Jane Rogers:
Radio Plays & Adaptations

Jane Rogers is a novelist and radio writer. Her radio work is partly adaptation, partly original drama, and stories. Some of her plays and dramatisations are listed below; R4 unless stated otherwise. Jane is married to the radio writer Mike Harris and lives in Banbury.



14.09.20 No Longer at Ease, adap, 5 x 15m
04.06.19 Body Tourists, 45m
11.12.16 The Ebb Tide, by Stevenson, adap, 55m
04.12.16 The Beach at Falesa, adap. from Stevenson's novella, 55m
??.06.16 Real Worlds, 45m
??.??.15 'You Want' in Above ground, short story
01.11.15 I Capture The Castle, adap. from Dodie Smith's novel
17.06.13 The Testament of Jessie Lamb, 15m x 5
29.07.12 The Chrysalids, dram, Classic Serial, 2 x 55m, from John Wyndham's novel.
28.01.11 Red Enters the Eye, afternoon play
03.01.10 The Custom of the Country, Classic Serial, 2 x 55m
01.12.99 Hitting Trees with Sticks, short story (National SS Award)
28.04.08 Dear Writer, afternoon play, repeated Aug 09
06.01.08 and 13.01.08 The Age of Innocence, Classic Serial, 2x55m, by Edith Wharton
15.01.06 Meanwood, recorded live in Writing the City, W.Yorks Playhouse, 19.11.05
30.07.05 The Bottle Factory Outing. Saturday Play, adap. from Beryl Bainbridge novel.
20.12.04 Lorna Doone, 10 part Woman's Hour serial, ad. from R.D.Blackmore novel.
29.10.04 The Inland Sea, Friday Play. Rpt. 28.4.06.
13.12.02 Island. Friday Play.
07.07.02 Shirley, adap. of novel by Charlotte Bronte, 3 x 55m.
??.08.99 Letter to an Icon - Mary Wollstonecraft
??.04.99 Diary of a Provincial Lady, 15 part Woman's Hour serial.
07.12.98 A Tragedy of Two Ambitions, from the story by Thomas Hardy. Afternoon play.
??.??.96 My Mother and her Sister, short story
date nk The Pennine Way, short story

Jane's website is at www.janerogers.org, where details of her novels and other work can be found.


NOTES

14 Sep 2020 No Longer at Ease, 1
By Chinua Achebe, novel abridged by JR in 5 episodes. It's the story of an Igbo man, Obi Okonkwo, who leaves his village for an education in Britain and then a job in the Nigerian colonial civil service, but is conflicted between his African culture and Western lifestyle. The novel is the second work in what is sometimes referred to as the "African trilogy", between Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. Read by Paterson Joseph. Produced by Clive Brill. Indie (Brill Productions).

2019-06-04, Body Tourists
By Jane Rogers. It's 2045 and scientists have found a way to store memory and personality digitally after death - inserting a chip into other living bodies. The procedure is still at the trial stage. The drama follows consultant Luke Butler and the experiences of the first volunteer bodies - the Hosts - intercut with the experiences of their new inhabitants, the Body Tourists who have been cryogenically frozen in anticipation of being brought back to life. Hosts are drawn from among the unemployed poor, who are paid well for the renting of their bodies. After 14 days, each body is returned to its owner. But Luke has inserted the brain of a dead woman scientist he venerates, Octavia, into the body of a young man he admires, Ryan. The play has been rewritten and expanded by Jane Rogers into a full-length novel called Body Tourists, published in 2019. Octavia ..... Susan Brown, Luke ..... Joseph Kloska, Paula ..... Lotte Rice, Ryan ..... Will Taylor, Gemma/Bot ..... Alana Ramsey , Music by 0171, Produced by Clive Brill. Indie (Brill Productions).


2018-04-10 Real Worlds
By Jane Rogers. It is 2030, and for the past fourteen years Charlie's mother Ella has been confined to her hospital room following a brain injury. Although Ella has remained behaviourally unresponsive, she is conscious and able to communicate using Virtual Reality (VR) and a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) which controls a speech synthesiser. Charlie has struggled growing up without the support of her mother and is reluctant to communicate with her mother in VR. Charlie has her own problems with a new baby, a husband who spends all his time in VR and a young son Kieran who she fears is heading the same way. But will Kieran be the key for Charlie to reconnect with her mother? Real Worlds was developed through Wellcome Experimental Stories in consultation with Anil Seth (Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience and co-director at Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex). The drama was inspired by the themes of the current States of Mind exhibition at Wellcome Collection in London which explored the nature of consciousness. Ella ................... Christine Bottomley, Charlie ................... Katie West , Kieran ................... Max True , Pete ................... Thomas Pickles , Jim ................... Paul Barnhill , Newsreader ................... Paul Barnhill, Producer....... Nadia Molinari. Sound Design by Steve Brooke. Programme Consultant Anil Seth.

4 Dec 2016: Classic Serial slot: Terror in the South Seas, 2
By Robert Stevenson: ep. 2, The Ebb Tide. Three destitute men steal a schooner. They drink the cargo of champagne and try to steal a treasure trove of pearls from a local slave-owning trader. Joseph Conrad drew on these novellas for Heart of Darkness. Dramatised for radio by Jane Rogers. Narrator .......... David Tennant, Captain John Davis ....... Stanley Townsend , Herrick ....... Rupert Evans , Huish ..... Charles Davies, Producer ....... Clive Brill. Indie (Brill Productions).

4 Dec 2016: Classic Serial slot: Terror in the South Seas, 1
By Robert Stevenson: ep. 1 The Beach of Falesa. Adapted by Jane Rogers. An adventure novella: there's a trader, freshly arrived on a Samoan island...The trader, Wiltshire: David Tennant, Ulma: Adjoa Andoh, with Nigel Cooke (captain), Dan Mullane, Theo Fraser-Steele. Producer: Clive Brill. Indie - Brill Productions.

1 Nov 2015: Classic Serial: I Capture The Castle, 1
Novel by Dodie Smith, adapted for radio by Jane Rogers, set in a medieval castle in 1930s Suffolk. A funny and intelligent teenager keeps a record of her eccentric and impoverished family's life in a journal, while two rich American brothers disrupt their isolation. Cassandra: Holliday Grainger, Rose: Scarlett Alice Johnson, Mortmain: Toby Jones, Topaz: Charlotte Emerson, Thomas: Sam Hattersley, Stephen: Harry McEntire, Simon: John Macmillan, Neil: Henry Devas. Producer: Nadia Molinari.

THE CHRYSALIDS....2012
Begins 29 July 2012; 2 x 60m: Classic Serial - John Wyndham's post-apocalyptic science fiction classic dramatised by Jane Rogers. The 'Old People' who caused the apocalypse are like us: ' They were shut off by different languages and different beliefs. They created vast problems then buried their heads in the sands of idle faith.' The children of the future (the Chrysalids) are able to 'think-together' and so can rise above the selfish violence and conflicting religions of the past. David ...... Matthew Beard, Young David ...... Ben Hanley, Young Sophie ...... Isobel Doran, Joseph ...... Conrad Nelson, Gordon ...... Conrad Nelson, Axel ...... Jeff Hordley, Emily ...... Fiona Clarke, Anne ...... Fiona Clarke, Rosalind ...... Verity-May Henry, Harriet ...... Emma Cunniffe, Rachel ...... Emma Cunniffe, Michael ...... Henry Devas, Alan ...... Henry Devas, Inspector ...... Robert Pickavance, Petra ...... Sydney Wade, Producer ...... Nadia Molinari.

RED ENTERS THE EYE....2011
By Jane Rogers. 28 Jan 2011, afternoon play. An idealistic volunteer goes out to Nigeria to teach sewing to women in a refuge. She soon learns that she's in Nigeria, not the UK; things are different there.... Cast: Adjoa Andoh, Penny Downie, Stan Brook. Producer Clive Brill.

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE....2008
6 Jan 08; Classic Serial, 2 eps. By Edith Wharton, dram. by Jane Rogers. Play about a passionate love affair which breaks all the rules of the restrictive high society of 1870s New York.

Cast for ep. 1: Newland Archer ...... Ryan McCluskey, Ellen Olenska ...... Susan Lynch, May Welland ...... Kellie Bright, Caherine Mingott ...... Eleanor Bron, Augusta Welland ...... Lorelei King, Adeline Archer ...... Barbara Barnes, Janey Archer ...... Sarah Goldberg, Sillerton Jackson/Henry Van Der Luyden ...... Kerry Shale, Julius Beaufort ...... Conrad Nelson, Lawrence Lefferts ...... Martin T Sherman, Medora Manson ...... Margaret Robertson, Ned Winsett ...... John Guerassio. Directed by Nadia Molinari.

DEAR WRITER....2008
Interesting play about a young child who contacts an elderly writer.

The Pennine Way: 5/5. Venus Fly Trap....2005
A series of short stories specially commissioned to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the opening of Britain's first long distance walk, The Pennine Way. Story no. 5 is by Jane Rogers: A young girl serving in a garden centre cafe is invited to come walking by one of the customers. He's clad in all the latest walking clothes and has a massive rucksack. She's only wearing her trainers. He takes her up Standedge Cutting and introduces her to the unique landscape that is the Pennine Way. 22 Apr 05.

LORNA DOONE....2004
Love and vengeance on Exmoor. Well-known novel by R.D.Blackmore. Cast:Narrator ...... Timothy West, Young John Ridd ...... Zac Fox, Sarah Ridd ...... Rosalind March, John Fry ...... Nick Brimble, Sir Ensor Doone ...... Graham Crowden, Counsellor Doone ...... Paul Gregory, Benita ...... Fiona Clarke.

THE INLAND SEA....2004
While on holiday in the Australian bush, Brian Chase is bitten by a snake. Will he die in the night?

Cast:Brian Chase ...... Anton Lesser, Maura Chase ...... Niamh Cusack, Charles Sturt ...... Stephen Boxer , Mother ...... Sheila Reid, Sandra Barker ...... Sarah Kant, Pete Barker/Jack ...... Malcolm Freeman.

This play was reviewed very favourably by Elisabeth Mahoney, in The Guardian. An edited excerpt from her (much longer) review follows below.

......Brian has taken the memoirs of Antipodean explorer Charles Sturt with him on holiday to the Australian Bush. This is hardly the most comforting reading once he has been bitten by a snake and his car is stuck in sand.

Brian and his wife Maura - played by Anton Lesser and Niamh Cusack - are taking care of their own destruction. As the adder's venom seeps into his bloodstream, so the poison spreads through their relationship. You just knew this wasn’t going to be a shiny happy trip. 'We've got two mobiles, a state-of-the-art vehicle, extra petrol, 20 litres of water, food to last a week. What the hell do you imagine could go wrong?' Brian asks. Try just about everything.

Niamh Cusack was especially good as the put-upon wife of a composer with a writing block, a drink problem and a secret girlfriend who is mother to his even-more-secret child. It all felt horribly, claustrophobically real.

compiled by Nigel Deacon / Diversity website

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