Drama on 3

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Drama on 3

1antimuzak
Lug 7, 2019, 1:52 am

Sunday 7th July 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:30 (2 hours long)

A Clockwork Orange.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Alex and his vicious gang of 'droogs' revel in horrific violence. They run riot and communicate in 'Nadsat' their own hybridisation of Russian and English slang. When a drug fuelled night of fun ends in murder Alex is arrested. He is given a choice, be brainwashed into a good citizen, or face a lifetime in prison. A dramatisation of the controversial dystopian classic about crime and punishment using an original score composed by author Anthony Burgess with new orchestration by Iain Farrington. Performed live with the BBC Philharmonic as part of 'Contains Strong Language'. A season of poetry and performance from Hull.

Director: Gary Brown
Starring: Samuel Edward-Cook, Edward Leigh, Ian Bartholomew, Sevan Stephan, Sue Jenkins, Jonathan Keeble

2antimuzak
Lug 14, 2019, 1:50 am

Sunday 14th July 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 20:30 (1 hour long)

The Masque of Anarchy.

Ian McMillan introduces a commemoration of the Peterloo Massacre, as Maxine Peake performs Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem of protest, The Masque of Anarchy. Written in response to the events of 16 August 1819, Shelley was compelled to react to the massacre in which cavalry men charged campaigners in St Peter's Field, Manchester, leaving 15 dead and 700 injured. Recorded only a few miles from where it happened, Maxine Peake"s performance makes the poem - a call for political action - resonate for a contemporary audience.

3antimuzak
Nov 3, 2019, 1:49 am

Sunday 3rd November 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:40 (2 hours and 10 minutes long)

Fathers and Sons.

'Fathers and Sons' by Brian Friel, after the novel by Ivan Turgenev. Fathers: Charles Dance, James Fleet. Sons: Edward Bennett, George Blagden. In Turgenev's prescient 1859 story of generational collision, both young heroes seem, at first, passionate revolutionaries, believing the old Russia should be swept away. But they're unsure what they'd replace it with. This clash of values is dramatic, funny and recognisably up-to-date, with Julia McKenzie as a batty princess, Lisa Dillon a self-searching widow, Gabrielle Lloyd a loving mother and Martin Jarvis as odd-ball Uncle Pavel. Turgenev's darkly observant human comedy examines a particular period in Russian history which, in this epic production, foregrounds the eventual political struggle. And Friel, with benefit of hindsight, allows a glimpse of the future. Movingly, the play reminds us that it's the eternal values of love, friendship, loyalty and devotion that will, ultimately - hopefully - survive.

4antimuzak
Nov 17, 2019, 1:47 am

Sunday 17th November 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:15 (1 hour and 45 minutes long)

Tis Pity She's a Whore.

Tis Pity She's A Whore by John Ford. Compassionate and disturbing, John Ford's great story of doomed love. Irish and northern voices entwine in this visceral production for radio. With an Introduction by Professor Emma Smith.

5antimuzak
Dic 1, 2019, 1:49 am

Sunday 1st December 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 20:45 (1 hour and 15 minutes long)

Omnibus.

Toby Jones stars as Hans Christian Andersen in five interlinked fairy tale adaptations by Lucy Catherine which shine a light into the dark regions of the author's mind. Best-selling author and fairy-tale aficionado, Joanne Harris, introduces us to the author's imagination. A drama of haunting strangeness that delves into the author's most unnerving tales where a king barters his daughter's happiness, a young girl is punished for the colour of her shoes, a woman makes a terrible choice to escape poverty, romance is marred by an icy kiss of death and a power-mad prince embarks on world domination. Directed by Gemma Jenkins. Hans Christian Andersen jettisons the conventions of fairy tale logic, giving his characters realistic motivations for why they do what they do. He directly links the fantastical with the psychological. He subverts fairy tale logic whereby the good are beautiful and the bad, ugly. Without him, every fairy tale would end happily ever after and the true power of the genre might never have been realised. Andersen acts as a tour guide, embarking on a journey through his imagination as he attempts to identify the source of his creativity. Featured in the drama are The Most Incredible Thing, The Red Shoes, Anne Lisbeth, The Ice Maiden and The Wicked Prince.

6antimuzak
Dic 22, 2019, 1:47 am

Sunday 22nd December 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:30 (2 hours long)

Winter Solstice.

by Roland Schimmelpfennig. A comic, unsettling and timely play by Germany's most performed contemporary playwright. It's Christmas Eve in the flat where unhappy arty intellectuals Albert and Bettina live with their little daughter Marie. Bettina's difficult mother Corinna has come to stay, and worse still Corinna has invited Rudolph, a total stranger. Not only that, but Rudolph has some rather uncomfortable views. Roland Schimmelpfennig is one of the most produced European playwrights, and his plays have been translated into over twenty languages. His play Push Up (Royal Court 2002) presented a corporate culture where cut-throat employees oust their cut-throat bosses to get to the top. Arabian Night (Soho Theatre, 2002) unpicked the psyche of modern multicultural cities, where myths intermingle and identities entangle. The Golden Dragon (Traverse, 2011), set in a Chinese takeaway, won the Mülheim Dramatists Prize and has had more than twenty productions worldwide. Winter Solstice itself was on at The Orange Tree Theatre in 2017. Schimmelpfennig is the recipient of the highest playwriting award in Germany, the Else Lasker Schüler Prize, in honour of his entire oeuvre.

Director: Abigail le Fleming
Starring: Sam Troughton, Clare Corbett, David Haig, Christopher Harper, Sinead MacInnes, Roland Schimmelpfennig

7antimuzak
Gen 5, 2020, 1:48 am

Sunday 5th January 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:30 (2 hours long)

The Wild Duck.

David Threlfall, Sam West and James Fox star in Henrik Ibsen's masterpiece - as strong on comedy as profound, tragic drama. A family creates an imaginary forest in their loft room for a wounded wild duck. But will someone come to shatter their dreams? Translated and adapted by Christopher Hampton.

Director: Peter Kavanagh
Starring: David Threlfall, Samuel West, James Fox, Lise-Ann McLaughlin, Lauren Cornelius, Clive Hayward

8antimuzak
Feb 9, 2020, 2:02 am

Sunday 9th February 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:15 (1 hour and 45 minutes long)

Lady Windermere's Fan.

Martin Jarvis directs this production of Oscar Wilde's drama, starring Mira Sorvino, Susannah Fielding and James Callis. Social outsider Mrs Erlynne and respectable Lord Windermere share a secret. Are they having an affair? Confronted by young wife Margaret, her husband denies it. Unconvinced, she decides to leave him. A rollercoaster examination of 'good' and 'bad'. The tell-tale fan becomes a vital clue as the truth finally becomes clear.

9antimuzak
Feb 23, 2020, 1:47 am

Sunday 23rd February 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:15 (1 hour and 45 minutes long)

The Glass Menagerie.

By Tennessee Williams. The Glass Menagerie was Tennessee Williams' first big success when it opened on Broadway in 1945, and has remained the most touching, tender and painful of his works. Closely based on the playwright's own life and family in St Louis in the 1930s, Williams breaks away from naturalism to create a dream-like atmosphere. The narrator Tom conjures up recollections of the cramped and claustrophobic tenement home he shares with his often over-bearing mother Amanda, and his painfully shy sister, Laura. The play simmers with frustration as each character is trapped in their own unhappy situation. Tom (also Williams' birth name) works in a warehouse but dreams of being a poet and escaping his mundane life supporting his mother and sister. Laura hides at home lacking the confidence to engage meaningfully with the outside world, preferring instead to get lose herself in her collection of fragile glass animals. Amanda sells magazine subscriptions over the phone and commits herself to finding a match for her daughter. One day, Tom succumbs to his mother's pressure and brings home a gentleman caller to visit his sister, and their quiet existence is shattered. The programme is introduced by John Lahr, author of the acclaimed biography Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh.

10antimuzak
Mar 1, 2020, 1:58 am

Sunday 1st March 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:25 (1 hour and 55 minutes long)

A Streetcar Named Desire.

Anne Marie Duff leads a stellar cast in a new landmark production of Tennessee Williams's iconic play, telling the story of a catastrophic confrontation between fantasy and reality, embodied in the characters of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. Blanche DuBois arrives unexpectedly on the doorstep of her sister Stella and her explosive brother-in-law Stanley. Over the course of one hot and steamy New Orleans summer, Blanche's fragile façade slowly crumbles, wreaking havoc on Stella and Stanley's already turbulent relationship. Embodying the turmoil and drama of a changing nation, A Streetcar Named Desire strips Williams's tortured characters of their illusions, leaving a wake of destruction in their path. Tennessee Williams's 1947 play is justifiably one of the most loved and well-known stage plays of the 20th century. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1948, and picked up four Oscars when it transferred to the screen with largely the same cast three years later. When it made its London debut, the Public Morality Council denounced it as `salacious and pornographic". Not coincidentally, the production was booked solid for nine months. Anne-Marie Duff (Blanche) is an Olivier-winning actress, who will soon be appearing in DC Moore's Common at the National Theatre. Matthew Needham's (Stanley) previous work includes the eponymous role in Mark Ravenhill's Candide at the RSC. Pippa Bennett-Warner (Stella) recently appeared in The Beaux Stratagem at the National Theatre, and in River on BBC One. John Heffernan's (Mitch) work includes titular roles in Macbeth at the Young Vic Theatre and Oppenheimer with the RSC.

11antimuzak
Mar 15, 2020, 2:45 am

Sunday 15th March 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:00 (1 hour and 30 minutes long)

The Shadow of a Doubt.

A recently rediscovery by Edith Wharton from 1901, starring Phoebe Fox, Francesca Annis, Paul Ready, David Horovitch and Don Gilet. Introduced by Laura Rattray, Reader in American Studies, University of Glasgow. Adapted for radio by Melissa Murray, and directed by Emma Harding. Long before she achieved fame with her novel, The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton wrote a number of plays. But they were all believed lost until two academics, Laura Rattray and Mary Chinery, discovered the complete manuscript of The Shadow of a Doubt in 2017. Wharton's play - which pivots on the issue of assisted suicide - was about to be staged in New York in early 1901, before the production was abandoned for unknown reasons. Kate, a former nurse, has recently married above her class to John Derwent, whose first wife Kate had nursed following an horrific accident. But others are suspicious of Kate's social ascent. And others have knowledge that could destroy her.

12antimuzak
Mar 22, 2020, 2:51 am

Sunday 22nd March 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:00 (1 hour and 30 minutes long)

Schreber.

A world premiere of Anthony Burgess' never produced screenplay of the iconic early 20th-century Memoir of My Nervous Illness by Daniel Schreber, seminal text for Freud et al. Originally written for Burt Lancaster to star, Burgess' 1975 screenplay is boldly refashioned for Radio 3 by award-winning writer Jeff Young, and stars Christopher Eccleston, who grew up in the same area as Anthony Burgess, and is a fan of his work. Daniel Schreber's story is extraordinary and little known outside psychiatric circles. In 19th-century Germany, Daniel Schreber was a successful, respected High Court judge. Out of nowhere, seemingly, he suffered a series of nervous breakdowns, requiring extensive hospitalisation. He recovered enough to come back home for short while, but was soon back in hospital, where he remained for the rest of his life. During his time back home, whilst briefly restored to full health, he gathered together notes he had made during his first hospitalisation and wrote them up, publishing the text in 1903 as Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. It was a brave and compassionate thing to do, given the stigma of mental illness. The book has become an iconic text in psychoanalysis - Freud analysed it extensively. Anthony Burgess was fascinated by Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, seeing it as a key to understanding modern life, with its intimate portrayal of repression and rebellion within the family. His exciting screenplay dramatises key sections of the book, developing one of Burgess' key themes about how messianic beliefs and personalities evolve. The end result is a moving portrait of the patient experience, focusing on Schreber's belief that he had to become a woman, in order to be impregnated by the sun and repopulate the earth.

Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Nadia Albina, David Annen, Chetna Pandya, Don Gilet, Guy Rhys

13antimuzak
Apr 12, 2020, 1:51 am

Sunday 12th April 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:10 (1 hour and 40 minutes long)

Elizabeth and Essex.

Elizabeth and Essex is a new play by Robin Brooks, based on the writings of Lytton Strachey, about Elizabeth I and her young favourite, the Earl of Essex. It was recorded live at the Alexandra Palace Theatre, with music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, drawn from his classic score which Korngold originally composed for the 1939 movie The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, starring Bette Davis as Elizabeth and Errol Flynn as Essex. Korngold's music is played by the BBC Concert Orchestra and conducted by Robert Ziegler. The play stars Simon Russell Beale as both Strachey, leading light of the Bloomsbury Group, and Elizabeth I. It explores the way in which Strachey gradually became absorbed in a rich fantasy life inspired by intrigue at the Tudor court, into which he drew the young man who was then the object of his affections. The two stories, of the Virgin Queen and the ageing writer, play out in parallel, with assistance from other Bloomsbury-group members, Lady Ottoline Morrell and John Maynard Keynes. With the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Robert Ziegler.

Directors: Robin Brooks, Fiona McAlpine
Starring: Simon Russell Beale, Harry Lloyd, Nancy Carroll, Julian Harries, Robin Brooks

14antimuzak
Apr 19, 2020, 1:50 am

Sunday 19th April 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:35 (2 hours and 5 minutes long)

Othello.

Khalid Abdalla and Matthew Needham star in an adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy, staged in an imagined near future, in which Turkey attempts to re-invade Cyprus.

15antimuzak
Apr 26, 2020, 1:44 am

Sunday 26th April 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:30 (2 hours long)

Henry IV (Part 1).

By William Shakespeare. Rebellion is brewing in Britain. King Henry must reunite his country but how when even his own family is divided? As Henry's rule is threatened, his son Hal appears unconcerned, wasting his time in the company of the comically corrupt Falstaff and common thieves, apparently more interested in play than the politics of state. Yet what kind of leadership is needed to unite the country might well be found in the taverns of Eastcheap as within the Palace of Westminster.

16antimuzak
Mag 3, 2020, 1:47 am

Sunday 3rd May 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:45 (2 hours and 15 minutes long)

In the Native State by Tom Stoppard.

The original recording of Stoppard's 1991 drama, commissioned by Radio 3, starring Felicity Kendal and Dame Peggy Ashcroft in her final dramatic role. Tom Stoppard's prizewinning play is set in two places and periods: India in 1930 and England in the 1990s. A young poet with a scandalous reputation sits for a portrait whilst in India for her health. 60 years later, the portrait sparks difficult conversations about Indian history and the story behind the painting itself. This is an archive edition of Drama on 3 from 1991 - to mark the death last month of its director John Tydeman, a former head of BBC Radio Drama.

17antimuzak
Mag 10, 2020, 1:47 am

Sunday 10th May 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 20:30 (1 hour long)

Unicorns, Almost.

Unicorns, Almost by Owen Sheers portrays the short life of Second World War poet Keith Douglas, from his childhood through four engagements to his fighting in the Western desert, his accelerated education as a poet and his early death three days after the Normandy D-Day landings at the age of 24. It is the story of his Faustian pact with a war that would nurture his unique poetic voice before abruptly snatching it away. It is also the story of his desperate race to see his poems in print before his time on earth ran out. Widely recognised as the finest poet of the Second World War, Keith Douglas was championed by Ted Hughes as an important influence. Hughes wrote the introduction to Douglas's The Complete Poems, published by Faber. Welsh playwright, poet, and novelist, Owen Sheers, introduces this immersive audiobook based on the play produced by The Story of Books.

18antimuzak
Mag 17, 2020, 1:44 am

Sunday 17th May 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:00 (1 hour and 30 minutes long)

Louis MacNeice: The Dark Tower.

The Dark Tower by Louis MacNeice. A new production of the iconic radio play broadcast by the BBC in 1946. The Dark Tower is widely acknowledged to be the finest of MacNeice's many works for radio and one of the most critically acclaimed radio plays of the 20th century. The verse drama - set in the world of myth, but with strong allegorical, autobiographical and even satirical elements - has at its core music by Benjamin Britten to whom MacNeice dedicated the published script. Performed in front of a live audience at Orford Church, Suffolk, as part of Snape Maltings' Britten Weekend. In this most imposing and atmospheric of radio studios, Britten's music and his musical sound-effects is played by the BBC Concert Orchestra. Combining period touches with an entirely fresh approach, this production brings this momentous radio drama collaboration to a contemporary audience.

19antimuzak
Mag 24, 2020, 1:52 am

Sunday 24th May 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:30 (2 hours long)

Michael Frayn: Copenhagen.

Michael Frayn's play about the controversial 1941 meeting between physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. Bohr and his wife Margrethe live in Nazi-occupied Denmark, and their visitor, Heisenberg, is German. These two old friends are now on opposing sides, but between them have the ability to change the course of history. With Simon Russell Beale, Benedict Cumberbatch and Greta Scacchi. Adapted for radio and directed by Emma Harding.

20antimuzak
Giu 13, 2020, 1:49 am

Saturday 13th June 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 20:00 to 22:00 (2 hours long)

Rockets and Blue Lights.

Rockets and Blue Lights by Winsome Pinnock. The Royal Exchange Theatre's production of Rockets and Blue Lights had not yet had its press night when the theatres closed in March 2020. Lockdown Theatre Festival gives it a new lease of life on radio, using technological solutions to record the actors at home. Amid the gloom of Victorian England, Thomas, a black sailor prepares to take one last voyage, while the ageing artist JMW Turner seeks inspiration in a half-remembered story. In 21st-century London, an actress finds herself bound by history - two centuries after abolitionists won her ancestors their freedom. The play retells British history through the prism of the slave trade. Fusing fact with fiction, past with present, the powerfully personal with the fiercely political, it asks who owns our past - and who has the right to tell its stories?

Director: Miranda Cromwell
Starring: Anthony Aje, Paul Bradley, Karl Collins, Kiza Deen, Natey Jones, Rochelle Rose

21antimuzak
Giu 28, 2020, 1:49 am


Sunday 28th June 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 22:25 (2 hours and 55 minutes long)

Long Day's Journey Into Night.

Long Day's Journey Into Night is the story of one devastating day in the Tyrone family, the Great American Family at its worst. The play depicts the family members' downward spiral into addiction, disease, and their own haunted pasts. Awarded a Pulitzer Prize posthumously for this play, it is generally regarded as Eugene O'Neill's masterpiece. With a cast including Robert Glenister, Anastasia Hille and Rupert Evans. Set in August 1912 in the Summer House of The Tyrones by the sea in Connecticut, the four main characters are considered to be the semi-autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his older brother, and their parents. James Tyrone is a tight-fisted ageing actor whose miserliness has been the ruin of his family. His wife, Mary, has been a morphine addict since the birth of their youngest son, Edmund. Their eldest son, Jamie, is an alcoholic. Unable and unwilling to find work on his own, he has been forced to take up his father's profession. Edmund, who has been away as a sailor, has returned home sick and awaits the doctor's diagnosis of consumption. They are all so wrapped up in their own despair that they struggle to confront the truth.

22antimuzak
Set 13, 2020, 1:46 am

Sunday 13th September 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:15 (1 hour and 45 minutes long)

Andromache.

Jean Racine's play, first performed in 1667, is set a year after the Fall of Troy in Epirus, where Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, is ostensibly betrothed to Helen's daughter, Hermione. Pyrrhus however is pining after Hector's widow, Andromache. The play opens as Orestes, son to Agamemnon, comes with a message from the Greeks demanding that Pyrrhus should hand over Andromache's son, Astyanax. Orestes, it so happens, is in love with Hermione. Edward Kemp's version of the play is set against a present-day soundscape and asks when a culture has endured a shattering event, the Trojan War or one of the world-changing events of the current century, how can we move on? And if we can't, are we destined to repeat the same cataclysmic mistakes over and over again?

23antimuzak
Ott 4, 2020, 1:48 am

Sunday 4th October 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:20 (1 hour and 50 minutes long)

The Son.

Starring Laurie Kynaston, Joseph Millson and Nicola Walker, in a translation by Christopher Hampton, Florian Zeller's timely play about parenthood explores the impact of mental illness on an already fractured family. Pierre is about to realise a career dream and has a new baby with his second wife Sofia. Into this picture of family happiness walks his son, Nicolas, by his first wife, Anne. Nicolas has been struggling with depression, has fallen out with his mum and thinks coming to live with his dad will help him get back on track. It's not long before past and present collide, reawakening resentments and painful memories. It's a play that compels its characters to question whether love is enough to rescue those closest to you.

Director: Gemma Jenkins
Starring: Laurie Kynaston, Joseph Millson, Nicola Walker, Cecilia Appiah, Carl Prekopp, Ian Dunnett Jr

24antimuzak
Ott 18, 2020, 1:46 am

Sunday 18th October 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:35 (2 hours and 5 minutes long)

Measure for Measure.

By William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's last and perhaps strangest comedy - a play about religion, surveillance, coercion, sex and power.

Director: Gaynor Macfarlane
Starring: Paul Higgins, Nicola Ferguson, Robert Jack, Maureen Beattie, Finn den Hertog, Michael Nardone

25antimuzak
Ott 25, 2020, 2:54 am

Sunday 25th October 2020 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:30 (2 hours long)

The Merchant of Venice.

Andrew Scott, Ray Fearon, Hayley Atwell and Colin Morgan star in Shakespeare's ever-topical story of over-confident traders, a debt-ridden country dependent on credit, and a society suspicious of religious difference, transposed to the City of London and the 2008 financial crisis. Introduced by the BBC's Business Editor Simon Jack. Adapted and directed by Emma Harding.

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