Pravda by David Hare and Howard Brenton

[william warren]

Adapted by Richard Wortley

A media tycoon's lust for power threatens to leave a trail of destruction in its wake.

 

Do newspapers tell the truth? In the programme for the original 1985 production of Pravda - written by David Hare and Howard Brenton - Brenton wrote: "Pravda means 'the truth'. English newspapers aren't propaganda sheets. The question is, why do so many of them choose to behave as if they are?"

 

Starring a mesmerising Anthony Hopkins as the reptilian Lambert Le Roux, a South African newspaper tycoon not unlike Rupert Murdoch (owner of The Times and the Sun), Pravda was one of the biggest hits in the history of the National Theatre.

 

The play is an epic satire on the media in the Thatcher era; a morality tale about how Andrew, a young liberal journalist, finally succumbs to Lambert Le Roux, the Murdoch-like media tycoon who makes him editor of a tabloid.

 

Cast includes:

Lambert Le Roux.........Anthony Hopkins

 

Eaton Sylvestra.........Bill Nighy

 

Rebecca Folay.........Suzanne Burden

 

Sir Stamford Foley.........Garard Green

 

Bill Smiley.........Stephen Tompkinson

Andrew May.........Robert Glenister

 

Hamish McClellan/Bishop of Putney.........James Greene

 

Eliot Bruse Norton.........Frederick Treves

 

Harry Morrison.........David King

 

http://ge.tt/5dYTc7z/v/0

 

[Jim Robarts]

Thank you.

[Anson (Bob) Roberts]

Here's a better encode of the original broadcast from 1990 at 128/44 stereo, along with a study guide for those who want to delve a

llittle deeper into the work.

PRAVDA link

Thanks to auntadadoom at radioarchive for the play.

I no longer have notes on the source of the study guide.

Bob

Pravda Study Guide.pdf

[william warren]

The study guide is fascinating.

[Couch Potato]

Thanks!