Drama on 3: Stoppard, Artist Descending a Staircase

[french frank]

This Tom Stoppard play for radio was first broadcast on Radio 3 in 1972 (on 14 November - the BBC's 50th anniversary). This is the first new radio production since then. With Geoffrey Whitehead, Derek Jacobi and Ian McDiarmid.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06twqcd

[aeolium]

That first broadcast had Carleton Hobbs in the cast. It's not my favourite of Stoppard's radio plays by a long chalk but I look forward to this. Is R3 going back to its roots this year - Stockhausen, Stoppard in the first week?

[french frank]

Is R3 going back to its roots this year - Stockhausen, Stoppard in the first week?

Intriguing - and don't forget the return of Record Review. I think we are seeing an agenda being set.

Most endearing email I've received in the last few days: 'After some of the events in recent years it is almost a relief to read of programmes which I would quietly dodge as being “too demanding” rather than because they are too trivial to merit attention!'



I wonder what the Greater BBC will make of it.

[aeolium]

I greatly enjoyed this production, which was faithful to Stoppard's text and directions, with a helpful (indispensable for those who don't know the play) introduction by the producer. It brought out the intricacies of the play's construction and frequently confounded expectations not just in the dialogue but in the development of the drama, with imv ambiguity retained even after the revelation at the end of the play. All the voices were very good, the younger artists sounding more alike, though that actually worked well with the nearly/then completely blind Sophie. The play seemed mostly to be about perception and misperception, and I liked the way it paid homage to the radio drama form - not only in the way radio sound effects were deliberately brought in almost as an extra character in one scene, but also in small touches, like the way Sophie's surname, Farthingale, is the same as that of the cynical art master in Giles Cooper's masterpiece Unman, Wittering and Zigo, and the obvious allusion to Krapp's Last Tape in the way the tape loop was used repeatedly as a vital part of the drama.

Even if only a few will have listened to this, it is absolutely the kind of production R3 should be doing, and it gets a big from me.

[DracoM]

Well, I am genuinely enjoying tuning in R3 and NOT hearing the thunder of warhorse hooves everywhere. 'Northern Lights' and the current agenda have done much to revive my listening pleasure to R3.

[french frank]

Even if only a few will have listened to this, it is absolutely the kind of production R3 should be doing, and it gets a big from me.

And let's not forget - it was a new production not from the archive. That augurs well.

Always interesting to consider the 'few' that listen to a radio play: still quite a lot compared with the number of people who fill a theatre.

[aeolium]

Well, I am genuinely enjoying tuning in R3 and NOT hearing the thunder of warhorse hooves everywhere.

There was a cavalry charge in the Stoppard play, though

'Northern Lights' and the current agenda have done much to revive my listening pleasure to R3.

I agree. I really enjoyed the Northern Lights season.

[eighthobstruction]

....I listened....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

'Northern Lights' and the current agenda have done much to revive my listening pleasure to R3.

- to extend a comment I made a week or so ago, I think that I have listened to more "Live" (as opposed to "ketchup") R3 this month than in the whole of last year.

Some very interesting and promising comments from Alan Davey about the station he "inherited" in the new Radio Times, btw.

[eighthobstruction]

.....I listened to this (ketchup) and was intrigued by it....

[french frank]

Listened last night. Quite agree with plaudits - this is getting back to old Radio 3 standards of drama and I don't doubt that this reflects the priorities of the current controller in wanting Radio 3 to be thought of (once again) as a 'cultural network' rather than an alternative variety of music station.

I flirted with someone else's preferred interpretation of the mystery: I rather like the romantic one. There is an irresistibly attractive symmetry in suicide - or is this now the orthodoxy anyway?