Poor Bitos
by Jean Anouilh [?Pauvre Bitos?, 1956]
Translated by Lucienne Hill.
Directed by Richard Imison
Broadcast on Tuesday 11th July 1989, Radio 3
Re-broadcast on Sunday 20th January 1991, Radio 3
2 hours
Set in provincial France of the 1950s, "Poor Bitos" opens in the great hall of an old Carmelite Priory where the local Jacobins held meetings in 1792. Maxime, a young aristocrat, plans to sell it the following week to Shell who will turn it into a garage. Before that, he invites a group of young friends for a costume party with the object of humiliating Andre Bitos. Bitos, an unpopular scholarship boy when at school, has become the Deputy Public Prosecutor. Maxime plans his ruination.
In "Poor Bitos", Anouilh draws a strong parallel between the social and political insecurity of post-war France, and the members of the notorious Committee of Public Safety in Revolutionary France. When first performed in Paris, the play aroused a storm of controversy.
With Clive Merrison [Andre Bitos, who plays Robespierre], Jeremy Clyde [M. Maxime de Jaucourt, who plays Saint-Just], Hugh Dickson [Philippe, who plays the Jesuit Father], Michael Cochrane [Julien du Bief, who plays Danton], Roger Hammond [Vulturne, who plays the Count Mirabeau], Peter Pacey [Brassac, who plays Tallien], Christopher Good [Marcel Deschamps, who plays Camille Desmoulins], Alexandra Mathie [Victoire, who plays Lucille Desmoulins], Madeline Smith [Mlle Amanda Forest, who plays Madame Tallien], Melinda Walker [Lila, who plays Marie Antoinette], Vincent Brimble [Charles, Maxime's Butler], Michael Kilgarriff [Joseph, Maxime's Cook], and Ken Cumberlidge [Delanoue, the Young Man].
80/44/mono; 71.3 MB; sound quality good
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