Saturday Drama
Thrillers, mysteries, love stories and detective fiction, as well as an occasional special series
A few recent dramas recorded off the radio in raw form. Perhaps some members could add some information in the "reply to this" on any familiar with.
Saturday_Drama_-_Frances_Byrnes_-_Belle_Amie.mp3
Saturday_Drama_-_Harley_Granville_Barker_-_The_Voysey_Inheritance.mp3
Saturday_Drama_-_Hattie_Naylor_-_JAccuse.mp3
Saturday_Drama_-_Hattie_Naylor_-_The_Forgotten.mp3
Saturday_Drama_-_Mark_Lawson_-_Suspicion_for_10_Voices.mp3
Saturday_Drama_-_Menna_Gallie_-_Strike_for_a_Kingdom.mp3
Saturday_Drama_Playing_With_Trains_-_1._Episode_1.mp3
Saturday_Drama_Playing_With_Trains_-_2._Episode_2.mp3
Replies
Many thanks!
Thanks!!
Thank you!
Stephen Poliakoff is reunited with leading actor Timothy Spall in a new two-part radio version of his drama Playing With Trains, to be broadcast in March. Spall is joined by Zoe Tapper (whose recent TV credits include lead roles in Survivors, Desperate Romantics and Affinity) and Geoffrey Streatfeild (who recently starred as Hal in the RSC's History Cycle). Poliakoff and Spall previously collaborated brilliantly on the ground-breaking TV dramas Shooting the Past and Perfect Strangers.
The play tells the story of the rise and fall of Bill Galpin (Spall), a flamboyant entrepreneur who pools his fortune into backing risky inventions which are concerned with safeguarding the environment, while at the same time having a very tempestuous but poignant relationship with his two children Roxanna and Danny (Tapper and Streatfeild).
Beginning in the heady days of the late 1960s, Playing With Trains deals with the fact that Britain invents so much, yet manufactures so little. Galpin makes a fortune from a brilliant development in gramophone technology, and then turns himself into a self-appointed patron and champion of inventors and innovators everywhere, clashing with the establishment through the libel courts, speeches to captains of industry, Civil Service offices and even TV shows.
Parallel to his relationship with industry is his even more tempestuous relationship with his children. Roxanna - whom he expects to become a great engineer - drops out of Cambridge and becomes an art student in attempt to escape her father's grip. Danny, meanwhile, turns into the very thing his father despises - a financial expert, but in so doing recognises the shortcomings of his father's enterprises.
Playing With Trains is a moving family drama set over two decades, charting a "love affair" between father and daughter. It's Poliakoff at his very best, telling an intensely private story within a sweeping public drama.
Playing With Trains was originally staged at the RSC in 1989.
The cast is completed by Helen Longworth (Frances), Joseph Kloska (Mick), Nigel Hastings (Vernon Boyce), Michael Fenton Stevens (Gant) and Bruce Alexander (QC). It was produced and directed for BBC Radio Drama Birmingham by Peter Leslie Wild.
Producer/Director Peter Leslie Wild.
Broadcast 2010-03-20 and 2010-03-27
Thanks for the synopsis
Frances Byrnes - Belle Amie
Original sequel to Guy de Maupassant's novel Bel Ami - have the years tamed amoral charmer, Georges Duroy? Frances Byrnes' witty take on 19th century French politics, romance and double dealing.
The hero of the story, Georges Duroy, nicknamed Bel Ami by the women he uses, will trample over anyone for money and power. Blessed with good looks and confidence, he is unstoppable. He meets his match in Clothilde de Marelle, the pleasure seeking bored wife of an older businessman.
In this new sequel by Frances Byrnes, we rejoin our hero and his lover as middle age looms.
Age has taken its toll on both, but their passion is as vivid as ever. Then, when Bel Ami's father in law dies and tells his daughter, Suzanne, that her husband has slept with her mother, mid life crisis explodes. Bel Ami seeks solace with the virtuous, church going Laurine, Clothilde's daughter, and makes one last bid to refind his lost youth in a mad dash to Africa, where he has launched an ill advised military campaign. Clothilde is furious and sets out to thwart him, but first she must overcome her daughter's conviction that Bel Ami's holy conversion is for real.
The writer
Guy de Maupassant is one of the finest short story writers of the 19th century.
The dramatist
Frances Byrnes is an award winning radio producer and writer. She won a Sony in 2008 for her Radio 4 feature, Now Wash Your Hands.
Georges Duroy/Bel Ami ............Jonathan Slinger
Clothilde de Marelle................Emma Fielding
Suzanna....................Rhiannon Oliver
Laurine......................Sarah Ovens
Renard......................Rhys ap Hywel
Mme Walter....................Nicky Rainsford
Producer Polly Thomas
Executive producer Kate McAll
A BBC Cymru/Wales production.
Release date:
13 August 2011Harley Granville Barker - The Voysey Inheritance
Harley Granville Barker's classic 1905 play, The Voysey Inheritance.
Edward discovers that in inheriting his father's impressive family business, he is inheriting a Ponzi scheme. For years his father has been making free with clients' capital and speculating recklessly, as his own father did before him. Edward must decide whether to continue the business and try to put matters right - a seemingly impossible task - or to expose the crime and bring his family to certain ruin.
With Samuel Barnett as Edward and Clive Merrison as Mr. Voysey.
Edward........................... Samuel Barnett
Mr Voysey................ .... . Clive Merrison
Mr George Booth........... Gawn Grainger
Trenchard Voysey.......... Richard Dillane
Major Booth Vosey............ Alan Cox
Denis Tregoning................ Joseph Arkley
Mrs Voysey...................... Phyllida Law
Honor Voysey.................. Amanda Lawrence
Peacey............................. Paul Moriarty
The Voysey Inheritance was adapted for radio and directed by Lu Kemp.
Broadcast 2012-04-07
The Saturday Play: J'Accuse
BBC Radio 4 FM, 13 June 2009 14.30
Synopsis
Contributors
Unknown: Alfred Dreyfus.
Unknown: Louis Gregori
Unknown: Hattie Naylor.
Director: Pauline Harris
Louis Gregori: Mark Heap
Dominique: Kathryn Hunt
Arnaud: Graeme Hawley
Emile Zola: Conrad Nelson
Eugene/Alfred Dreyfus: Paul Mundell
Gustav: Jonathan Keeble
Hattie Naylor - The Forgotten
A young girl emerges from a forest after a nameless war, knowing nothing of where she has come from or where she has been. She finds the local doctor, Charonne, trapped in the briar. After she has freed him he takes her back to his village where she lives in secret in his house. But she has been spotted by the villagers who wish to call Charonne to account for his conduct in the war.
As the pressure on Charonne mounts he disappears into a familiar story in which the young girl takes a leading role. Questions of guilt, memory and responsibility are all raised in The Forgotten, Hattie Naylor's dark retelling of the story of The Sleeping Beauty.
The play stars Tim McMullan as Charonne, Ruth Mitchell as Sylvanne and Laura Greenwood as Ireena.
Cast:
Anton ...... John Biddle
Ireena and Rosa ...... Laura Greenwood
Young Charonne ...... Harry McEntire
Charonne ....... Tim McMullan
Sylvanne ....... Ruth Mitchell
Marie ....... Sally Orrock
Writer: Hattie Naylor
Director: Paul Dodgson
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Broadcast 2012-06-02
Mark Lawson - Suspicion for 10 Voices
Written by Mark Lawson.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, England was a protestant country standing alone against formidable European and papal enemies. Fear of a Roman Catholic fifth column was rife. But when William Byrd, Elizabeth's favourite composer, is arrested and charged with placing secret papist messages within the music of the Chapel Royal, the court is shocked and panic takes hold among the recusant community.
Byrd's dense polyphony is dissected and decoded and it seems sedition is undeniable. But the composer has a powerful protector - one whom not even Walsingham dare countermand.
Starring Simon Russell Beale as Byrd and Anton Lesser as Walsingham.
Musical Director: Neil Brand
Directed by Eoin O'Callaghan
A Big Fish production for BBC Radio 4.
Broadcast 2013-06-22
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next