Charles Chilton - The Long, Long Trail
Duration: 1 hour
First broadcast: (1961) Not Broadcast again until Sunday 05 January 2014
128K_1_54.1Mb_RAR_Containing TLLT, 4_Ex_Intro_and_Txt_File
Part of BBC Radio 4 Extra's tribute to the remarkable talent of writer and producer Charles Chilton, who died on 2 January 2013 at the age of 95.
Broadcast for the first time since its original transmission on the BBC Home Service in 1961, this is Charles Chilton's forgotten radio masterpiece telling the story of the First World War through the songs sung by soldiers.
It was inspired by Chilton's personal quest to learn about his father, who was killed in 1918 aged 19 and whom he'd never met. Chilton went on to adapt the programme with Joan Littlewood into the 1963 landmark stage musical Oh What a Lovely War!
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Sunday 5 January
2.00-3.00pm
BBC RADIO 4 EXTRA
The Long, Long Trail
BBC Radio 4 Extra pays tribute to the remarkable talent of Charles Chilton who died on 2 January 2013 at the age of 95.
For the first time since its original transmission in 1961, and in conjunction with Archive On 4, BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcasts Charles Chilton’s forgotten masterpiece The Long, Long Trail.
On a family holiday to Italy in 1958, Charles Chilton stopped at the Arras Memorial in northern France to find his father’s grave, but was unable to locate a headstone. He eventually found his father’s name inscribed on a wall commemorating some 35,000 soldiers who died in the Battle of Arras, all "missing, presumed dead”.
Chilton’s 1961 BBC Home Service programme tells the story of the First World War through the songs sung by soldiers. It was the result of Chilton’s personal quest to learn about his father, who was killed in March 1918 at the age of 19 and whom he had never met. In 1962, Chilton adapted the programme with Joan Littlewood into the landmark stage musical Oh What A Lovely War, making The Long, Long Trail a hugely influential radio programme.
Broadcast in conjunction with BBC Radio 4’s Archive On 4: The Long, Long Trail – who have been on their own trail to trace the origins and importance of this most remarkable and forgotten musical documentary.
First broadcast in 1961
Replies
Wonderful!
Thank you!
Excellent! Thanks for posting this, Rick.
"Oh, What a Lovely War!" was conceived and first produced at the Theatre Royal, Stratford - that's Stratford in East London, not Stratford-on-Avon. It will be revived there next month.
Roger