Drama on 3 BBC Radio 3
A radio play adapted Mike Walker from Michael Hofmann's English translation of the novel by Joseph Roth.
We are three degrees separate from the original material here. I have never read Joseph Roth's novel and the only thing I know about it, other than the radio play, is this essay by Michael Hofmann and a brief scan of the customer reviews of Hofmann's translation of it on Amazon.. So I can only really write about what I heard.
This is a fast paced two hour historical radio drama that sweeps through some 40 or so years at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. That might not seem all that inviting, but it is a rather entertaining listen. We are involved mostly with the Trotta family, three generations of them. Actually it's the men of the family. This is a very male story. Woman pop up briefly now and then, but we never enter into their lives as we do the Trotta men. The first Trotta is a soldier who saves the life of the emperor on the battlefield. The bulk of the play concerns his son and grandson. The son of the hero is a commissioner of some sort involved in the government. The grandson becomes a soldier and his father grooms him on how to be a gentleman soldier which involves buying six suits, and a nice cigarette case. The grandson is told he should smoke cigarettes and drink Hennessy so he won't stand out and will be one of the good ole gentlemen. The grandson becomes quite good at some of this, or at least involved.
This is really about a time of transition from the Dual Monarchy as we move into the violence of the 20th Century and the old order crumbles away. It does a good job of showing some of those changes and how change itself sweeps us all out of the was eventually. The play has a nice balance between sentimentalism for the past and cynicism about what humans do to one another in general. I believe I know a little more about the time and place after the experience of the play. We hear the tides of change as the grandson is called upon to deal with labor unrest. It's a well done scene showing the human blunders of the agents of authority. It's cop work , not gentlemen soldier work.
A character of Joseph Roth appears in scenes in a cafe writing the very novel we are listening to. It's a useful dramatic devise that helps make the piece clearer and more accessible.
Once again the BBC presents us with a well crafted production with many of the actors undetectably doubling, even tripling in their roles. I was completely convinced of the time and place by the soundscape atmosphere. The play was directed by Tim Dee. It is well worth a listen.
It can be heard here: Drama on 3 through Saturday April 28, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
12 Shares
A radio play by Dennis Kelly
The Afternoon Play BBC Radio 4
Here is an example of a rather obvious, simple conception. It's the sort of thing that seems obvious after it is heard. One can imagine writers of radio plays around the world striking themselves on the forehead, "Why didn't I think of that?"
Dennis Kelly is the one who thought of it and produced a brilliant script.
Oh, yes, the concept. The play is made up of exactly what the title says it is. The story is told through the course of 12 Shares at an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting. The form of an AA meeting hardly ever varies. It involves someone speaking first, telling their story, and followed by an open time where others in attendance speak about what they are going through. This is the brilliance of the concept of the play. It is a story told completely naturally in the course of a series of AA meetings. Dennis Kelly does not need to resort to the sometimes awkward template of narration to illuminate the radio play. The shares tell the story.
In the play we hear Kate thank the unheard speaker by name and then set into the latest events in her own story. It is a moving story of personal and family struggle with substance abuse. For the most part she speaks openly of her hopes, fears, and emotional insecurities. Most of the issues involve relationship with others, the interface with the outside world.
The believability of the play is enhanced by Sophie Stanton's measured, emotionally full, yet nuanced performance as Kate. She hits just the right pitch in a role that all to easily could have veered toward the melodramatic.
The play is directed by Pam Marshall. One gets the feel of the room in what is basically a one woman show.
A special note on the music by Nina Perry. In the theme she loops and digitally distorts the voice of Kate along with a gentle yet insistent beat, and a couple of simple melody lines. These sounds serves to place us in the emotional atmosphere of the play, actually help to create it. It would be lovely if more of the BBC radio plays employed Nina Perry's work. Too often BBC plays resort to clips of old pop tunes to evoke time and setting. The 12 Shares Theme as well as clips of more of Perry's beautiful work can be found here: Nina Perry
12 Shares is available to listen again through Thursday, April 26, 2007: The Afternoon Play. Click on the Friday button.
The Afternoon Play BBC Radio 4
Here is an example of a rather obvious, simple conception. It's the sort of thing that seems obvious after it is heard. One can imagine writers of radio plays around the world striking themselves on the forehead, "Why didn't I think of that?"
Dennis Kelly is the one who thought of it and produced a brilliant script.
Oh, yes, the concept. The play is made up of exactly what the title says it is. The story is told through the course of 12 Shares at an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting. The form of an AA meeting hardly ever varies. It involves someone speaking first, telling their story, and followed by an open time where others in attendance speak about what they are going through. This is the brilliance of the concept of the play. It is a story told completely naturally in the course of a series of AA meetings. Dennis Kelly does not need to resort to the sometimes awkward template of narration to illuminate the radio play. The shares tell the story.
In the play we hear Kate thank the unheard speaker by name and then set into the latest events in her own story. It is a moving story of personal and family struggle with substance abuse. For the most part she speaks openly of her hopes, fears, and emotional insecurities. Most of the issues involve relationship with others, the interface with the outside world.
The believability of the play is enhanced by Sophie Stanton's measured, emotionally full, yet nuanced performance as Kate. She hits just the right pitch in a role that all to easily could have veered toward the melodramatic.
The play is directed by Pam Marshall. One gets the feel of the room in what is basically a one woman show.
A special note on the music by Nina Perry. In the theme she loops and digitally distorts the voice of Kate along with a gentle yet insistent beat, and a couple of simple melody lines. These sounds serves to place us in the emotional atmosphere of the play, actually help to create it. It would be lovely if more of the BBC radio plays employed Nina Perry's work. Too often BBC plays resort to clips of old pop tunes to evoke time and setting. The 12 Shares Theme as well as clips of more of Perry's beautiful work can be found here: Nina Perry
12 Shares is available to listen again through Thursday, April 26, 2007: The Afternoon Play. Click on the Friday button.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Entertaining Mr Sloane
By Joe Orton
BBC Radio 3Drama on 3
As director John Tydeman says in the informative introduction of this first radio production of the 1964 play, this is not an important play but an entertaining one. We also learn that Dudley Sutton played the 19 year old Sloane in that first production. Here he is Kemp, the family grandfather.
I saw a production of this in New York less than 10 years ago. It didn't make much of an impression on me then. I think I was in a cranky mood with my date in a relationship that was going bad. But today I quite enjoyed it for what it was as I listened at the gym on an mp3 player. Actually it was sort of the perfect way to hear it, while working out. There is a scene where Ed is asking Sloane about his workout habits.
In the early scenes Sloane is a sort of projection screen for the lustful desires of the other, older characters in the play. This to me was the most interesting part of the play. It starts to explore that blind and unseemly atmosphere of lust. The object becomes what they want him to be. They are not at all able to see what he really is. This sort of lust is not at all attractive, the vampire like need of the old to connect with youth as if somehow it will give them a new lease on life. He uses this, his attractiveness, their desire, to his own advantage as he plays all the bisexual angles within this odd family. One thinks that he might just win the game until the tables are turned on him and he proves to be so deeply amoral, actually criminal, that he entraps himself in the web they weave. He will be their plaything, their time-share slave.
As they stated in the introduction, it's not a great play. But it is beautifully paced, has some funny, witty dialogue and some fun turns of plot. Some of these plot twists would seem a bit melodramatic unless one considers what happened to poor Mr. Orton just three years after this piece was written. This is a fine and entertaining production.
It can be heard here: Drama on 3 through Saturday April 21, 2007
BBC Radio 3Drama on 3
As director John Tydeman says in the informative introduction of this first radio production of the 1964 play, this is not an important play but an entertaining one. We also learn that Dudley Sutton played the 19 year old Sloane in that first production. Here he is Kemp, the family grandfather.
I saw a production of this in New York less than 10 years ago. It didn't make much of an impression on me then. I think I was in a cranky mood with my date in a relationship that was going bad. But today I quite enjoyed it for what it was as I listened at the gym on an mp3 player. Actually it was sort of the perfect way to hear it, while working out. There is a scene where Ed is asking Sloane about his workout habits.
In the early scenes Sloane is a sort of projection screen for the lustful desires of the other, older characters in the play. This to me was the most interesting part of the play. It starts to explore that blind and unseemly atmosphere of lust. The object becomes what they want him to be. They are not at all able to see what he really is. This sort of lust is not at all attractive, the vampire like need of the old to connect with youth as if somehow it will give them a new lease on life. He uses this, his attractiveness, their desire, to his own advantage as he plays all the bisexual angles within this odd family. One thinks that he might just win the game until the tables are turned on him and he proves to be so deeply amoral, actually criminal, that he entraps himself in the web they weave. He will be their plaything, their time-share slave.
As they stated in the introduction, it's not a great play. But it is beautifully paced, has some funny, witty dialogue and some fun turns of plot. Some of these plot twists would seem a bit melodramatic unless one considers what happened to poor Mr. Orton just three years after this piece was written. This is a fine and entertaining production.
It can be heard here: Drama on 3 through Saturday April 21, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
In Denial: The Story of Paul Blackburn
A radio play by Kevin Fegan
The Friday Play BBC Radio 4
I invite you to take a trip to hell. Well, it is not an actual trip to hell, but rather the story of one boy's, one man's trip to hell. This is not the hell that somehow was put into the cosmic order of things by God (did God invent Hell?), in order to punish the bad people for eternity with fire, brimstone and all that sort of thing. This is the hell that humans in authority, our agents on high, our representatives, and therefore WE innocent citizens, have willfully created right here and now on earth in our dear, smug, self-satisfied, and self aggrandizing, democratic states. It is where we GOOD PEOPLE send our BAD PEOPLE.
Something clearly has to be done with people who are a danger to the rest of us. Yet that something turns out to be time and again treating them or allowing them to be treated brutally. We all know this is going on, we hear countless stories about it year after year, it's not big secret. People joke in media about how so and so who has been bad will be sent away to suffer rape inside, as if that is what they deserve for the wrongs they have done. We are not even concerned that most of these people will one day be released, set free, in a more distorted, brutalized, angry, vengeful, and dangerous condition than they were when they went in. After all they are BAD, otherwise they would not be there, would they?
With the story of Paul Blackburn we hear the horrifying quarter century saga of one who happen to fall into the hell that we made. This is the story of a young teen boy convicted for a brutal sexual assault and his time inside. He is convicted even though three others confessed to the crime, he is convicted even though the police did not at all follow legal procedural guidelines for the handling of youthful suspects. And he is released 27 years later and exonerated and with little support, cast out into an alien world of freedom to get by as best he can as a brutalized, damaged, traumatized victim of state justice.
This is not a pretty or uplifting story, but one that we have to keep hearing time and again until something is done to avoid the continuance of convictions of the innocent, and the unjust and disgusting criminal brutality of the guilty.
In Denial: The Story of Paul Blackburn, the play by Kevin Fegan. Is a very well written and produced piece. The cast with Adrian Bower, Gerard Kearns, Robert Pickavance, Glenn Cunningham gives the docudrama a rare and heartbreaking authenticity.
The atmospheric music by Andrew Diey adds much to the feel of the play without calling attention to itself.
It can be heard here through Thursday April 19, 2007:
The Friday Play BBC Radio 4
More information on the Blackburn case can he read here:
: Innocent-FIGHTING MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE
The Friday Play BBC Radio 4
I invite you to take a trip to hell. Well, it is not an actual trip to hell, but rather the story of one boy's, one man's trip to hell. This is not the hell that somehow was put into the cosmic order of things by God (did God invent Hell?), in order to punish the bad people for eternity with fire, brimstone and all that sort of thing. This is the hell that humans in authority, our agents on high, our representatives, and therefore WE innocent citizens, have willfully created right here and now on earth in our dear, smug, self-satisfied, and self aggrandizing, democratic states. It is where we GOOD PEOPLE send our BAD PEOPLE.
Something clearly has to be done with people who are a danger to the rest of us. Yet that something turns out to be time and again treating them or allowing them to be treated brutally. We all know this is going on, we hear countless stories about it year after year, it's not big secret. People joke in media about how so and so who has been bad will be sent away to suffer rape inside, as if that is what they deserve for the wrongs they have done. We are not even concerned that most of these people will one day be released, set free, in a more distorted, brutalized, angry, vengeful, and dangerous condition than they were when they went in. After all they are BAD, otherwise they would not be there, would they?
With the story of Paul Blackburn we hear the horrifying quarter century saga of one who happen to fall into the hell that we made. This is the story of a young teen boy convicted for a brutal sexual assault and his time inside. He is convicted even though three others confessed to the crime, he is convicted even though the police did not at all follow legal procedural guidelines for the handling of youthful suspects. And he is released 27 years later and exonerated and with little support, cast out into an alien world of freedom to get by as best he can as a brutalized, damaged, traumatized victim of state justice.
This is not a pretty or uplifting story, but one that we have to keep hearing time and again until something is done to avoid the continuance of convictions of the innocent, and the unjust and disgusting criminal brutality of the guilty.
In Denial: The Story of Paul Blackburn, the play by Kevin Fegan. Is a very well written and produced piece. The cast with Adrian Bower, Gerard Kearns, Robert Pickavance, Glenn Cunningham gives the docudrama a rare and heartbreaking authenticity.
The atmospheric music by Andrew Diey adds much to the feel of the play without calling attention to itself.
It can be heard here through Thursday April 19, 2007:
The Friday Play BBC Radio 4
More information on the Blackburn case can he read here:
: Innocent-FIGHTING MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Energy Swap
Energy Swap is a half hour, three part BBC Radio 4 factual described as this on the page for the program:
"Two families, one from the heart of gas-guzzling Texas and the other from rural Cheshire, exchange their lives for one week to compare their carbon footprints."
Featured are the UK Thomas family and the Spencers in Texas. Mr. Spencer is an airline pilot, his wife works as a food caterer for film crews. They have two children. With the UK couple, he is a building surveyor, she works for an environmental group. The Spencers live in a big house near Dallas in a gated community. They have lived here for three years and have never seen their neighbors. These people live in a consumerist bubble. Basic information apparently can't get through the entertainment news gate. I was a bit shocked in the part where the English woman is showing the Texan woman what a florescent bulb is. She seems to have never heard of it.
Mr. Spencer, the airline pilot, doesn't believe in global warming, or he doesn't believe that human activity is the cause. I there is little doubt that climate change is going on, but room for doubt that humans are the cause. But does one have to believe in global warming in order to see the value of conservation? And by the way, what's the deal with conservatives being the least interested in conservation?
The Spencers use over $800 worth of electricity a month in their uninsulated house. This is a rather stunning fact in itself. Well, at least they seem somewhat open to learning something.
It's a fascinating half hour and we have the other two parts to look forward to in Energy Swap.
"Two families, one from the heart of gas-guzzling Texas and the other from rural Cheshire, exchange their lives for one week to compare their carbon footprints."
Featured are the UK Thomas family and the Spencers in Texas. Mr. Spencer is an airline pilot, his wife works as a food caterer for film crews. They have two children. With the UK couple, he is a building surveyor, she works for an environmental group. The Spencers live in a big house near Dallas in a gated community. They have lived here for three years and have never seen their neighbors. These people live in a consumerist bubble. Basic information apparently can't get through the entertainment news gate. I was a bit shocked in the part where the English woman is showing the Texan woman what a florescent bulb is. She seems to have never heard of it.
Mr. Spencer, the airline pilot, doesn't believe in global warming, or he doesn't believe that human activity is the cause. I there is little doubt that climate change is going on, but room for doubt that humans are the cause. But does one have to believe in global warming in order to see the value of conservation? And by the way, what's the deal with conservatives being the least interested in conservation?
The Spencers use over $800 worth of electricity a month in their uninsulated house. This is a rather stunning fact in itself. Well, at least they seem somewhat open to learning something.
It's a fascinating half hour and we have the other two parts to look forward to in Energy Swap.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Joseph and Joseph
A radio play by Oliver Emanuel
The Afternoon Play BBC Radio 4
As this began it reminded of a recent radio play that had the theme of a young teacher who was clandestinely photographed by a camera phone while having a one-off sex act with someone she had just met at a party. That play was a straight ahead from-the-headlines current horror sort of story.
Joseph and Joseph starts out in much the same way as we meet mild mannered accountant Joseph Taylor and his fiancé going over the credit card invoice. She is very angry about his trip to Nice when he had told her he was going on a business trip somewhere much less glamorous. And what's is with these expenses in Nice? What is he doing spending an enormous amount of money gambling, drinking, and buying a very expensive wristwatch? Joseph is completely baffled by the matter. He is also canned from his job for stealing money from a business account. Our boy is in trouble and doesn't know why. Arriving home from his dismissal his fiancé is waiting for him with a postcard from a woman in Nice. It's a love note. She misses him and wonders where he is and why he hasn't contacted her.
It takes Joseph a few beats more than average to catch on that he has been the victim of identity theft. He jets off to Nice to try to get to the bottom of it. Here the suspense continues as he looks for the thief Joseph. But happily this turns out not to be your average horror-from-the-headlines show. Oliver Emanuel takes us on quite a trip. Sometimes there is a bit in a bump in continuing to suspend disbelief with the turns of the plot. But all in all it is a pleasant diverting trip to Nice that just might get the listener thinking, "What if. It there another way?"
This is a fine, fully realized production director Colin Guthrie. Shaun Dooley, Helen Longworth, Christine Kavanagh, Sam Dale do a very nice job with the acting chores. Give it a listen.
It is available here: The Afternoon Play BBC Radio 4 Through Tuesday April 17, 2007. Click the Wednesday button.
The Afternoon Play BBC Radio 4
As this began it reminded of a recent radio play that had the theme of a young teacher who was clandestinely photographed by a camera phone while having a one-off sex act with someone she had just met at a party. That play was a straight ahead from-the-headlines current horror sort of story.
Joseph and Joseph starts out in much the same way as we meet mild mannered accountant Joseph Taylor and his fiancé going over the credit card invoice. She is very angry about his trip to Nice when he had told her he was going on a business trip somewhere much less glamorous. And what's is with these expenses in Nice? What is he doing spending an enormous amount of money gambling, drinking, and buying a very expensive wristwatch? Joseph is completely baffled by the matter. He is also canned from his job for stealing money from a business account. Our boy is in trouble and doesn't know why. Arriving home from his dismissal his fiancé is waiting for him with a postcard from a woman in Nice. It's a love note. She misses him and wonders where he is and why he hasn't contacted her.
It takes Joseph a few beats more than average to catch on that he has been the victim of identity theft. He jets off to Nice to try to get to the bottom of it. Here the suspense continues as he looks for the thief Joseph. But happily this turns out not to be your average horror-from-the-headlines show. Oliver Emanuel takes us on quite a trip. Sometimes there is a bit in a bump in continuing to suspend disbelief with the turns of the plot. But all in all it is a pleasant diverting trip to Nice that just might get the listener thinking, "What if. It there another way?"
This is a fine, fully realized production director Colin Guthrie. Shaun Dooley, Helen Longworth, Christine Kavanagh, Sam Dale do a very nice job with the acting chores. Give it a listen.
It is available here: The Afternoon Play BBC Radio 4 Through Tuesday April 17, 2007. Click the Wednesday button.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Three Large Beers
A radio play by David Nobbs
The Afternoon Play BBC Radio 4
If I were to introduce someone to their first radio comedy play Three Large Beers would be an excellent point of entry. First radio comedy play? Yes, well, here in the good ole USA we don't do such things. But praise be to the gods of 21st Century technology who control all the satellites, fiber optics or whatever is involved, for now we have the gift of the internet and the delight of North American, and global access to The Afternoon Play . This is an anthology series of plays 45 minutes in length. Some days these 45 Minutes are longer than others. Today April 10, 2007 the 45 minutes feels more like 10 minutes. The comedy Three Large Beers is a tasty slightly dark rich brew that is full bodied with a thick handsome frothy head. We take a sip and feel amused, somewhat lightheaded, after a nice swig we begin to giggle, half way through we are fully engaged and can't help but laugh out loud. By the end we are tapping our glass on the table top and begging David Nobbs, "I'll have another please"
This is about as good as I have heard. It features solid performances by Tim McInnnerny, James Fleet, Jeremy Swift, and Kulvinder Ghir under the direction of Turan Ali.
But really the man of the hour, of the 45 minutes, is a young fellow named David Nobbs. With Three Large Beers he serves up his very first original radio play. But there are novels and television work going back, back, back, to almost the mid 20th Century. Check out the young fellow's brand new site: David Nobbs is a master craftsman artist.
"Please sir. I want some more."
Three Large Beers will be available via all the satellites, fiber optics, telephone lines, wifi, what have you, but only through April 16, 2007. At The Afternoon Play web page.
Just scroll down and hit Tuesday. Don't miss it!
The Afternoon Play BBC Radio 4
If I were to introduce someone to their first radio comedy play Three Large Beers would be an excellent point of entry. First radio comedy play? Yes, well, here in the good ole USA we don't do such things. But praise be to the gods of 21st Century technology who control all the satellites, fiber optics or whatever is involved, for now we have the gift of the internet and the delight of North American, and global access to The Afternoon Play . This is an anthology series of plays 45 minutes in length. Some days these 45 Minutes are longer than others. Today April 10, 2007 the 45 minutes feels more like 10 minutes. The comedy Three Large Beers is a tasty slightly dark rich brew that is full bodied with a thick handsome frothy head. We take a sip and feel amused, somewhat lightheaded, after a nice swig we begin to giggle, half way through we are fully engaged and can't help but laugh out loud. By the end we are tapping our glass on the table top and begging David Nobbs, "I'll have another please"
This is about as good as I have heard. It features solid performances by Tim McInnnerny, James Fleet, Jeremy Swift, and Kulvinder Ghir under the direction of Turan Ali.
But really the man of the hour, of the 45 minutes, is a young fellow named David Nobbs. With Three Large Beers he serves up his very first original radio play. But there are novels and television work going back, back, back, to almost the mid 20th Century. Check out the young fellow's brand new site: David Nobbs is a master craftsman artist.
"Please sir. I want some more."
Three Large Beers will be available via all the satellites, fiber optics, telephone lines, wifi, what have you, but only through April 16, 2007. At The Afternoon Play web page.
Just scroll down and hit Tuesday. Don't miss it!
Sunday, April 8, 2007
The Employee
A radio play by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
This week's The Friday Play on BBC Radio 4 is a replay of The Employee.
This is beautifully produced and directed by Marc Beeby. He gives it a very realistic soundscape that helps the play work. It doesn't SOUND silly and is acted with total conviction with a fine cast headed up by Ron Cook as Iain "With two 'i's.". Mr. Cook's performance in itself makes the play worth a listen. Our Iain is a very loyal worker. He is a building maintenance man at The Elm, a high tech, climate controlled, terrorist proof high-rise office building. But he is not loyal to the managers above him or the clients who rent space in the building. He loves and owes his loyalty to The Elm itself. Is this not what we want in a building, a man who loves it and knows it very, very well? It would seem that this would be the best except that what is more important to others in the pecking order. Those above him know little about the actual function of The Elm, but that doesn't keep them from lording over our Iain "With two 'i's."
This is the conflict in Sebastian Baczkiewicz's play which comes off as a sort of mix between a Stanislaw Lem novel and the Capra movie It's a Wonderful Life (maybe with a touch of The Marx Brothers or Olson & Johnson). But this is not all silliness. There are indeed some very dark comedy elements in The Elm. If you are a upper or mid level manager of others you might want to stay away. It might just increase your paranoia about what 'They" are really up to. If you are one of the rest of us you might find in much more amusing and somewhat familiar.
It is available at BBC Radio 4 The Friday Play through April 12, 2007.
This week's The Friday Play on BBC Radio 4 is a replay of The Employee.
This is beautifully produced and directed by Marc Beeby. He gives it a very realistic soundscape that helps the play work. It doesn't SOUND silly and is acted with total conviction with a fine cast headed up by Ron Cook as Iain "With two 'i's.". Mr. Cook's performance in itself makes the play worth a listen. Our Iain is a very loyal worker. He is a building maintenance man at The Elm, a high tech, climate controlled, terrorist proof high-rise office building. But he is not loyal to the managers above him or the clients who rent space in the building. He loves and owes his loyalty to The Elm itself. Is this not what we want in a building, a man who loves it and knows it very, very well? It would seem that this would be the best except that what is more important to others in the pecking order. Those above him know little about the actual function of The Elm, but that doesn't keep them from lording over our Iain "With two 'i's."
This is the conflict in Sebastian Baczkiewicz's play which comes off as a sort of mix between a Stanislaw Lem novel and the Capra movie It's a Wonderful Life (maybe with a touch of The Marx Brothers or Olson & Johnson). But this is not all silliness. There are indeed some very dark comedy elements in The Elm. If you are a upper or mid level manager of others you might want to stay away. It might just increase your paranoia about what 'They" are really up to. If you are one of the rest of us you might find in much more amusing and somewhat familiar.
It is available at BBC Radio 4 The Friday Play through April 12, 2007.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
The Pledge
Dare to compare?
Here we have an opportunity to compare a movie with a radio play.
BBC World Service: World Drama presents The Pledge by Friedrich Durrenmatt and dramatized by Steve Chambers. This fine production heard last year on BBC Radio 4 is a detective story about an illusive child murder. There is a false accusation of one of the usual suspects, this one who conveniently happens to be the one to first stumble upon the corpse of the victim. The play shows how the cops just want to get the job done, solve the case and move on to the next thing. If not for the retiring Detective Matthai's insistence and pledge to find out what really happened, our killer would have been free to kill again and again, or would he?
So the comparison? The story was made into a movie directed by Sean Penn in 2001. Matthai becomes Jack Nicholson's Jerry Black in the Americanized version . It has a rather star studded cast. It has been a while since I've seen the movie. It is over two hours long and one has to look at a screen that long to watch the thing. The BBC Radio version gets the job done in an hour. Maybe it depends on how one wants to spend one's time. Or if one sees entertainment as more a pastime where the more time that passes the better, or just to get the basic information and be done with it. Or maybe it depends on if one wants to see things in the imagination or displayed in explicit fashion on a screen. EarStory Radio Review votes for the latter. Besides the Swiss setting was just somehow more convincing without the intrusion of all those familiar star faces.
Either way it's a good story even if one in not particularly interesting to the detective cop mystery genre.
The play is available to "Listen Again" through Friday April 6, 2007. BBC World Service: World Drama Page
Here we have an opportunity to compare a movie with a radio play.
BBC World Service: World Drama presents The Pledge by Friedrich Durrenmatt and dramatized by Steve Chambers. This fine production heard last year on BBC Radio 4 is a detective story about an illusive child murder. There is a false accusation of one of the usual suspects, this one who conveniently happens to be the one to first stumble upon the corpse of the victim. The play shows how the cops just want to get the job done, solve the case and move on to the next thing. If not for the retiring Detective Matthai's insistence and pledge to find out what really happened, our killer would have been free to kill again and again, or would he?
So the comparison? The story was made into a movie directed by Sean Penn in 2001. Matthai becomes Jack Nicholson's Jerry Black in the Americanized version . It has a rather star studded cast. It has been a while since I've seen the movie. It is over two hours long and one has to look at a screen that long to watch the thing. The BBC Radio version gets the job done in an hour. Maybe it depends on how one wants to spend one's time. Or if one sees entertainment as more a pastime where the more time that passes the better, or just to get the basic information and be done with it. Or maybe it depends on if one wants to see things in the imagination or displayed in explicit fashion on a screen. EarStory Radio Review votes for the latter. Besides the Swiss setting was just somehow more convincing without the intrusion of all those familiar star faces.
Either way it's a good story even if one in not particularly interesting to the detective cop mystery genre.
The play is available to "Listen Again" through Friday April 6, 2007. BBC World Service: World Drama Page
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