Dangerous Visions is a season of dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.
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The adjective 'Ballardian' refers to the writer JG Ballard's fearful imaginings of what the near future might be like. Even though the master creator of dystopian futures died four years ago, his vision of what our future might become feels as relevant, satirical and as scary as ever.
Radio 4's Dangerous Visions is a season of dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias. Dramatisations of Ballard's seminal works, Drowned World and Concrete Island, straddle the season, and we have asked five leading radio writers - Nick Perry, Ed Harris, Michael Symmonds Roberts, Michael Butt and Philip Palmer - to imagine what life might be like in the near future if everything goes wrong.
Their Dangerous Visions form the bedrock of the series: clever, imaginative and disturbing takes on just what might happen.
What happens if sleep is outlawed? If cloning becomes a matter of course, and your loved ones are capable of being cloned? If North London declares UDI on South London, which has become a wasteland? If human sacrifice becomes a part of society?
Dangerous Visions - you will be disturbed as you see the present reflected in the glass of an uneasy future. These 5 are just the beginning, there is more to come. -------------------- R
Dangerous Visions -The Sleeper
A fable for our times. In The Sleeper by Michael Symmons Roberts we see
our own society as it is today but with one familiar element removed.
This is a Britain in which, decades ago, human beings gradually lost
the gift of sleep.
The Sleeper is a new verse drama by Michael Symmons Roberts with music
by the WNO and youth chorus from Irish composer Stephen Deazley,
adapted to create a soundtrack mixing speech, poetry and chorus.
Society is strained to breaking point by 24-hour wakefulness. The
government has cracked down on subversive images of sleep. People work
around the clock. Hotels are for private meetings and illicit sex.
Shops never close.
Into this paranoid world, a teenage girl emerges, a girl who can sleep.
Protected by her friends, she goes on the run from the authorities who
are keen to control and study her gift. The group ends up living in a
city centre squat, surviving as a group by shoplifting and begging.
The group grows increasingly anxious and fractious, with Ellah (the
sleeper)'s boyfriend Jamie lapsing into cultish beliefs in the 'old
gods', in which lullabies are chanted as prayers, worshipping sleep.
Some of the other group members join in these rituals. Keller, the
level-headed natural leader of the group, is struggling to keep the
peace.
Hungry, scared and sick of being pursued, the group receives an offer
of help from a wealthy man - known by the nickname Hypnos - who says he
will protect them. But what does he want in return? Desperate, and
running out of options, they go to him.
When they reach the man's hideout they find a spectacular, illegal
private 'archive of sleep' - films, paintings, music, books - and an
eerie film-set centred on a four poster bed. The price for his
protection is a movie. He wants to film the 'sleeper' sleeping.
Why? Well, it transpires that he is the son of the last ever sleeper.
In fact, as a young child he woke his mother up from that last sleep.
He plays the group a film of that fateful event, a home movie taken by
his father of his mother's rare and last sleep, ending with Hypnos - as
a boy - waking her. After that, no-one slept again. The guilt of waking
his mother has never left him, and the only cure is to film this newly
discovered sleeper peacefully asleep.
With music created from the original WNO Youth commission by the
composer Stephen Deazley, and performed by members of the Welsh
National Opera Orchestra and Youth Opera
Directed in Salford by Susan Roberts
Michael Symmons Roberts is an award winning poet and experienced radio
writer. His latest projects for Radio 4 include Crimes of Mancunia, A
Man in Pieces and the award winning Soldiers in the Sun.
Credits
Keller.....Matthew Beard
Ella.....Sarah Churm
Jamie.....Henry Devas
Sara.....Rachel Austin
Davis.....Jason Done
Harper.....Maxine Peake
Somnos.....Danielle Henry
Hypnos.....Kevin Doyle
Dangerous Visions - Invasion
30 years from now, Astronaut Kadian Giametti becomes the first human to
walk on Mars. But on his return to Earth he wakes up in a quarantine
cell from which he's not allowed to leave. Slowly Kadian learns the
truth about what's happened on Earth while he's been away, and what
he's brought back with him.
A claustrophobic two-hander from science fiction writer Philip Palmer.
Part of the Dangerous Visions season.
Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales Production.
Credits
Kadian.....Edward Hogg
Jenna.....Amita Dhiri
London Bridge
By Nick Perry
In the future, London is divided in two. North of the river is a
virtual police state and the South is a lawless no-go area ruled by
criminal gangs. When the body of young boy washes up on the banks of
the Thames, a police detective crosses the dangerous divide in the
search for his killers.
Director: Sasha Yevtushenko
Production Co-ordinators: Jessica Brown, Selina Ream
Editor: Colin Guthrie
Studio Managers: Cal Knightley, Keith Graham
The adjective Ballardian refers to the writer JG Ballard's fearful
imaginings of what the near future might be like. Even though the
master creator of dystopian futures died four years ago, his vision of
what our future might become feels as relevant, satirical and as scary
as ever. Radio 4's Dangerous Visions is a season of dramas that explore
contemporary takes on future dystopias. Dramatisations of Ballard's
seminal works, Drowned World and Concrete Island, straddle the season,
and we have asked five leading radio writers - Nick Perry, Ed Harris,
Michael Symmonds Roberts, Michael Butt and Philip Palmer - to imagine
what life might be like in the near future if everything goes wrong -
and their Dangerous Visions form the bedrock of the series: clever,
imaginative and disturbing takes on just what might happen. What
happens if sleep is outlawed? If cloning becomes a matter of course,
and your loved ones are capable of being cloned? If North London
declares UDI on South London, which has become a wasteland? If human
sacrifice becomes a part of society? We are also running a 5-part
dramatisation of Jane Roger's award winning terrifying novel The
Testament of Jessie Lamb, dramatised by the author. Dangerous Visions -
you will be disturbed as you see the present reflected in the glass of
an uneasy future.
Credits
Preston.....Justin Salinger
Ellis.....Tim McMullan
Amory.....Robert Blythe
Mrs Roberts.....Gabrielle Reidy
Paul Roberts.....Jerome Holder
Archer.....Nicholas Murchie
Smith.....Michael Shelford
Hajee.....Will Howard
Pathologist.....Joanna Brookes
Medic.....Hannah Wood
Martha.....Philippa Stanton
Christopher.....Isaac Andrews
Security Guard.....Ben Crowe
Dangerous Visions - Billions
One of a season of dramas exploring contemporary takes on future
dystopias.
Mark's wife Donna has an accident and ends up in a life-threatening
coma. But when he comes home from hospital, Donna is in the kitchen.
Not Donna, in fact, but a near-perfect replica provided by her
insurance company.
Award-winning writer Ed Harris tells a wickedly twisted tale of love -
and adjustments.
Producer/Director ... Jonquil Panting.
Credits
Mark.....Blake Ritson
Donna.....Raquel Cassidy
Charlie.....Lizzy Watts
Natalie.....Clare Corbett
Luke.....Will Howard
Kay.....Philippa Stanton
Mr Willis.....Robert Blythe
Scott.....Michael Shelford
Sandra.....Amaka Okafor
Dangerous Visions - Death Duty
By Michael Butt
In a desperate bid for water, a city-state plagued by drought has
instituted a system of so-called Gifts, a weekly lottery that leads to
the sacrifice of its young men. But the Gifts aren't working, and when
the man in charge of the system sees his son's number called up, his
faith is sorely tested.
Producer, Sasha Yevtushenko.
Credits
Edmund.....Nicholas Jones
Kenny.....Will Howard
Marianne.....Christine Absalom
Shelley.....Tracy Wiles
Lucy.....Amaka Okafor
Minister.....Sean Murray
Mr Greene.....Paul Stonehouse
Mrs Greene.....Philippa Stanton
Concrete Island
- Availability:
- 6 days left to listen
- Duration:
- 58 minutes
- First broadcast:
- Sunday 23 June 2013
By J.G. Ballard
Adapted by Graham White
Driving home one Friday rush hour, a cocky young architect crashes down a motorway embankment. At first he seems bound to be rescued, but as he fails to make the passing commuters notice him, he finds himself trapped on a strange, neglected island between the highways. Can this modern day Crusoe survive in a strange new world?
Directed by Mary Peate
As Radio 4 begins its new season of Dystopic Dramas, Dangerous Visions, the playwright and poet Michael Symmons Roberts wonders how close the gap between imagining and living in dystopia actually is.
Face to Face with JG Ballard
- Duration:
- 30 minutes
- First broadcast:
- Sunday 16 June 2013
4 Extra Debut. The late author of Empire of the Sun and many works of speculative fiction reveals his perspective on the world and the media.
The Drowned World by JG Ballard
In a future in which solar flares have wreaked havoc with the earth's atmosphere, Kerans is part of a scientific mission to survey the drowned cities of what was once the temperate zone before they are abandoned for good.
Starring James Darcy as Kerans and Hattie Morahan as Beatrice.
Jane Rogers - The Testament of Jessie Lamb
Jane Rogers' dystopian story about a teenage girl who decides to save humanity.
Jessie Holliday Grainger
- Joe
- Mark Jordon
- Cath
- Joanne Mitchell
- Mandy
- Kate Coogan
- Sal
- Rebecca Ryan
- Baz
- Oliver Lee
- Lisa
- Nisa Cole
- Iain
- Will Finlason
- Director
- Nadia Molinari
- Author
- Jane Rogers
Golding - Lord of The Flies
William Golding's classic story about a group of boys plane-wrecked on a deserted island.
Hari Kunzru and Dystopia
- Duration:
- 43 minutes
- First broadcast:
- Monday 17 June 2013
On Start the Week Jonathan Freedland talks to Hari Kunzru about his dystopian vision, where books and the act of remembering have been banned. Jane Rogers explains how her apocalyptic tale may be set in the future but points to today's abuse of scientific knowledge and the heroism of youth. Past real events are at the heart of James Robertson's latest novel which explores grief, justice and the truth. And the photographer Adam Broomberg asks how far images of war capture the truth.
Producer: Katy Hickman.
Replies
Thanks so much Rik for the Lord, especially since you've so thoughtly edited out any extraneous audio unlike an earlier version I DLed from another site. Good work.
Not my work, I will thank the boys on Usenet for you. LOL --------------------------------------- R
Golding's Lord of the Flies and Start of the Week - Hari Kunzru and Dystopia (doc) have been added to the post. ----- R
Thanks a lot for all good stuff Rick.
Thanks, Rick! I heard two of them...they are great!
BUMP
Thanks here also !!
You are welcome both of you. -------------------------- R
Thanks Rick!
These look fabulous ! Thank you so much for posting...