BBC R4 - Alan Bennett's 'An Englishman Abroad' 2005
Matthew Compton and David Carrol
Produced by Susan Roberts
Broadcast September 17, 2005
Coded from tape at 128/44.1
Alan Bennett's moving play about a meeting between actress Coral Browne and English exile and spy Guy Burgess in Moscow in 1958.
Cast
Guy Burgess - Simon Callow
Coral Browne - Bridget Forsyth
Tailor - Robert Pickavance
Tolja - Peter Swander
Shop Assistant - Peter Swander
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Also enclosed is a short file 'Reflections On An Englishman Abroad' in which Alan Bennett describes how he came to write the play.
BBC R4 - Alan Bennett's 'An Englishman Abroad' 2005.mp3
BBC R4 - Reflections On An Englishman Abroad.mp3
An Englishman Abroad (TV Movie 1983).mp4
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FILM
An Englishman Abroad first aired as a BBC television drama film in 1983, based on the true story of a chance meeting of an actress, Coral Browne, with Guy Burgess (Alan Bates), a member of the Cambridge spy ring who spied for the Soviet Union while an officer at MI6. The production was written by Alan Bennett and directed by John Schlesinger; Browne stars as herself.
The film is set is Moscow in 1958, after Burgess had fled to the city following MI6's detection of his treason. Burgess barges into Browne's dressing room in the interval of a touring Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (which became one of the bases of the Royal Shakespeare Company) production of Hamlet, in which she portrayed Gertrude, and charms her. Later on she is invited to his Moscow flat, finding it with some difficulty, to measure him for a suit that he would like ordered from his London tailor.
Rather than film in the Soviet Union, Schlesinger used several locations in Scotland. The Caird Hall and Whitehall Theatre in Dundee stood in for the Moscow theatre, and the grand marble staircase of Glasgow City Chambers played the part of the British Embassy. Additional filming was done at Glasgow's St. Andrew's Suspension Bridge ("luckily, in a snowstorm" Bennett later wrote) and the Moss Heights flats in Cardonald, which represented Burgess' Moscow apartment.
Both Browne and Bates were winners of the BAFTA awards for acting for their roles in this production.
Replies
Thanks! I had the radio play, but the film is new to me.
Bob