British Universities Film & Video Council

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Tom Stoppard Radio Plays

The other three plays easily passed my ‘student test’, each having contemporary resonance

The other three plays easily passed my ‘student test’, each having contemporary resonance. In Albert’s Bridge, broadcast the same summer that Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead first played at the Old Vic, Albert has just completed a degree in philosophy but there are no jobs for graduates, let alone philosophers. The job he ends up in bears some resemblance to a philosophical conundrum: an endless cycle of painting a bridge so long that by the time the task is completed, repainting has to start again. The Dog It Was That Died , broadcast a few years after the BBC’s first adaptation of Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor and the publication of Philby’s autobiography, is a witty commentary on the absurd contradictions of counter-espionage, still relevant today. In The Native State is an example of the kind of evidence provided by radio that ought more often to cross subject boundaries into other fields of study. An engrossing plot, great performances by Felicity Kendal and Peggy Ashcroft, richly layered with the kind of hindsight interpretation that Stoppard so well develops, is at once a critique of British imperialism and the collaboration of an Anglo-Indian elite, a subtle exploration of linguistic and cultural codes and, as in Artist Descending A Staircase, an interrogation of memory, both personal and historical.

‘If I had one good man high up in the BBC’ (Beauchamp again) ‘it would become art for millions.’ Fortunately for us all, Stoppard had two good men in the BBC Radio Drama Department, Richard Imison and John Tydeman. Their encouragement and patronage have handed down some treasures for public and scholarly consumption. I hope this BBC/BL project reaches, if not millions, a very wide listenership, and that more recordings, from the authors and producers of the many more jewels in the archives, will be made available.

Peter M. Lewis

 

Track Listing Tom Stoppard: Radio Plays

DISC ONE

Albert’s Bridge
Original broadcast: 13.07.1967
Duration: 57.44
Bob – Nigel Anthony
Charlie – Alexander John
Dad – Geoffrey Wincott
Albert – John Hurt
Chairman – Victor Lucas
Dave – Ian Thompson
George – Anthony Jackson
Fitch – Ronald Herdman
Mother – Betty Hardy
Father – Alan Dudley
Kate – Barbara Mitchell
Fraser – Haydn Jones
Director – Charles Lefeaux

DISC TWO

Artist Descending A Staircase
Original broadcast: 14.11.1972
Duration: 73.43
Martello (senior) – Stephen Murray
Beauchamp (senior) – Rolf Lefebvre
Donner (senior) – Carleton Hobbs
Sophie – Fiona Walker
Martello (junior) – Michael Spice
Beauchamp (junior) – Peter Egan
Donner (junior) – Dinsdale Landen
Director – John Tydeman

DISC THREE

The Dog It Was That Died
Original broadcast: 09.12.1982
Duration: 65.34
Rupert Purvis – Dinsdale Landen
Giles Blair – Charles Gray
Hogbin – Kenneth Cranham
Slack – Peter Tuddenham
Pamela Blair – Penelope Keith
Mrs Ryan – Katherine Parr
Commodore Arlon – Stephen Murray
Matron – Betty Marsden
Dr Seddon – John Le Mesurier
Vicar – Noel Howlett
Chief – Maurice Denham
Wren – Lockwood West
Director – John Tydeman

DISCS FOUR AND FIVE

In The Native State
Original broadcast: 21.04.1991
Duration: 72.02 and 63.08
Flora Crewe – Felicity Kendal
Nirad Das – Sam Dastor
Mrs Swan – Peggy Ashcroft
Anish Das – Lyndam Gregory
Nell – Emma Gregory
David Durance – Simon Treves
Nazrul – Amerjit Deu
Pike – William Hootkins
Coomaraswami – Renu Setna
Resident – Brett Usher
Rajah – Saeed Jaffrey
Francis/Englishman – Mark Straker
Emily Eden/Englishwoman – Auriol Smith
Director – John Tydeman

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