eden, John Dougall, Sam Dale
Innocence by Mike Walker
Through a chance encounter with a young woman of the night Charles Dickens embroils The Herald in another dangerous investigation. Drawn into the murky world of prostitution and opium, Agnes and Jack meet an adversary from the past.
Jamie Glover, Freddy White, Jasmine Hyde, Charlotte Emmerson, Clive Swift, Gerard Murphy, Anthony Glennon
CROSSING THE BAR by Alfred Lord Tennyson (11.03.07) Radio 3
A headlong plunge into the sea-narratives of Alfred Lord Tennyson. With sea-songs from a cappella trio Coope, Boyes and Simpson, centred on his most popular work, Enoch Arden. The Kraken is read by John Dougall , The Sea Fairies is read by Rachel Bavidge and Jasmine Callan , Enoch Arden is read by Sam Dale , Jasmine Callan , Stuart McLoughlin and Joseph Kloska , The Voyage of Maeldune is read by John Dougall , and Crossing the Bar is read by Sam Dale. Original music by Nicolai Abrahamsen.
John Dougall, Rachel Bavidge, Jasmine Callan, Sam Dale, Stuart McLoughlin, Joseph Kloska
(Nicolai Abrahamsen, Coope, Boyes and Simpson – music)
GLASS HOUSES by Colin Teevan (12.01.07) Radio 3 (winner of the Tinniswood Award for Best Drama)
A husband and wife tell the same story of a bitter divorce and its appalling fall-out from two different standpoints. He is driven to an act of ultimate revenge after battling for access to his children. Meanwhile, her story is interwoven as she talks to a journalist several years later about the morale-sapping mechanical legal process.
Greg Hicks, Clare Higgins
2006
WHEN MARNIE WAS THERE by Joan G. Robinson dram. Beaty Rubens (16.12.06)
In this classic story for family listening, Anna is a solitary foster child sent away to a small Norfolk village one summer. Here she makes friends with a mysterious and significant girl called Marnie and discovers a good deal about her past.
Georgina Hagen, Sara Kestelman, Juliet Aaltonen, Skye Bennett, Mary Miller, David Redgrave, Richenda Carey, Miranda Keeling, Christine Kavanagh, Richard Biggin, Emma Noakes
STREET AND LANE 2 (4 x 30) by Dave Sheasby and Ian McMillan (15.12.06)
University dropout and would-be novelist Johnny Street and his worker-of-the-world mate Arthur Lane are the odd-couple partners in a one-horse, two-man family building firm (slogan: ‘Up Your Street, Down Your Lane’). Together, they travel the Yorkshire suburbs in their white van, tackling tricky household repairs with their unique combination of art and craft.
No job is too small for the intrepid duo: although some are a little unusual, like the perilously perched piano on a music teacher’s stairs, the mystery whiff in an infants’ school and the faulty tenor bell in a church belfry. But armed with their trusty ladders and a bucketful of banter, they manage to deal with whatever problems come their way – until a break-in makes Johnny start thinking about the road less travelled…
Ringing the Changes
The white van men are back. University drop-out and would-be writer Johnny Street and his worker-of-the-world mate Arthur Lane are Yorkshire builders for whom no job is too small. Can they manage to fix some church bells with the help of slightly suspect ‘bell expert’ Stan French?
Shaun Dooley, Fine Time Fontayne, Stephen Hogan, Claire Rushbrook
Fade to Black
Johnny and Arthur are a pair of Yorkshire builders with a white van, ladders and a bucketful of banter, who battle with their partnership and their future while tackling a plethora of household repairs. This week they come across a couple of faded film stars. But all is not as it seems.
Shaun Dooley, Fine Time Fontayne, Sandra Dickinson, John Carlisle
Estimates Day
When the Yorkshire builders price up fitting mirrors, they start seeing double…
Shaun Dooley, Fine Time Fontayne, Christine Kavanagh, Mark Straker, Sam Dale, Rachel Atkins
Going for Broke
The Yorkshire builders are warned over a dodgy landlord – and a birth is imminent…
Shaun Dooley, Fine Time Fontayne, Muzz Khan, Bethan Walker
MAPS FOR LOST LOVERS (10 x 15) by Nadeem Aslam dram. Rukshana Ahmad (28.07.06)
In an unnamed town Jugnu and his lover Chanda have disappeared. Rumours abound in the close-knit Pakistani community, and then on a snow-covered January morning Chanda’s brothers are arrested for murder. Telling the story of the next twelve months, Maps for Lost Lovers opens the heart of a family at the crossroads of culture, community, nationality and religion, and expresses their pain in a language that is arrestingly poetic.
Sameena Zehra, Amerjit Deu, Nick Khan, Lena Kaur, Asif Khan, Marc Elliott, Pooja Ghai, Shobu Kapoor, Rokhsaneh Ghawam-Shahidi, Muzz Khan, Jamila Massey, Kish Sharma, Sanjiv Hayre, Renu Setna
DARLING ALICIA by Alicia and Steve Merritt dram. Vernee Samuel (27.07.06)
Steve hasn’t so much as held hands with the beautiful, sparky Alicia when he starts writing to her but, over the course of a two-year correspondence ranging from Delhi and Buenos Aires to London, he comes to realise that she has become his Darling Alicia. Based on 160 unpublished letters from the 1960s. With the real voices of Alicia and Steve Merrett.
Steve Merritt, Alicia Merritt, Celia Meiras, Carl Prekopp
ME AND MY MAN by Bettina Gracias (21.07.06)
Odd couple Lal and Paul run a dry-cleaning shop. The path to true love is littered with obstacles including age difference, guilt and cultural chasms.
Renu Setna, Raji James, Ioan Meredith, Kim Wall, Tracy Wiles
LUNCH IN VENICE directed showcase for 2006 Carleton Hobbs Bursary Award Winners
CARAVAN OF DESIRE by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (09.06.06) – Producer Claire Grove, Director David Hunter
A tender love story set in the edgy world of illegal immigrants in Hackney, east London. From the winner of the 2005 Critics’ Circle Award for most promising playwright, Rebecca Lenkiewicz.
Lyndsey Marshal, Alexander Hanson, Caty Kavanagh, Rod Arthur, Tracy Wiles, Kim Wal
MY WAY by Georgia Pritchett and Sue Teddern (22.05.06, 29.05.06 & 05.06.06) – Produced with Tracey Neale and Marion Nancarrow
Sid Vicious by Sue Teddern. The second of a series of four plays responding to four versions of the famous song. Tip, an unkempt reminder of Patricia’s punk past, turns up on her doorstep 18 years later.
PRIX MARULIX HVAR May 2006
Listening to the best of European Radio Drama in various glorious locations on the sunny Croatian island of Hvar
THE HISTORY BOYS by Alan Bennett (12.03.06)
Another chance to hear Alan Bennett’s highly successful play, adapted for radio by Richard Wortley from Nicholas Hytner’s smash-hit National Theatre production. Radio 3 need not apologise for repeating this drama for it is one of those rare things, a real tour de force that leaves you exhausted by the end from the sheer work-out of emotions it pushes you through. Its creator, Alan Bennett, has rightly been decorated with awards for this play on education, the anarchy of adolescence and the tussles of staff-room rivalries. Performed by the original stage cast, radio drama simply doesn’t get any better than this. (Jane Anderson – Radio Times)
Adapted by Richard Wortley, Produced by David Hunter. Cast: Richard Griffiths, Geoffrey Streatfeild, Frances de la Tour, Clive Merrison, Samuel Barnett, Dominic Cooper, James Corden, Sacha Dhawan, Andrew Knott, Jamie Parker, Russell Tovey
2005
THE PIPER’S CHAIR by Michael Butt (24.12.05)
A fast-moving comic double love story charting the involvement of Irish penny-whistle player Sean Hennessy and his fiddler father in the machinations that eventually lead to married bliss for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Paul Rhys, Andrew Scott, Tony Rohr, Samantha Spiro, Sophie Roberts, Ella Smith, Carolyn Pickles, Gerard McDermott
INCURABLE ROMANTICS by Perry Pontac (23.12.05)
A comedy set in a rest home in Florence in 1875, where three of the elderly residents, all English expatriates, are trying to remember who they are.
John Moffatt, John Wood, John Rowe, Sandra Dickinson
FIVE SUMMERS AND JOHNNY ONION by Dave Sheasby (10.12.05)
A cross-Channel love story. Anne, now in her later years, recalls a chance meeting with Michel, a young French onion-seller. She remembers how that meeting developed into a friendship and then into a love affair during the course of fivesummers, from 1956 to 1960, of intense meetings and long winters of letters.
Susan Jameson, Edna Dore, Ella Smith, Carolyn Pickles, James French, Delroy Brown
THE GUNPOWDER PLOT by Jonathan Davidson (06.11.05) Radio 3
On the 400th anniversary of the plot to blow up King James I and his parliament, Jonathan Davidson’s play looks at how the establishment dealt with a terrorist threat. Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, ruthlessly and efficiently conducts the hunt for the plotters, but his real target is the Jesuit leader, Father Henry Garnet.
David Calder, Sean Arnold, Cal McCannich, John Henshaw, Hugh Dickson, Helen Longworth, Ben Crowe, Trevor Cuthbertson, Gary McFarlane, Chris Moran, Anthony Glennon
GETTING THE JOKE by Neil Brand (20.10.05)
For 60 years Donald McGill created some of the most popular seaside postcards in the land. In July 1954, shortly after his 80th birthday, he was arrested on obscene-publication charges.
John Wood, Ann Beach, Malcolm Sinclair, Gerard McDermott, Carolyn Pickles, Wayne Foskett, Nick Sayce, John Cummins, Delroy Brown, Ella Smith, Ayesha Antoine
MR SWEET TALK by Nick Drake (04.10.05)
Truth, lies and cultures intermingle in this contemporary love story. Shiraz is a young Iranian selling flowers from his pitch alongside the A40. Jane stops to buy a bunch for her sick mother – which leads to both a love affair and something more.
Claire Rushbrook, Amanda Boxer, Christopher Simon
PARADISE LOST (5 x 15) selected and introduced by Philip Pullman (26.09.05)
Ian McDiarmid reads extracts from John Milton ‘s epic poem, with an introduction by PhilipPullman. Satan and the Rebel Angels are vanquished on the burning lake in Hell, yet with terrible resolution, decide to fight back.
Philip Pullman, Ian McDiarmid
STREET & LANE 1 (4 x 30) by Dave Sheasby & Ian McMillan (19.08.05)
Patio Marital
1/4. Johnny Street and Arthur Lane are a pair of Yorkshire builders in a white van – “Up your Street, Down your Lane” – who battle out their partnership and their future as they tackle a plethora or household repairs. This week it’s a patio job at the home of warring couple Christine and Tom Rose.
Nick Lane, Fine Time Fontayne, Becky Hindley, Richard Katz, Gerard McDermott
Blues on the Stairs
Johnny Street and Arthur Lane , our two Yorkshire builders in a white van, tackle the tricky task of a piano perilously perched on the Edwardian staircase of feisty music teacher Mrs Priam-Rhodes
Nick Lane, Fine Time Fontayne, Margaret Robertson, Kenny Blyth
Singing Detectives
3/4. The intrepid pair of Yorkshire builders, Johnny Street and Arthur Lane, are augmented by Tina, a glamorous young woman on work-experience, as they seek out the origins of a nasty smell in a local school under the nose of caretaker and music-theatre aficionado Sidney Sanderson.
Nick Lane, Fine Time Fontayne, Hannah Storey, Geoffrey Whitehead
Hitting the Highs
The intrepid pair of Yorkshire builders Johnny Street and Arthur Lane reach new professional heights curing the leak in the penthouse roof of an Australian businesswoman who is single-handedly regenerating South Yorkshire. Specialist help comes in the form of Shafto, ex-miner turned fearless free climber.
Nick Lane, Fine Time Fontayne, Bronwyn Lim, John Banks
SOUNDSTART SHOWCASE 2005
BOY STEALS TRAIN by Jude Domski and the Paper Hat Ensemble (15.08.05) Recorded in New York
By Jude Domski and the Paper Hat Ensemble. The true and extraordinary story of Darius McCollum , whose lifelong obsession with New York subway trains has resulted in him being arrested more than 20 times.
Ron Simons, Kashif Harris, Beresford Bennett, Alberto Bonilla, Misty de Berry, Gigi Jhong, Michael Warner
PORTRAIT by Tom Kelly (26.06.05)
Patrick is a confused teenager trying to navigate the minefield of 21st-century masculinity. But his role models are Billy, his terribly reasonable and politically correct father, and Phil, his eccentric photographer grandfather who has taken Billy’s portrait every two weeks for 40 years.
Simon Trinder, Nicholas Gleaves, David Hargreaves, Colleen Prendergast
ASHA’S WORLD by Bettina Gracias (15.04.05)
Asha’s controlling mother rings up from India to tell her she’s arranged a date for her with a gorgeous Indian doctor. She refuses to go and her best friend Veronique goes instead, pretending to be Asha, setting in train a twisty romantic tale of mistaken identities.
Archie Panjabi, Leena Dhingra, Jemma Elder, Anushka Dahassi, Ajay Chhabra
JANE’S STORY (5 x 15) by Alison Joseph (27.02.05)
1/10. Jane Michaels thought that she and her husband James had no secrets from each other. But when he dies suddenly he leaves her not only an unfinished property redevelopment project but also a number of unanswered questions.
Elizabeth Bell, Ella Smith, Nicholas Le Provost, Lynne Verrall, Kerry Shale, Damian Lynch, Noma Dumezweni, Stella Duffy, Marcia Warren, Carolyn Jones, Anthony Glennon, Kim Wall
AN ABC OF THE NIGHT – 26 Worldwide Contributors! (01.01.05)
Inspired by the simplicity of children’s ABC books, 26 tiny stories about the night are organised in alphabetical order. This is one third of a radio event that links Radio 4, Radio 3 and World Service, capturing in three distinctive programmes, a snapshot of the world in sound.
2004
A LONG TIME DEAD by Sheila Goff (20.12.04)
Despite a minor hitch in the proceedings, careful Kath carries on with her planned girlie weekend in Paris with bossy Beatrice. Now she feels free to live a little and really let her hair down.
Marion Bailey, Linda Marlowe, Tony Selby, Stephen Hogan, Emily Wachter
FIVE DAYS (5 x 15) by Alison Joseph (08.11.04)
For Cassie this is quite a week. On Friday, husband Mike will have his biopsy results, her daughter Zoe makes her West End debut, and now her sister Lynn says she has until Friday to decide whether to abandon her family and flee to America with an old flame.
Nicholas Gleaves, Clare Holman, Jemma Churchill, Peter Marinker, Andrew Harrison, Helen Longworth, Rachel Atkins, Nicholas Boulton, Stuart McLoughlin, Ndidi Del Fatti
MY TURN TO MAKE THE TEA (4 x 30) by Monica Dickens dram. Sheila Goff (25.08.04-15.09.04)
1/4. The Stain on the Carpet. In this semi-autobiographical story set in the early 1950s. Poppy is the junior reporter on the Downingham Post, where it is always her turn to make the tea. She takes lodgings with the formidable Mrs Goff and discovers something sinister under the bed.
2/4. Look Out behind You. Poppy promises her acrobat friend Maimie that she write a supportive review of the local pantomime. But all does not go according to plan.
3/4. The Anarchist in the Basement. Neil Casubon, the anarchist in the basement of Poppy’s boarding house, throws a wild party and landlady Mrs Goff is not amused. Novice reporter Poppy’s trip to a civic banquet with the Downingham Post’s editor, Mr Pellet, finds them letting their hair down.
4/4. Poppy finds herself in a compromising position when the paper picks up a story about a fellow lodger. But this ultimately propels her into her true vocation.
Alice Hart, Keith Barron, Marlene Sidaway, Annabelle Dowler, Peter Darney, Martin Hyder, Jemma Elder, Nicholas Boulton, Alex Kelly, Ashley Cook, Robert Hastie, Kezia Burrows, John Rowe
RITES OF PASSAGE (2) by Ian Macmillan (12.08.04) Feature Programme
Ian McMillan meets people who turn to poetry for inspiration or solace at key moments in their lives. He meets and discusses poetry with David Stewart, due to retire in September 2004, and his wife Christine, as they take part in a workshop run by the Pre-Retirement Association. Tony Chivers, from the PRA, talks about its work and the importance of preparing for this new phase in life.
Ian McMillan
GOAT by John McKay (18.07.04) Short Story
John McKay
SOME TEXT MISSING by Jackie Kay (11.06.04) Short Story
Lesley Sharp
GERONIMO by Louise Doughty (01.04.04)
lyola, a refugee from Africa, works in the school kitchens. She has a bleak existence and a terrible past. But at break times she loves to sit on the stairs and listen to Eamonn teaching the children songs.
Noma Dumezweni, Andrew Scott, Children of Yerbury School N19
BARDS OF BROMLEY by Perry Pontac (25.03.04)
Julia McKenzie, John Moffatt, Timothy West, Paul Rhys, Amanda Root, John Rowe, Philip Fox
MARS FLIGHT by Max Mueller and Alasdair Mangham (22.03.04)
It is 1989 and Michael Hoffman , a 20-year-old East German mechanic, signs up for a medical trial that will simulate the 90-dayjoumey to Mars.
Chris Moran, Jaimi Barbakoff, John Rowe, Frances Jeater, Sasha Yevtushenko, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Philip Fox, Ioan Meredith, Declan Wilson, Cheryl Taylor-Battiste, Damian Lynch
2003
NO CONFERRING (A STING IN THE TALE) by Jonathan Holloway (25.11.03)
A Christmas bonding week in an isolated moorland cottage for the 1983 University Challenge team from Bracewell College, Cambridge, goes horribly wrong. With Bamber Gascoigne and Jeremy Paxman as themselves.
Damian Lynch, Lydia Leonard, Kenny Blyth, Peter Darney, Jaimi Barbakoff, Bamber Gascoigne, Jeremy Paxman
PEELING by Kaite O’Reilly (12.10.03) Radio 3
Alpha, Beaty and Coral – three actors with disabilities and enormous red dresses – bicker and heckle as an epic, post-modern production of The Trojan Women unfolds around them.
Caroline Parker, Lisa Hammond, Sophie Partridge, Carolyn Jones
CAKE by George Steiner dram. Dave Sheasby (04.10.03)
In this wartime tale of love and betrayal, Bunny, a rich young American academic in occupied France, finds himself embroiled in the Resistance movement, hidden in an asylum and guilty of terrible inaction.
Ryan McCluskey, Alexis Zegerman, Margaret Robertson, Ioan Meredith, Buffy Davis, Lydia Leonard, Damian Lynch, Declan Wilson, Rachel Atkins, Stephen Critchlow
DROUGHT by Kaite O’Reilly (02.09.03)
Three women in India-grandmother, daughter and granddaughter – remain in the family home as the waters of the Narmada valley rise.
Leena Dhingra, Shobu Kapoor, Rina Mahony
THE TRUE STORY (10 x 15) by Alison Joseph (04.08.03)
When Lucinda, wife of former government minister Richard Carey QC , walks out of the library at lunchtime, her disappearance throws her family into disarray. Why on earth did she leave?
David Ryall, Barbara Flynn, Juliet Aubrey, Ifan Meredith, Priyanga Elan, Andrew Harrison, Stephen Critchlow, Liza Sadovy, James Laurenson, Carolyn Jones, Helen Longworth, Alexis Zegerman
THE JOURNALISTIC ADVENTURES OF AN AMERICAN GIRL IN LONDON by Elizabeth L. Banks dram. Stephanie Norgate (04.07.03)
Alison Pettitt, Andrew Harrison, Bruce Purchase, Ben Crowe, Priyanga Elan, Liza Sadovy, Barbara Barnes, Buffy Davis, Carolyn Jones, Ann Beach, Gemma Saunders
VISITING TIME by David Constantine (25.05.03)
“David Constantine’s play has undertones of DH Lawrence about it: a violent drunken father, a mother racked with grief for the loss of one of her other children, and a son who doesn’t want to settle for a dull menial job but to become an artist (in this case a pianist) instead. The would-be musician is a young man called Thomas, lying in hospital with his eyes bandaged, hoping to regain his sight. The visits from his parents soon reveal them to be, metaphorically, as blind as their son, able to see the past only through its horrors (the First World War for the father, Thomas’s dead twin sister for the mother). But the visits from his girlfriend, Connie, and the ragtime music he associates with her, offer up hope that this young man will escape the legacy of his parents and leave hospital with both eyes wide open.”
Paul Popplewell, Stephen Bent, Becky Hindley, Carla Henry
FROM BANGALORE WITH LOVE by Bettina Gracias (06.03.03)
An Indian love story with Nina Wadia , star of Goodness Gracious Me! When Nisha returns shiny-eyed to Bangalore after a secret six weeks in London with Parv, a mathematician she met on the internet, she finds things at home have changed And why won’t Parv get in touch?
Nina Wadia, Shireen Shah, Seema Bowri, Ajay Chhabra, Anil Desai, Renu Setna
HIS DARK MATERIALS: THE AMBER SPYGLASS by Philip Pullman dram. Lavinia Murray (18.01.03)
Lulu Popplewell, Daniel Anthony, Terence Stamp, Steve Toussaint, Trevor Peacock, Adrian Scarborough, David Timson, David Calder, Burt Caesar, Jenny Stoller, Philip Madoc, Adjoa Andoh, Jasmine Hyde, Emma Fielding, Tracey-Ann Oberman, Peter Marinker, Steve Hodson, Richard Firth, Joanna Monro, Martin Hyder, Leagh Comwell, Soumaya Keynes, Laura Doddington, Emma Woolliams, Gregg Prentice
HIS DARK MATERIALS: THE SUBTLE KNIFE by Philip Pullman dram. Lavinia Murray (dir. Janet Whitaker) (11.01.03)
Lulu Popplewell, Daniel Anthony, John Carlisle, Brid Brennan, Richard Johnson, Carla Simpson, Jack Klaff, Joanna Kanska, Stuart Fox, David Holt, Marlene Sidaway, Scott Brooksbank, Ewan Bailey, Victoria O’Donnell, Ray Fearon, Emma Fielding, Peter Marinker, Tracey-Ann Oberman, Richard Firth, Joanna Monro, Martin Hyder, Laura Doddington, Emma Woolliams, Gregg Prentice, Oliver Cookson, Simon Donaldson
KEEPING ANNE-MARIE by Dave Sheasby (06.01.03)
Geoffrey Whitehead, Hannah Storey, Jemma Churchill, Carolyn Pickles, Simon Donaldson, Sean Baker
HIS DARK MATERIALS: NORTHERN LIGHTS by Philip Pullman dram. Lavinia Murray (04.01.03)
Lulu Popplewell, Ray Fearon, Terence Stamp, Emma Fielding, Kenneth Cranham, Bill Paterson, Peter Marinker, Carla Simpson, Tracey-Ann Oberman, Steve Hodson, Gerard McDermott, Richard Firth, David Holt, Shaun Dooley, Ann Beach, Ben Crowe, Joanna Monro, Martin Hyder, Ioan Meredith, Leagh Comwell, Soumaya Keynes, Laura Doddington, Emma Woolliams, Gregg Prentice, Oliver Cookson, Simon Donaldson
2002
I LEFT MY HEART IN 1960 by Ronnie Smith (12.10.02)
A love story with music. Ever since 1960, when he first met Laura Wilson down the Lillie Road Youth Club, truck driver Bobby Buckley has always thought stardom was just around the corner.
Gerard McDermott, Jemma Churchill, Peter Marinker, Becky Hindley, Ben Crowe, Deborah Berlin, David Thorpe, Helen Longworth, Carl Prekopp, Dan Winter, Paula Jacob
CATCHING UP WITH CLIFFORD by Glenn Mitchell (30.08.02)
Roy Hudd stars as the infamous Nat Clifford, who travelled the world in various guises creating havoc in his wake. Nat Clifford (1870-1948) was a music hall comedian, silent movie actor, songwriter and much more. Continually elusive, he managed to leave a worldwide trail of adventure, mishap, mistresses and notoriety. This play with songs was written especially for the voices of the cast.
“What stars Roy Hudd, June Whitfield and Chris Emmett and has Pete Moss as musical director? Yes, The News Huddlines, but also Glenn Mitchell’s intriguing comic drama about the incredible life of Nat Clifford: acrobat, music hall comedian, writer, bigamist, faker of his own death, card-sharp, prison escapee and silent movie actor. Bringing Clifford’s hilarious, Candide-like life story to radio required a cast of thousands – so Mitchell opted for four: “Roy has a near unique empathy with the music hall comedians of that period [turn of the last century] and the versatility of June Whitfield, Chris Emmett and Michael Roberts enabled us to include a large cast of characters. It also helped me to ‘hear’ the performers’ voices during the writing.” Over the next 45 minutes you’ll also visit four continents before our talented adventurer dies in 1948. His death certificate lists his occupation as “retired missionary”.“
Roy Hudd, Chris Emmett, June Whitfield, Michael Roberts
JALLEBIES AND TEA by Bettina Gracias (24.06.02)
Asha has recently arrived in London from India with her husband. She is shy, lonely ana left in the flat all day long- until some extraordinary visitors materialise and change her life.
Nina Wadia, Ajay Chhabra, Renu Setna, Sameena Zehra, Saeed Jaffrey, Sudha Bhuchar, Peter Marinker
RESNICK: BIRD OF PARADISE by John Harvey (13.04.02)
Jerzy Grabianski is a high-class burglar with a passion for ornithology and British Impressionist paintings. Like jazz-loving DI Charlie Resnick, he has Polish roots, a firm sense of justice and a soft spot for the ladies – especially the energetic Sister Teresa.
Keith Barron, Sean Baker, Rachel Atkins, Gillian Bevan, Gerard McDermott, Blondell Taylor, Carl Prekopp, Ann Beach, Hannah Dee, Peter Marinker
FILE IT UNDER FICTION by Sheila Goff (28.03.02) – by Sheila Goff and students at National Student Drama Festival Scarborough.
KINGS: ABISHAG THE VIRGIN by Kate Clanchy (12.02.02)
One of five plays telling the story of King David’s s reign. David is dying in a fetid room tended by his latest, very young wife. Abishag. An earlier, now neglected wife, the infamous Bathsheba, mother of Solomon is enlisted by Nathan the Prophet to visit and promote Solomon as his anointed successor. With music by Sylvia Hallett.
Linda Bassett, Alison Pettitt, Christopher Godwin, David Timson
KINGS: HAZAR’S CHICKEN by Sebastian Backiewicz (04.01.02)
Bone, a young shepherd boy, meets David in the desert and is persuaded to act as his spy, seeking out King Saul’s troops. In a night-time raid, David steals Saul’s spear.
Tony Marshall, Adam Levy, Ewan Bailey, David Timson, Gerard Murphy, Helen Longworth
HANNAH & HANNA by John Retallack (01.01.02) World Service
Celia Meiras, Alyson Coote
THE STONE DIARIES (5) by Carol Shields dram. Briony Glasco and Claire Luckham (with Marion Nancarrow)
By Carol Shields , dramatised in five distinctive instalments by Claire Luckham and Briony Glassco. This remarkable fictional biography maps the life of Daisy Goodwill, an ordinary woman from rural Canada.
- Birth & Childhood (31.12.01)
1905-16: Birth and Childhood. A tale of overflowing love, an unexpected birth, lingeringgrief and anger, and the careful construction of a tower.
Liza Ross, Barbara Barnes, Teresa Gallagher, Peter Marinker, Ryan McCluskey, Briony Glassco, William Hope, Ewan Hooper, Chris Pavlo, Ewan Bailey
2. Marriage and Love (01.01.02)(dir. Marion Nancarrow)
1927-36: Marriage and Love. In Bloomington, Indiana, the girls are getting excited as preparations are in hand for Daisy’s wedding.
Barbara Barnes, Teresa Gallagher, Debora Weston, Peter Marinker, Buffy Davis, Walter Lewis, William Hope, Denica Fairman, Nancy Gair
3. Motherhood & Work (02.01.02)
1947-64: Motherhood and Work In Ottawa, Daisy runs a model home and marriage, and sows the seeds for a budding new career.
Barbara Barnes, William hope, Laurel Lefkow, Courtney Halgren, Kyle Dadd, Daniel Anthony, Vicki Simon, Josie Kook-Clark, Joanne McQuinn, Teresa Gallagher, Debora Weston, Garrick Hagon, Rick Bland, Andrea Muller
4. Sorrow & Ease (03.01.02) (dir.Liz Allard)
1965-77: Sorrow and Ease: Daisy Goodwill Flett’s family and friends confront her descent into a splattery anger.
Liza Ross, Laurel Lefkow, Kyle Dadd, Vicki Simon, Joanne McQuinn, Andrea Muller, Teresa Gallagher, Ryan McCluskey, Debora Weston, Ewan Hooper, Georgina Sowerby
5. Illness & Decline (04.
1985-93 Illness and Decline Agardening mishap upsets Daisy’s vigorous Florida retirement. Her family and friends have to confront their own responsibilities as well as Daisy’s increasingly wayward and colourful memories.
Liza Ross, Teresa Gallagher, Laurel Lefkow, Kyle Dadd, Sarah Mennell, Pat Starr, Marcia Warren, Margaret Robertson, John Schwab, Rick Bland, Sarah Paul
2001
GRACE AND THE ANGEL by Sheila Goff (20.12.01)
It is Christmas Eve in Ruislip and a rather disgruntled angel, resplendent in his exotic finery, lands rather clumsily in Grace’s back garden. Angel’s task is meant to be straightforward, the natural ending of one old lady, but Grace Booth is not going to go quietly.
Rudolph Walker, Marlene Sidaway, Carolyn Jones, Jonathan Kydd, Carolyn Pickles, Sean Baker, John Hartley, Peter Darney, Jonathan Forbes
TASTY MORSELS by Lindsay Jane Sedgewick (21.11.01)
Sandy Love can’t help thinking of men as varieties of cake: they are what they eat and how they eat. Each time she thinks it is true love and each time she loses a little more hope. In the end, most men are less than palatable. This is a bizarre quest for love in a world of cake.
Sarah Corbett, Carolyn Pickles, Suzanne Heathcote, Jonathan Forbes, Helen Longworth, Alastair Danson, Christopher Godwin, Richard Clements
FATAL LOINS by Perry Pontac (29.10.01)
What would have happened in Romeo and Juliet if Romeo had learnt from Friar Laurence that Juliet wasn’t dead and there was no reason for either of them to kill themselves? A great tragedy would have become a riotous comedy, which is just what happens in Perry Pontac’s irreverent blank verse reworking of one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays.
Sam West, Rachel Atkins, John Moffatt, Pam Ferris, Nancy Carroll, Ben Crowe, Ray Lonnen
THE TEMPEST by William Shakespeare (07.10.01) Radio 3
Philip Madoc, Nina Wadia, Catrin Rhys, Josh Richards, Rudolph Walker, James Laurenson, Christian Rodska, Ioan Meredith, Andrew Cryer, Ben Crowe, Harry Myers, Philip Joseph, Sean Baker, Janice Acquah, Jasmine Hyde, Clare Corbett
THE FLANDERS PANEL by Artura Perez-Reverte dram. Jonathan Holloway (03.09.01)
Jonathan Holloway ‘s dramatisation of Arturo Perez -Reverte’s thriller in which a hidden inscription in a medieval painting of a chess game sets a Spanish picture restorer on the path to solving murders.
Lizzie McInnerny, James Greene, Phillip Joseph, Jonathan Keeble, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Sean Baker, Timothy Davies, Janice Acquah
RESNICK: CHERYL by John Harvey (23.06.01)
While Nottingham-based, jazz-loving, exotic-sandwich eating DI Charlie Resnick pursues a gang of armed robbers, brightly attired meals-on-wheels woman Cheryl takes the law into her own hands on behalf of an elderly client. Their investigations collide.
Keith Barron, Gwen Taylor, Sean Baker, Kate Eaton, Joyce Gibbs, Jo Dyce, John Hartley, Jonathan Keeble, Tony Rohr, Kenny Blyth, Helen Ayres
MOONDIAL by Helen Cresswell (07.05.01)
Dramatised by Helen Cresswell from her own children’s novel. What happens to time when the moon shines on a sundial? When young Minty Cane goes to stay at her aunt’s rural cottage she soon discovers the secret power of the moondial in the garden of the big house over the road. It is up to her to travel, to make two new friends across the centuries, and to free them from cruelty and evil.
(Music Neil Brand)
Julia Hicks, Joe O’Brien, Laura Popplewell, Trevor Peacock, Kenny Blyth, Janice Acquah, Elizabeth Kelly, John Rowe, Rachel Atkins, Phillip Joseph, Jonathan Keeble, Clare Corbett, Ann Beach, Imelda Dooley Hunter, Isadora Dooley Hunter, Max Hope-Stone Bell, Jessica Peacock, Liberty Pollock
PICASSO AND CHIPS by Dave Sheasby (03.03.01)
Dave Sheasby ‘s international story of intrigue and wealth stars Geoffrey Whitehead , Phyllida Law and Clive Swift. The discovery in France of a drawing of Picasso’s first lover, Fernande Olivier, brings together small-time Rotherham art dealer Christopher Sanderson and earthy fish-and-chip shop proprietors Reg and Edna Mullins.
Geoffrey Whitehead, Phyllida Law, Clive Swift, John Hartley, Kenny Blyth, Thomas Arnold, Jennie Stoller, Rachel Davies
THE VISITOR’S BOOK by Stephen Mollett (16.01.01)
When two workmates take a holiday cottage together in St Ives, one seems to attract men like bees to a honeypot whilst the other finds her own form of seaside romance in the pages of the visitors’ book.
Siobhan Stamp, Gemma Saunders, Alastair Danson, Kenny Blyth
LIVES OUT OF STEP by Kaite O’Reilly (06.01.01) Radio 3
A constantly shifting soundscape of two lives intertwined – a woman and her son. One an emigre, beached in an overheated retirement home, the other an environmentalist caught in a frozen Antarctica with the voices of his heroes Shackleton and Scott.
Phyllida Law, Douglas Hodge, Kazia Pelka, Tawno Harper, Alex Trinder, Kenny Blyth, Daniel O’Grady, Richenda Carey, Terence Edmond, David Holt, Andrew Wincott
ROLLING HOME by Richard Monks (6 x 30) (05.01.01)
1: Jeanette’s ‘s Story. When Jeanette and ratcatcher husband Stephen win a two-berth musketeer and join the Southern Counties Caravanner’s Club, they find friendship, eccentricity and unexpected success in the manoeuvring contest.
2:Ron’s Story.Defeated last week in the caravan manoeuvring competition, long-time club chairman Ron Wheeler stands for re-election. But he is up against glamorous Carol in leather trousers, and a surprise visit from irrepressible former army colleague Nobby.
3: Ray’s Story. Longtime member of the Southern Counties Caravanners’ Club and budding entrepreneur, Ray sees a chance to make his fortune by importing cheap French beer in his caravan. But it is not all plain sailing.
4: Fran’s Story. Fran, now the rather reluctant First Lady of the Southern Counties Caravanner’s Club, fears that her prized 1928 Eccles will not win at the Caravan Show because the original badge is missing, so she seeks refuge in Steven and drink.
5. Audrey’s Story. The purchase of a top-of-the-range Duchess and a surprise meeting with an old, now titled, schoolfriend leads Audrey, grande dame of the Southern Counties Caravanners’ Club, to reconsider her lifestyle.
6. Steven ‘s Story. Chuffed to be appointed rally officer for the last caravan outing of the season, Steven takes the club to Selsey Bill where he finds childhood memories, an unusual catch and a particulary spectacular fireworks display.
Kenny Blyth, Bernard Hepton, Stephanie Cole, Annette Badland, Gerard McDermott, Clare Corbett, Helen Ayres, Thomas Arnold, Jasmine Hyde, Alex Trinder, Terence Edmond, James Taylor, Patience Tomlinson
2000
THE BRIDGE AT COOKHAM by Sheila Goff (13.12.00)
Three couples of three different generations joust in three simultaneous plays all set in the vicinity of the bridge over the Thames at Cookham. Written specially for the six actors who won the 2000 Carleton Hobbs BBC Radio Drama Bursary to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Radio Drama Repertory Company.
Ice Cream
A 40-year-old couple come to terms with the fact that their second child has left home.
Swans
A 22-year-old couple reach a clear turning point in their relationship down on the riverbank.
Sunburn
A 15-year-old couple are messing around on the bridge, their futures before them.
Helen Ayres, Thomas Arnold, Jasmine Hyde, Kenny Blyth, Clare Corbett, Simon Trinder
WRITING POETRY 2 (10.12.00) Feature Programme
Narrative Poetry. Guest poets Helen Dunmore and Glyn Maxwell join poet laureate
Andrew Motion to discuss the writing of narrative poetry, with examples from Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner and their own work.
Andrew Motion, Helen Dunmore, Glyn Maxwell
HOUSE by Sheila Goff (28.11.00)
Emma buys a house very like the one she grew up in. But when she buys a doll’s house a local craftsman has made in its image, subsequent events make her look at her life, past and present, from an entirely new perspective.
Jasmine Hyde, Julia Ford, David Thorpe
GOAN FLAME by Bettina Gracias (18.10.00)
Maria, an English-bred Goan, retires as a GP and travels to Goa for the first time to find her father’s house. Here she blossoms, but unearths some cold facts about Goan history. Music played by Anthony de Mello.
Josephine Welcome, Kaleem Janjua, Anjali Jay, Renu Setna, Neil D’Souza, Ravin J. Ganatra, Alison Pettitt, Daniel Cerqueira
MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE & RACHEL by Jeremy Thomas (05.09.00)
A comedy drama about two very different middle-aged men trying to bring up their teenage children in the same household.
Christopher Scott, Andrew Wincott, Tom George, Alison Pettitt, Suzanna Hamilton, Tracy Wiles
MURKE’S COLLECTED SILENCES by Heinrich Boll dram. Jonathan Holloway (4/9/00)
Dominic Letts, Roger Walker, Alison Pettitt, Tom George, Jeremy Wilkin, Gavin Muir
MOMENTUM by Lavinia Murray (25.06.00) RADIO 3
The 1936 Berlin Olympics Games signified the start of the Third Reich’s reign of terror and the fusion of sport and politics. Pilot and cameraman Walter Loeb, Jewish high-diver Misha and Dieter of the Hitler Youth are all engaged in the making of Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda film Olympia.
Kate Harper, Barbara Barnes, Alison Pettitt, Tom George, Sean Arnold, Robin Brown, Suzanna Hamilton, Andrew Wincott, Briony Glassco, Garrick Hagon, David Holt, David Thorpe, Robert Harper
LUCKY HEATHER (6 X 30) by Sue Teddern (4.2.00-10.3.00)
For a Few Dollars More
Just this side of nosey, western movie-mad Heather is the Sherlock Holmes of the rundown Sutter Estate. With the aid of daughter Natalie and her boyfriend Ryan, she is determined to help her community.This week helping a family with a sick child takes an unexpected turn.
Lindsey Coulson, Abigail Hart, Ben Crowe, Dearbhla Molloy, Beth Chalmers, Tom George
The Wild Bunch
This week she deals with formidable OAP Olive, is tormented by tearaway kids and succumbs to the charms of “antique dealer” and line dancer Tommy.
Lindsey Coulson, Abigail Hart, Ben Crowe, Dearbhla Molloy, Harry Myers, Elizabeth Kelly, Gemma Saunders
The Searchers
Emma thinks that her mother is having an affair and asks Heather to investigate.
Lindsey Coulson, Abigail Hart, Ben Crowe, Kelly Wright, Zeina Harding-Roots, Christopher Kelham, Janice Acquah
Unforgiven
Recently widowed Denis hires Heather to trace his first love Yvonne.
Lindsey Coulson, Abigail Hart, Ben Crowe, Dearbhla Molloy, James Taylor, Gemma Saunders, Lisa Kay, Elizabeth Bell
True Grit
Heather used to clean for Angela. Now Angela suspects her teenage daughter is on drugs and asks Heather to investigate.
Lindsey Coulson, Abigail Hart, Ben Crowe, Jilly Ryan, Gavin Muir, Tim Treloar
High Noon
16 years ago, Heather’s best friend Dawn ran off with Heather’s man Joe. Now Dawn has the cheek to ask Heather to check if Joe is having an affair!
Lindsey Coulson, Abigail Hart, Ben Crowe, Dearbhla Molloy, Tessa Peake-Jones, Gavin Muir, Gerard McDermott, David Holt
A CATAPULT AND A LADIES’ SPIN by Sheila Goff (05.01.00)
Forty-year-old James lives with his mother and dances twice a week at the Lizard
Lounge. He meets Frances, a recent divorce in search of a vibrant social life.
Roger Walker, Elizabeth Bell, Sandra Voe, Rudolph Walker, Gavin Muir,
Singers: John Peade, Jacqui Hicks, Patti Revell, Hilary Cameron
1999
THE LIFE OF THE BEE by Maurice Maeterlinck dram. Graham Mort (26.11.99)
A classic scientific text on the life cycle of the bee. Sexual conflicts, politics and eugenics all form undercurrents in this glimpse into the secret society of the hive, where survival dictates everything. Music Mario Verandi.
Philip Voss, Margaret Robertson, Shuna Snow, Beth Chalmers, Fiona Clarke, Tom George, (Mario Verandi)
DONKEYS LED BY LIONS by Dave Sheasby (12.11.99)
Teacher Arthur Willis battles his conscience over fighting in the Great War, with devastating consequences.
Ian Dunn, Joan Walker, Andrew Cryer, Ryan Parkinson, John Evitts, Andrea Gascoigne, Gavin Muir, David Williams, Sean Baker, Tom George, Christopher Kelham, Tim Treloar
THE SURPRISE SUMMER by Jonathan Holloway (16-20.08.99) recorded on location at the 1999 Edinburgh Festival.
When ex-teacher John Hunter takes his one-man show to the 1999 Edinburgh Fringe, he finds a tacky venue, a perky technician and a beautiful barmaid. Recorded on location at the Festival including a one-man stand-up show before an audience.
Stephen Critchlow, Tracy Wiles, Finlay Welsh, Becky Hindley, Alastair Cording, Alex Rowe, Jayne McKenna
HEARING SENSE by Richard Monks (09.07.99) won a SONY SILVER AWARD
Michael is a sound-recordist. He has a collection far more extensive than any effects library but something in his past weighs increasingly heavy – and he warns us not to believe all that we hear….
Gavin Muir, Rachel Atkins, Tessa Worsley, David Allister, Stephen Critchlow, James Butcher, Yasmin Hickson, Ben Crowe, Alex Edyvean
SHARING FATMAN (6) by Dave Sheasby (7/5/99 – 11/6/99)
A six-part horse-racing comedy by Dave Sheasby, following on from the serial One Flat Summer. Margaret and Ken Warburton decide to invest their winnings in a horse.
Gillian Bevan, Gerard McDermott, Tony Rohr, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Rachel Atkins, James Taylor, Harry Myers, Angela Wynter, Becky Hindley, Fine Time Fontayne, Stephen Critchlow
NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T by Jonathan Holloway(Postcards) (10-14/5/99)
Andy returns to Porthant Bay smitten with both glamorous South African Jennie and their new surfboard venture
Tristan Sturrock, Alison Pettitt, Russell Boulter, Diana Berriman, Cassandra Holliday, Becky Hindley, Will Keen
FISHER OF MEN by David Constantine (12/3/99)
Told partly in verse, this is the story of the terrible wreck of The Royal Charter on the rocks of Anglesey in 1859, and the devastating effect this has on the isolated community of Moelfre.
Marged Esli, Lisabeth Miles, Wynfydd Chase, Ian Masters, Howell Evans, Robert Harper, Andy Hockley, Rhodri Hugh, Harry Myers, John Ogwen, Ioan Meredith, (Linda Healy)
NET SUICIDE by Stephen Wyatt (22.02.99)
Michael Scantgrace is a City dealer facing complete ruin when he stumbles across the Suicide Club on the internet. Should he sign up?
Gerard McDermott, Tracy-Ann Oberman, David Brooks, John Rowe
DONA FLOR AND HER TWO HUSBANDS (3) by Jorge Amado dram. Stuart Morris (17.01.99 – 31.01.99) Classic Serial
1: No Wake without Rum. In Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, Dona Ror , the youthful and sensuous proprietor of a cooking school, is wooed by the disreputable but utterly charming Vadinho.
2: Lips that Kiss. In Salvador da Bahia,
Brazil, seven years of tempestuous but passionate marriage to the dissolute Vadinho have left the young widow Dona For aching with loss and desire.
3: Second Coming. In Salvador da
Bahia, Brazil, the young widow Dona Flor has married the respectable, bassoon-playing pharmacist, DrTeodoro. But she is not allowed to forget the dissolute Vadinho, her first husband.
Shirley Dixon, Lesley Carvello, Tristan Sturrock, Lloyd Notice, Tilly Gaunt, Mia Soteriou, Barbara Barnes, Adjoa Andoh, Burt Caesar, Frances Jeater, Elizabeth Conboy, Priyanga Elan, Paul J Medford
1998
CLIVE by Stephanie Norgate (16.12.98)
The true impact of sharing their home with foster brother Clive comes home to sisters Sally and Liz one evening ten years later.
Ben Crowe, Tessa Peake-Jones, Priyanga Elan, Siobhan Stamp
THE DARK HORSE by Rumer Godden dram. Liane Aukin (05.09.98)
Set in Calcutta in 1933, this is the story of a great racehorse, the Sisters of Poverty and a miracle – all based on true events.
Gareth Armstrong, Geoffrey Whitehead, Indira Varma, Frances Jeater, Nitin Chandra Ganatra, Richard Rees, David Antrobus, Dearbhla Molloy, Nicholas Grace, Ioan Meredith
MR LOVEDAY’S LITTLE OUTING by Evelyn Waugh dram. Jonathan Holloway (30.07.98)
When Angela Moping visits her eccentric father in the asylum, she is curiously affected by the situation of his very loyal secretary Mr Loveday.
Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Charlotte Attenborough, Stephen Thorne, Ian Masters, James Taylor, David Antrobus, Tom Smith, David Timson
DOGS by Sheila Goff (28.07.98)
A black comedy of revenge set in Dogs’ Bodies Kennels and Pet Emporium, Pinner.
Tina Gray, Shirley Dixon, Frances Jeater, Geoffrey Whitehead
THE FALL by Jonathan Holloway (Postcards) (27-31.07.98)
Joe Dunlop, Becky Hindley, Sean Arnold, Tristan Sturrock, Elaine Pyke, Charlotte Coleman
THE REAL DENNIS TRUELOVE by Dave Sheasby (Postcards) (08.06.98)
It is the very end of the season when bank clerk Dennis turns up in Porthant Bay.
Fine Time Fontayne, Denys Hawthorne, Iwan Thomas
BASIC MAGIC by John Peacock (Postcards) (01-05.06.98)
A woman arrives in Porthant Bay with just a handbag and a dog.
Becky Hindley, Gerard McDermott, Sean Arnold, Diana Berriman, Rosemary Leach, John Hartley, Brian Parr
GONE FISHING by Nick Darke (Postcards) (25-29.05.98)
Before he goes away to college, will young Paul stay and work for his mother in the Porthant Bay Cafe or on his father’s fishing boat?
Mike Shepherd, Bec Applebee, Rachel Atkins, Sue Hill, Sean Baker, James Taylor, Iwan Thomas, Jenny Lee, Diana Berriman, Carl Grose
THE LAST WALTZ by Sue Teddern (Postcards) (18-22.05.98)
When Charlotte takes a much-needed break, she is not, at first, enamoured of Matthew.
Alice Arnold, Jane Whittenshaw, David Brookes, Alison Pettitt, Gerard McDermott, Sean Arnold, Christopher Scott, Russell Boulter, Iwan Thomas
FLIGHT TO ARRAS by Antoine de Saint-Exupery dram. Rod Wooden (22.05.98)
In this story of a single, suicidal reconnaissance flight over German-occupied France, Saint-Exupery rises above the clouds, the cold and the bullets.
John Rowe, Jenny Lee, Christopher Wright, Brian Parr, Alison Pettitt, Iwan Thomas, David Threlfall, Peter Kenny, Robert Harper
SPRING TIDE by Jonathan Holloway (Postcards) (20-24.4.98)
When Charlotte takes a much-needed break, she is not, at first, enamoured of Matthew.
Iwan Thomas, Becky Hindley, Tristan Sturrock, Sean Arnold, Nick Marlow, Elaine Pyke, Tim McInnerny
MOTHERS’ DAY: WANNABE by Sue Teddern (15.04.98)
When young Kelly Worthington is selected for a new all-girl band, her ambitious mother glimpses success in the wings.
Gerard McDermott, Iwan Thomas, Lesley Carvello, Rachel Atkins, Alison Pettitt, Tessa Peake-Jones,
Sarah Rice, Tom Watt, (Judith Pettitt – piano)
SHIFTING THE LEAVES by Dave Sheasby (Postcards) (06.04.98)
Alison Pettitt, Shirley Dixon, Elizabeth Bradley, June Barrie, Tristan Sturrock
RESNICK: SLOW BURN (1 & 2) by John Harvey (19 & 26.01.98)
Philip Jackson, Sean Baker, Kate Eaton, John Rowe, Alison Pettitt, Gerard Mcdermott, Alastair Danson, John Hartley, Jenny Lee, Carolyn Jones, Rachel Atkins, Iwan Thomas, Peter Kenny
WILL YOU LOVE ME TOMORROW? By Sheila Goff (20.01.98)
An alternative version of the sixties. A chance meeting between Carol and old boyfriend George conjures up their Walthamstow past.
Sarah Rice, Siobhan Stamp, Gerard McDermott, Jaqui Hicks (singer), Jenny Howe (singer), Patti Revell (singer)
1997
THE AFFAIR AT GROVER STATION by Willa Cather dram. Jonathan Holloway (27.12.97)
A classic American ghost tale by Jonathan Holloway, based on Willa Cather’s short story. Forced to camp overnight by the Wyoming trackside close to Grover Station, “Terrapin” Rodgers recounts to his old college acquaintance Will Carter how he solved the riddle of his friend’s death last New Year’s Eve. His storytelling draws Carter into a terrifying experience that will haunt him for ever.
Tom Watt, John Rowe, Alastair Danson, Hugh Dickson, Carolyn Jones, Gerard McDermott, Alison Pettitt, Iwan Thomas, Sarah Rice, Kerry Shale, Stuart Milligan, Nancy Crane, (Ross Brown)
THE NATION’S FAVOURITE POEMS (25.12.97) (cassette)
Siobhan Redmond, John Nettles, Greg Wise, Emma Fielding
A ROCK ‘N’ ROLL CHRISTMAS by Sue Teddern (25.12.97)
Carolyn Jones, Gerard McDermott, Rachel Atkins, John Rowe, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Alan Blyton, Brian Parr, Hugh Dickson, Jenny Stoller, Stephen Tompkinson
CHRISTMAS DAY (5) by Paul Durcan (22-26.12.97) (cassette)
In three parts, Paul begins reading his book-length poem that sets out a funny, sweetly sad and often irreverent vision of Christmas. Accustomed to loneliness, Paul accepts his friend Frank’s invitation for Christmas lunch.
Paul Durcan
SPECIAL TERMS by Ronald Frame (18.12.97)
Tom Smith
THE ETIQUETTE OF FRIENDSHIP by Stephen Mollett (18.11.97)
Jean and Will are old friends. Both have unsatisfactory love lives. She is outwardly confident, American. He is thoroughly English, reticent. They marry so that Jean can stay in the country. This begins to undermine the rock of their friendship.
Cathryn Harrison, Robert Harper
THE LIFTED VEIL (dir. Jane Morgan) (05 & 12.10.97)
Toby Stephens, Edward Michie, Tim Pigott-Smith, Vivien Heilbron, Abigail Docherty, Simon Scardifield, Ian Hughes, John Rowe, Rachel Atkins, Hugh Dickson, Tracy Ann Oberman, Christopher Wright
ELECTRICITY by Victoria Glendinning dram. John Peacock (25.08.97 & 01.09.97)
1: Nothing Is Forever. 1880, Charlotte Mortimer escapes her family home by marrying Peter Fisher , a prophet of the new science of electricity.
2: Let There Be Light. New Year’s Eve 1885. Charlotte
Fisher attends a party where she is to discover new spiritualist powers.
Timothy Davies, Stephen Thorne, Christopher Wright, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Becky Hindley, Lesley Carvello, Andrew Cryer, Gerard McDermott, Jenny Lee, Shirley Dixon, Ian Masters, David Brooks, Rachel Atkins, Ann Beach
ONE FLAT SUMMER 1(x6) by Dave Sheasby (21.08.97)
1: The Craven Stakes. Newly redundant Ken is drawn into the world of gambling.
2: The 2000 Guineas. Excited by a win at Newmarket, redundant Ken is drawn deeper into the world of serious gambling.
3: The Derby. Ken has got gambling plans for a big race, but what about the cost at home?
4: The Eclipse Stakes. A big loss on the Derby has shattered Ken’s gambling partnership with Betting-Shop Curly, and he now turns to
Racecourse Rita and the legendary Tam Robertshaw.
5: Ken becomes a courier for Racecourse Rita.
6. Unable to locate the money he liberated as courier for the lovely Racecourse Rita , Ken is being pursued.
Gerard McDermott, Gillian Bevan, Rachel Atkins, Keith Marsh, Anthony Ofoegbu, David Brooks, Andrea Pickering, Stephen Thorne, Tracy Ann Oberman, Hugh Dickson
BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT by Simon Block (07.07.97)
For five years, three amateur astronomers have met once a month. Tonight their routine world is knocked out of its orbit.
Sheila Allen, Rachel Atkins, Sean Baker, Alex Edyvean, Jack Hollis, Ioan Meredith, James Taylor, Tom Watt
DIAMONDS: DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND by John Peacock (02.06.97)
John Peacock ‘s play trilogy follows the progress of a flawed light Cape diamond and the fortunes of the Hallam family over 120 years.
Carolyn Jones, Ian Masters, Janet Maw, Alison Pettitt, Sean Baker
DIAMONDS: THE DIAMOND JOUST by John Peacock (26.05.97)
Jonathan Firth, Tracy Ann Obermann, Ioan Meredith, Shirley Dixon, Deborah Berlin, Andrew Conlan, Sean Baker, Melanie Hudson, Burt Caesar, Alex Lowe, Gerard McDermott
DIAMONDS: STARS OF THE ORANGE RIVER by John Peacock (19.05.97)
Jonathan Firth, Gerard McDermott, Miles Anderson, Burt Caesar, Melanie Hudson, Don McCorkindale, Claira Mackie, David Jarvis, Sean Baker, Shirley Dixon, Alex Lowe, Tracy Ann Oberman
WATERLAND 2 by Graham Swift dram. Steve Chambers (24.03.97)
With time flowing back on itself, history teacher Tom Crick continues to tell the watery stories of Fenland family history: of a child stolen, a child murdered and a child whose father believes he will be the saviour of the world.
Roy Marsden, Tom Bevan, Deborah Findlay, Lesley Carvello, Sean Baker, Peter Gunn, Alan Blyton, Chris Pavlo, Colleen Prendergast, Alex Lowe, Christopher Scott, Peter Tuddenham, Stephen Critchlow, Joanne Hildon, Ioan Meredith, Andrew Branch, Jilly Bond, Mark Bonnar, Hugh Dickson, Ann Beach, Gerard McDermott, John Hartley
WATERLAND 1 by Graham Swift dram. Steve Chambers (17.03.97)
One summer’s day in 1943, lock-keeper Henry Crick finds a drowned body. Forty years later, his son Tom, a history teacher, begins to tell the strange story of his Fenland family.
Roy Marsden, Tom Bevan, Deborah Findlay, Lesley Carvello, Sean Baker, Peter Gunn, Chris Pavlo, Colleen Prendergast, Christopher Scott, Joanne Hildon, Andrew Branch, Mark Bonnar, Hugh Dickson, Ann Beach, Alan Blyton, Alex Lowe, Peter Tuddenham, Stephen Critchlow, Ioan Meredith, Gerard Mcdermott
SPOONFACE STEINBERG by Lee Hall (dir. Kate Rowland)
Spoonface is seven years old, autistic and terminally ill with cancer. She’s fascinated by opera and by the way her parents behave. With the help of their cleaner, Mrs Spud, she tries to come to terms with her extraordinary life.
I was Commissioning Editor for the 60′ Monday Afternoon Drama slot at this time and we hit the mark with the fourth piece in a series by Lee Hall, directed by Kate Rowland and performed by the young Becky Simpson. Responses encouraged Radio 4 to repeat the piece the following Saturday afternoon.
1996
GHOST POEMS – Voices in Empty Rooms (25.12.96)
Ken Smith, Liz Lochhead, U.A. Fanthorpe, Greg Wise
VICTORIA STATION 2: SILENT NIGHT TRAIN by Steve Chambers (18.12.96)
Chris Pavlo, Pauline Letts, Tom Bevan, Becky Hindley, Keith Drinkel, Alex Lowe, Mary Roscoe, Adjoa Andoh, Shirley Dixon, Joanna Monro, Peter Gunn, Stephen Thorne, Sean Baker, Christopher Scott, Gavin Muir, John Hartley, Colleen Prendergast
VICTORIA STATION 2: EXPRESS DESIRE by Steve Chambers (11.12.96)
Sean Baker, Gavin Muir, John Hartley, Colleen Prendergast, Chris Pavlo, Pauline Letts, Tom Bevan, Becky Hindley, Robert Harper, Keith Drinkel, Alex Lowe, Ioan Meredith, Peter Gunn, James Taylor, Tracy Wiles, Joanna Monro, Stephen Thorne
VICTORIA STATION 2: TICKETS PLEASE by Steve Chambers (04.12.96) (dir. Marion Nancarrow)
Chris Pavlo, Tom Bevan, Becky Hindley, Robert Harper, Keith Drinkel, Alex Lowe, Michael Tudor Barnes, James Daley, Ashley Moore, Ann Beach, Alice Arnold, Ioan Meredith, Kim Wall
VICTORIA STATION 2: GOODS PERISHABLE by Steve Chambers (27.11.96)
Sean Baker, Christopher Scott, Gavin Muir, John Hartley, Colleen Prendergast, Chris Pavlo, Pauline Letts, Tom Bevan, Becky Hindley, Robert Harper, Keith Drinkel, Alex Lowe, Mark Bonnar, Shirley Dixon, Ioan Meredith, Shaun Prendergast, Amanda Gordon
NORTHERN LIGHTS by Clare Bayley (02.11.96)
Sean Baker, Mark Bonnar, Elaine Claxton, Becky Hindley, Joanna Monro, Chris Pavlo, Colleen Prendergast, Elaine Pyke, Garry Robson, Mozaffar Shafele
Disabled Actors’ Workshop
THE JOKE by Stephen Mollett (17.10.96)
John Nettles, Colleen Prendergast, Denys Hawthorne, Pauline Letts, Ioan Meredith, Jonathan Kitchens, Joanna Monro, Sean Baker, Chris Pavlo
BOOKER AT BEDTIME 1996 (Executive Producer)
An extract from each of the six books on the 1996 shortlist was read as Booker at Bedtime from Monday 3 October to Monday 10 October 1996 before the prize was awarded on Tuesday 29 October to Graham Swift for Last Orders.
Monday 21 October 1: Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. Producer Jonquil Panting.
Tuesday 22 October 2: Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge. Producer Debbie Waddell.
Wednesday 23 October 3: Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane. Producer Gemma Jerkins.
Thursday 24 October 4: Orchard of Fire by Sheena McKay. Producer Jackie Nichols.
Friday 24 October 5: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Producer Alex Burrett.
Monday 28 October 6: Last Orders. By Graham Swift. Producer Jocelyn Boxall.
Tuesday 29 October: Graham Swift: Last Orders, a second extract. Producer David Hunter.
SAD by Sheila Goff (02.07.96)
Twenty-five years ago today, Kay exchanged country-singing stardom for a company car. Now she is visited by the all-too-familiar Jay, the original rhinestone cowgirl.
Song by Sheila Goff and Polly Hewett , performed by Alice Arnold. Polly Hewett and Margo Sagov.
Sheila Hancock, Alice Arnold, Sean Baker
MY WAY: SID VICIOUS by Sue Teddern (29.05.96)
Gillian Bevan, Peter Kenny, Charles Simpson, Colleen Prendergast, Robert Harper, Keith Drinkel
THE BOOKSHOP by Penelope Fitzgerald (27.05.96 – 07.06.96) Book at Bedtime
Maggie Steed
CUTTING EDGE 1,2,3 (RESNICK) by John Harvey (13.05.96 -27.05.96)
Tom Georgeson, Sean Baker, Kate Eaton, Paul Bazeley, Ben Porter, Denys Hawthorne, Jane Whittenshaw, Nicholas Boulton, John Simm, Adrian Scarborough, Don McCorkindale, Peter Kenny, Gillian Bevan, Alice Arnold, Patience Tomlinson, Colleen Prendergast, James Taylor, Zulema Dene, George Parsons, Philip Weaver,
Ann Beach, John Hartley, Stella Duffy, Roger May, Jennie Stoller, Colleen Prendergast, Liz Simcock (song), Theme sung by Gillian Bevan & Trevor Watkis
DADA HIS DOODAHS by Henry Livings (08.05.96)
Jane Whittenshaw
THE BRAHMIN AND THE LADY by Mike Harris (04.05.96)
Renu Setna, Sam Dastor, Celia Imrie, Julian Wadham, Gerard O’Hagan, Nisha K Nayar, Nitin Chandra Ganatra, Kulvinder Ghir, Rashid Karapiet, Bhasker, Shiv Grewal, David Timson, Patience Tomlinson
THE TRINKET BOX by Ronald Frame (14.02.96)
John Gordon-Sinclair
1995
SEATON’S AUNT by Walter de la Mare dram. Jonathan Holloway (30.12.95)
Zulema Dene, Teresa Gallagher, John Hartley, Jonathan Keeble, Margaret Robertson, Patience Tomlinson, Melinda Walker, Sam West, Tracy Wiles, Andrew Wincott, Tessa Worsley
GO FOR THE GRAIL by Alison Joseph (27.11.95)
Rachel Atkins, David Collings, Rosy Fordham, Garrick Hagon, Jonathan Keeble, Linda Regan, Caroline Strong, Patience Tomlinson, Jane Whittenshaw
BOOKER AT BEDTIME 1995
THE RIDERS by Tim Winton (06.11.95)
Stephen Critchlow
MORALITY PLAY by Barry Unsworth (03.11.95)
Andrew Branch
THE MOORS LAST SIGH by Salman Rushdie ((02.11.95)
Shiv Grewal
IN EVERY FACE I MEET by Justin Cartwright (01.11.95)
David Timson
THE GHOST ROAD by Pat Barker (BOOKER WINNER 1995)(31.10.95)
Ross Livingstone
A LITTLE ROOM by Lance Croft (26.10.95) [Young Playwrights Festival]
Jonathan Keeble, John Hartley, Zulema Dene, Tracy Wiles
(Musicians: Melanie Bush, Gordon Campbell, Herbie Flowers, Simon Gunton, Anne Morfee, Kate Musker, Dai Pritchard, Missak Takoushian, David Trigwell, Mark Warman)
ARK-ANGEL by Jackie Proctor (17.10.95)
Jilly Bond
WASTED YEARS (RESNICK) 2 by John Harvey (09.10.95)
Tom Wilkinson, Sean Baker, Daniel Ryan, Kate Eaton, Gavin Abbott, Tom Bevan, David Timson, John Turner, Andrew Branch, John Hartley, Jennie Stoller, Jonathan Keeble, Stephen Critchlow, Sandra James-Young, Gillian Bevan, Melanie Hudson, Deborah Berlin
WASTED YEARS (RESNICK) 1 by John Harvey (02.10.95)
“Where bringing Resnick to the radio is concerned, I was fortunate to work throughout with an experienced and sympathetic producer, David Hunter. We began in 1995 with a 2 part dramatisation of the fifth Resnick novel, Wasted Years, and then, a year later, a triple episode version of the third novel, Cutting Edge. Slow Burn, broadcast in 1998, was from an original two-part script, set in and around a Nottingham jazz club and later published as a short story, and this was followed in 2001 and 2002 by two single plays, Cheryl and Bird of Paradise.”
Tom Wilkinson, Sean Baker, Daniel Ryan, Kate Eaton, Gavin Abbott, Tom Bevan, John Turner, Andrew Branch, John Hartley, Jennie Stoller, Stephen Critchlow, Sandra James-Young, Becky Hindley, Gillian Bevan, Zulema Dene, Melanie Hudson, Jilly Bond
AFRICA POEMS (11.09.95) R3 Interval
Ben Onwukwe, Susan Aderin
DEALING WITH JACKALS by Betty Burton (16.08.95)
Stephen Critchlow
THE WAITRESS AT THE GLOCKENSPIEL by Ronald Frame (12.07.95)
Becky Hindley
MATT, BLACK AND CHROME by Dominic Minghella (15.06.95)
Vincenzo Nicoli, David Holt, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Irene Prador, Robert Rietty, Elaine Claxton, Susannah Corbett, Peter Whitman, Nadine Ballantyne, Benedict Dooley, Vivienne Rochester, Cathy Sara
MATEO FALCONE by Prosper Merrimee dram. Peter Mackie (12.03.95)
Andrew Branch, Jack Klaff, Joshua Towb, David Antrobus, Tom Knight, Ian Masters, Andrew Wincott, Tom Bevan, Natasha Pyne, Jonathan Adams
VICTORIA STATION 1: OVER THE POINTS by Steve Chambers (01.02.95)
Sean Baker, Tom Bevan, Jilly Bond, Julia Ford, Joyce Gibbs, John Hartley, Becky Hindley, Philip Jackson, Tom Knight, Pauline Letts, Don McCorkindale, Gavin Muir, Lloyd Notice, George Parsons, Tim Seely, Ian Taylor, Stephen Thorne, Joshua Towb, Peter Whitman
VICTORIA STATION 1: FOG WARNINGS by Steve Chambers (25.01.95) (dir. Celia de Wolff)
Sean Baker, Deborah Berlin, Tom Bevan, Jilly Bond, Nicholas Collett, Julia Ford, John Hartley, Becky Hindley, Philip Jackson, Tom Knight, Pauline Letts, Don McCorkindale, Gavin Muir, Lloyd Notice, Joshua Towb, Michael Tudor Barnes, Peter Yapp
VICTORIA STATION 1: FIRST CLASS DISTINCTION by Steve Chambers (18.01.95) (dir. Celia de Wolff)
Elizabeth Anson, Sean Baker, Tom Bevan, Julia Ford, Ronald Herdman, Becky Hindley, Philip Jackson, Tom Knight, David B Miller, Gavin Muir, Lloyd Notice, George Parsons, Ian Peck, Oliver Senton, Jane Slavin, Michael Tudor Barnes, Joshua Towb, Peter Whitman
VICTORIA STATION 1: TUNNEL VISION by Steve Chambers (11.01.95)
Sean Baker, Tom Bevan, Nicholas Collett, David Collings, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Julia Ford, John Hartley, Becky Hindley, Philip Jackson, Tom Knight, Pauline Letts, Ian Masters, Gavin Muir, Annabel Mullion, Lloyd Notice, Joshua Towb
VICTORIA STATION 1: SIGNAL FAILURE by Steve Chambers (04.01.95) (dir. Celia de Wolff)
Sean Baker, Deborah Berlin, Tom Bevan, Julia Ford, John Hartley, Becky Hindley, Philip Jackson, Frances Jeater, Tom Knight, Pauline Letts, Gavin Muir, Lloyd Notice, Michael Tudor Barnes, Stephen Thorne, Joshua Towb
1994
NAME GAMES by Michael Dorris (07.11.94)
Debora Weston
BOOKER AT BEDTIME 1994
HOW LATE IT WAS, HOW LATE by James Kelman (BOOKER WINNER 1994) (11.10.94)
Gavin Muir
KNOWLEDGE OF ANGELS by Jill Paton Walsh (10.10.94)
Natasha Pyne
BESIDE THE OCEAN OF TIME by George Mackay Brown (07.10.94)
Kristin Milward
THE FOLDING STAR by Alan Hollinghurst (05.10.94)
Gavin Muir
PARADISE by Abdulrazak Gurnah (04.10.94)
Ben Onwukwe
REEF by Romesh Gunesekera (03.10.94)
Lyndam Gregory
STAY STUM by Sheila Goff (06.10.94)
“I want people to think I knocked off my wife and buried her in the back garden” Peter Sallis plays suburban wimp Alan Stamp in Sheila Goff’s comedy. Is the worm about to turn?
Peter Sallis, Desmond Barrit, Alice Arnold, Margaret John, Tina Gray, Gareth Armstrong, Oona Beeson
THE STONE DIARIES by Carol Shields dram. Alison Joseph Book at Bedtime (19.09.94 – 30.09.94)
Shelley Thompson
ON THE TRAIL OF THE GREAT BUSTARD by Sean Gilbert (13.08.94)
Rachel Atkins, Nicholas Boulton, Tina Gray, David Bannerman
GOAT by John McKay (18.07.94) short story
John McKay
THE PACT by Joyce Carol Oates (05.04.94) short story
Stuart Milligan
BENEATH THE SURFACE by Henry Livings (02.03.94) short story
Jim Broadbent
1993
RHINO SKIN by Moy McCrory (17.11.93) short story
Dorien Thomas
JAMES JOHNSON’S STORY by Jolyon Maugham (04.11.93)
Garrick Hagon, James Aubrey, Barbara Barnes, David Healy, Peter Whitman, Sidney Cole, John Evitts, Jill Graham, David Holt, Teresa Gallagher, Julian Rhind-Tutt
BOOKER AT BEDTIME 1993
CROSSING THE RIVER by Caryl Philips (26.10.93)
Rachel Atkins
THE STONE DIARIES by Carol Shields
Shelley Thompson
UNDER THE FROG by Tibor Fischer (19.10.93)
Dominic Letts
REMEMBERING BABYLON by David Malouf (21.10.93)
Barry J Gordon
SCAR TISSUE by Michael Ignatieff (20.10.93)
David Jarvis
PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA by Roddy Doyle (BOOKER WINNER 1993)(18.10.93)
Dermot Crowley
BIOLOGICAL RADIO by Mike Ladd (09.10.93)
Vary always knows what is on Vyakov’s mind – she is telepathic and knows he is in love with her even before he can tell her. But can love survive Stalin’s purges?
Andrew Sachs, Emma Fielding, Lynne Verrall, Geoffrey Bayldon, Gareth Armstrong, Tina Gray, John Evitts, Dominic Letts, Lyndam Gregory, Oona Beeson, Gregory Bradley, Nadine Ballantyne
GLASS by Shena Mackay (01.09.93) short story
Diana Payan
THIRTY YEARS IS PEARL by Sheila Goff (25.08.93)
“Mix ‘n’ Mingle” with the veteran cruisers on board the Azure Dolphin in Sheila Goff ‘s maritime comedy.
James Grout, James Greene, Sheila Reid, Ivor Roberts, Jamie Garven, William Ingram, Lawmary Champion, Stevie Parry
STOP THE CHILDREN’S LAUGHTER by Henry Livings (14.06.93)
Barry Rutter, Elizabeth Spriggs, David Holt, Paul Copley, Freda Dowie, Kate O’Regan, Steven Maden, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Philip Anthony, John Baddeley, Henry Livings, Jill Graham, Rachel Atkins, Robin Walker (music), Children of Saddleworth School
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton dram. Christopher Reason (x6) (19.05.93)
1.
Andrew Wincott, Suzanne Bertish, Cathryn Harrison, Margaret Robertson, Liza Ross, Elizabeth Spriggs, Philip Bond, Bill Bellamy, Don Fellows, Lawmary Champion, Christian Rodska, Siriol Jenkins, Richard Nichols, Ray Jewers
2.
Andrew Wincott, Suzanne Bertish, Cathryn Harrison, William Marsh, Liza Ross, Philip Bond, Jill Graham, Don Fellows, Ray Jewers, Peggy Mason, Brian Greene, Siriol Jenkins, Firenza Guidi
3.
Andrew Wincott, Suzanne Bertish, Cathryn Harrison, Margaret Robertson, William Marsh, Liza Ross, Elizabeth Spriggs, Philip Bond, Matthew Morgan, Bill Bellamy, Jill Graham
4.
Andrew Wincott, Suzanne Bertish, Cathryn Harrison, Margaret Robertson, William Marsh, Yves Aubert, Richard Nichols, Melanie Hudson, Jill Graham, Bill Bellamy, Elizabeth Spriggs, Siriol Jenkins
5.
Andrew Wincott, Suzanne Bertish, Cathryn Harrison, Margaret Robertson, William Marsh, Yves Aubert, Ray Jewers, Brian Greene, Liza Ross, Richard Nichols, Melanie Hudson
6.
Andrew Wincott, Liza Ross, Suzanne Bertish, Cathryn Harrison, Margaret Robertson, William Marsh, Ray Jewers, Elizabeth Spriggs, Christian Rodska
WEDNESDAYS AND FRIDAYS by Elizabeth Jolley (17.05.93) short story
Carol Boyd
THE GURNET by Suzy Gilmour (14.04.93) short story
Brid Brennan
THE RADIO ASTRONOMER by Joyce Carol Oates (03.03.93) short story
Liza Ross
1992
THE RIDGE by Roy MacGregor (15.10.92)
Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Adie Allen, Donald Gee, Jonathan Firth, Melanie Hudson, Matthew Morgan, Gordon Reid
BOOKER AT BEDTIME 1992
SACRED HUNGER by Barry Unsworth (JOINT BOOKER WINNER 1992) (12.10.92)
Dorien Thomas
DAUGHTERS OF THE HOUSE by Michele Roberts (09.10.92)
Marilyn le Conte
THE ENGLISH PATIENT by Michael Ondaatje (JOINT BOOKER WINNER 1992) (08.10.92)
Euron Griffith
BLACK DOGS by Ian McEwan (07.10.92)
David Dooley
THE BUTCHER BOY by Patrick McCabe (06.10.92)
Brendan Charleson
SERENITY HOUSE by Christopher Hope (05.10.92)
Alan Towner
ULVERTON by Adam Thorpe (30.09.92) R3 Interval Reading
Adam Thorpe
THE KING’S HOSTAGE by Diana Griffiths (26.06.92)
Sheila Allen, Nicola Goodchild
AT HIRUHARAMA by Penelope Fitzgerald (04.05.92) short story
Susan Curnow
BILL SPROCKETT’S LAND by Elizabeth Jolley (29.04.92) short story
Stan Pretty
ANOTHER HOLIDAY FOR THE PRINCE by Elizabeth Jolley (13.04.92) short story
Susan Curnow
A GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT by Elizabeth Jolley (23.03.92) short story
Susan Curnow
THE WORLD AND OTHER PLACES by Jeanette Winterson (15.01.92) short story
Joe Osborne
THE MYSTERIOUS MANSION by Honore de Balzac dram. Peter Mackie (01.01.92)
David Calder, Dorien Thomas, Dillwyn Owen, Tessa Gearing, Christopher Grimes, Marilyn le Conte, Nigel Carrington, Manon Edwards, Alan Towner
1991
WHERE IS HERE? by Joyce Carol Oates (31.12.91) short story
Colin Stinton
YORUBA GIRL DANCING by Simi Bedford abr. Margaret Busby (22.10.91 – 26.10.91) Book at Bedtime
Adjoa Andoh
TAKING PLATFORM THREE by Paul Osborne (22.10.91) short story
Paul Osborne
Oversaw the production of BOOKER AT BEDTIME (1991-97) including a “live” reading on the Award night.
READING TURGENEV by William Trevor (21.10.91)
Joanna Myers
THE FAMISHED ROAD by Ben Okri (BOOKER WINNER 1991) (18.10.91)
Ronald Herdman
THE REDUNDANCY OF COURAGE by Timothy Mo (17.10.91)
Terence Edmond
SUCH A LONG JOURNEY by Rohinton Mistry (16.10.91)
Emma Fielding
THE VAN by Roddy Doyle (15.10.91)
Dermot Crowley
TIME’S ARROW by Martin Amis (14.10.91)
Alan Barker
HIS CHOSEN CALLING by V.S. Naipaul (12.08.91)
Ade Sapara
A SLIPPING DOWN LIFE by Anne Tyler (x5) (27.05.91) Abridged and directed for Book at Bedtime
Barbara Barnes
THE TOTARA TREE by Roderick Finlayson (24.04.91) short story
Susan Curnow
THE MERMAID AND THE RATCATCHER by Moy McCrory (26.01.91) short story
Gerard McSorley
EXODUS (01.01.91) 50% abridged by Donald Bancroft
David Kossoff
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