Drama 2011/2012

[french frank]

I seem to have uncovered a list of forthcoming drama productions. No dates, just some titles:

2011 A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare New Production of Stage Play
2011 Glass Chair Chair Glass Annie Caulfield New Writing
2011 St Joan Bernard Shaw New Production of Stage Play
2011 Cock Mike Bartlett Stage Transfer
2011 Brand Henrik Ibsen New Production of Stage Play
2011 Louis Robert Forrest New Writing
2011 Mincemeat Adrian Jackson Stage Transfer
2011 Antigone Anouilh/Neil LaBute New Production of Stage Play
2011 The Piano Lesson August Wilson New Production of Stage Play
2011 Skyvers Barry Reckord New Production of Stage Play
2011 The Recruiting Officer Farquhar New Production of Stage Play
2012 Salford Play Anjum Malik New Writing
2012 Things Might Change or Cease Linda Marshall Griffiths New Writing
2012 My Generation Alice Nutter New Writing
2012 Sunset Doug Doug Lucie New Writing
2012 A Man's World Adrian Mead New Writing
2012 Sea Change John Fletcher New Writing
2012 Chowringhee Mukherjee Adaptation
2012 Marathon Tales Colin Teevan New Writing
2012 The Tempest Shakespeare New Production of Stage Play
2012 The Product Mike Walker New Writing
2012 The Go-Between L P Hartley/Frances Byrnes Adaptation
2012 Ghosts Henrik Ibsen New Production of Stage Play
2012 Tennyson and Edison David Pownall New Writing
2012 Updike's Mother Margaret Heffernan New Writing
2012 Henceforward Alan Ayckbourn New Production of Stage Play
2012 The Visit Friedrich Dürrenmatt New Production of Stage Play
2012 Singles and Doublets Martyn Wade New Writing
2012 Sisters: Lucrezia, Mantegna and I Michelene Wandor New Writing

Two Shakespeares, two Ibsens, Dürrenmatt, August Wilson again (I enjoyed Fences last year) ...

[2LO]

... August Wilson again (I enjoyed Fences last year) ...

August Wilson's Piano Lesson was one of the most exciting plays I ever saw at the Tricycle Theatre in London some years ago.
Partly due to a small cast that was electric - hope a radio production's as good.

Looking through those titles is enticing, but will we be getting a play a week, I wonder?

[french frank]

Looking through those titles is enticing, but will we be getting a play a week, I wonder?

The previous one on the list was My Heart's A Suitcase - which has already been broadcast, so MND may be next up quite soon. It looks like one a week for the rest of the year, with probably some repeats which aren't listed.

2012 looks very short with only 18 titles, but the list may be incomplete, to be added to later.

The Trust's review said that R3 drama was much appreciated by those who listened but lacked 'impact'. This seems to be not so much a reflection on the productions as the 'marketing' of them. Reassuringly, the conclusion was that high-class drama does have a place on R3. The latest issue of the service licence says R3 should: 'Broadcast at least 35 new drama productions each year', though these will include 'The Wire'.

[Angle]

MND is to be broadcast on Sunday next but if you're expecting Shakespeare, check the schedules.

The list is interesting indeed and seems to suggest that things are looking up but I am little worried that a number of plays are "New productions of stage plays". Quite what does this mean ? The stage play with stage actors? I wonder what Shaw would have said about that.

I know what he would have said about the ST JOAN if it varies in any way from the entire original script.

Nevertheless, winter is already looking a bit brighter than I had expected.

Now .... when is the Afternoon Play play slot to be filled by playwrights?

Don

[french frank]

The list is interesting indeed and seems to suggest that things are looking up but I am little worried that a number of plays are "New productions of stage plays". Quite what does this mean ? The stage play with stage actors? I wonder what Shaw would have said about that.

I assumed that it was a new radio adaptation of an existing play (classic or modern) rather than a written-for-radio play.

And Stage Transfer would be a work currently being performed in a theatre somewhere (or very recently produced with the same director and actors).

[Lateralthinking1]

Thank you for this list frenchfrank. It is very helpful to have them all. There will be the dreaded trailers. I have already heard the one for MND.

A couple of these take me back to the days of English Lit Os and As - the LP Hartley, Shakespeare's Tempest. Ayckbourn is welcome - N Yorkshire associations there - Stephen Joseph Theatre.

A couple of curious inclusions. First, Alice Nutter from the folk anarchist group Chumbawamba is becoming an effective writer of drama. Her "Snow in July" on Radio 4 in 2008 was very good. And then "Salford Play" - I wonder why that has been included at this time!!!!!

I have to admit that I am more inclined to listen to the plays on Radio 4. I am not sure why but I intend to listen more to those on 3 this season. Does anyone have a view on how, when taken as a whole, the Radio 3 drama differs from that on Radio 4? Is there any special remit? Anything to make 3 distinctive?

[Angle]

I was misled by the Radio 3 listings website about the nature of the MND production, I hope. More detail revealed by the link on that page makes me think I should now be looking forward to Sunday evening.

[french frank]

I have to admit that I am more inclined to listen to the plays on Radio 4. I am not sure why but I intend to listen more to those on 3 this season. Does anyone have a view on how, when taken as a whole, the Radio 3 drama differs from that on Radio 4? Is there any special remit? Anything to make 3 distinctive?

We've often discussed this, sometimes saying that a Do3 play was 'more R4 than R3'. Certainly, all R3 plays are full-form, the normal slot being 90 minutes but it could be up to 3 hours if needed; just occasionally it might be a bit shorter. R3 will do a classic play in one go - it doesn't serialise. There are probably more 'stage plays', and certainly more classics, than on R4 which has more emphasis on new work. There will be more obscure works (the Maeterlinck symbolist trilogy or Golden Age Spanish plays; to say nothing of Shakespeare). It will do stage transfers e.g. National Theatre productions. The new work can be 'experimental' in form. R3 plays have very bad, erm, I mean 'strong', language without turning a hair.

I don't exactly know what R4 plays are like because I never listen, but I think they are mostly new writing for particular slots, therefore written to be 45 mins/1 hour, or whatever. I get the feeling that they are aimed at R4's wider audience though possibly there is as much 'gritty realism' in the new writing on R4 as on R3 (I tend to find these rather boring). I have heard R4 drama enthusiasts say R3's plays are scandalously boring.

[eighthobstruction]

I do not understand why with all the chanels both Radio and TV , why more stage productions, which one only HEARS of on Review programmes, do not get recorded for Radio....How often does one think [Like with Enron]....I'd love to hear/see that.... but no, off into the ether it goes; but never caught by the radio waves....

[Al R Gando]

I do not understand why with all the chanels both Radio and TV , why more stage productions, which one only HEARS of on Review programmes, do not get recorded for Radio....How often does one think [Like with Enron]....I'd love to hear/see that.... but no, off into the ether it goes; but never caught by the radio waves....

Staging drama for the theatre, and producing it well on radio, are very different disciplines indeed. It requires great talent and creativity to make drama work on the radio - and sadly it's a dying art. Transferring a play from the stage to radio would effectively require starting afresh - you can't just "point a mike at it", and I think this explains why theatre productions aren't presented on radio.

I don't exactly know what R4 plays are like because I never listen,.

Mostly they are about English women who are treated in a dastardly way during the days of the British Raj in India

[eighthobstruction]

Yeah I know, but I can dream can't I....

[french frank]

Transferring a play from the stage to radio would effectively require starting afresh

Which I think is what they do for the R3 transfers: same director, same actors, as far as possible, but adpated [adpated? ] for radio.

[Al R Gando]

Yes, it's that adpating which is the maguffin - so few manage to adpate successfully these days. I blame the government, of course. ;)

Anyhow, there's no other drama in Britain during 2012 than Shakespeare. It's official, a committee of discus-casters and stick-throwers decided it. And who would know better than they? Yes, that Douglas Shakespeare, he's the one! We're to get his Compleat Workes. For The Bard (as we are obliged to call him) is only ever performed in his Compleat Workes.

First Ambassador
The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late:
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Where should we have
A Messenger
My Lord, I bring astounding news!
With which we interrupt this solemn scene
To bring glad tidings of great report
Direct from the Women's 800m Backstroke
In which ye ladye from the New Englande colonies
Was trounced by another ladye from Porto Ricco!
And was vouchsafed with a medallion of fair gold
From the very hand of Good Prince Hal!
And with this said, I hand ye back, groundlings
To Denmark, where ye play hath now ended.

[DracoM]

Judging by reviews only, I rather hope we are NOT going to get a radio adaptation of the current 'Tempest' with Ralph Fiennes.