Lavinia Greenlaw Radio Plays
PLAYS
31.05.01 Remembering Mum
25.07.03 The blood of strangers, dram.
06.09.04 The Kamikaze Handbook
??.??.04 The Innocence of Radium, 5 x 15m
23.11.07 The Umbrella
26.04.09 Troilus and Cressida, dram, Classic Serial
18.07.10 The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse, dram, Classic Serial
16.06.11 The Chess Girls
NOTES
Remembering Mum ....2001
Afternoon play, 31 May 01. A mixture of drama - written by Lavinia Greenlaw - and interviews with children who have lost a parent, exploring how children cope with the death of a parent. With Susannah Hamilton, Morgan Frost, John Telfer and Ric Jerrom.
The Blood of Strangers....2003
By Frank Huyler. Adapted for radio by Lavinia Greenlaw.
Friday Play, 25 Jul 03.
- Adaptation of Frank Huyler's semi-autobiographical novel The Blood of Strangers, about a year in the life of a young Albuquerque medic. It is set in the accident & emergency room of a large hospital. In the book Dr. Frank Huyler reveals a fascinating collection of stories; a side of medicine where routine tasks and incidents interweave with the lives and deaths of the desperately sick and injured. I have not read the book, but the radio version was vivid and interesting, like a series of snapshots. Occasionally we meet a patient for a second or third time, weeks or months later in another incident. In the words of the BBC blurb..... The cowboy who is always having a heart attack, the engineer who is chased across the desert by a heat-seeking missile, the girl who drains the blood bank......this is the fragmented, fast-paced world of Dr Joe 'Babyface' Reinert, the new Junior Resident in the Emergency Room.....The cast:
Dr Joe Reinert....Eric Stoltz, Rosa....Shannon Cochran, Mr Santana....Henry Darrow, Dr Blake....David Selby, Engineer....Gregory Itzin, Ruth....Caroline Goodall, Helen....Seidy Lopez, Lucy....Judith Ryskiewicz. Directed in Los Angeles and produced in Bristol by Kate McAll.
THE INNOCENCE OF RADIUM....2004
5 x 15mins. It is 1920. Ishbel and the other girls paint watch dials in New Jersey. Scharf arrives from Germany with the new luminescent.paint.They go into production with it and are immensely successful. Scharf and Ishbel are both in their ways innocents, and their courtship is tumultuous. During it, Ishbel decorates herself with the paint. She goes into decline and dies an agonising death, suspected of having syphilis. The paint was based on radium. Soon Scharf is dead as well. Other girls die and it turns out the company knew of the danger almost all along. This play was commended at the Tinniswood Wards ceremony in 2005.
THE UMBRELLA....2007
23 Nov 07, Friday,Radio 4,14:15. Will and Iris are a busy professional couple; married for ten years and still in love. Or so they think until; in the middle of the wettest summer they can remember; the Perfect Stranger comes into their lives. The Stranger ...... Adjoa Andoh, Iris ...... Lynne Seymour, Will ...... Steffan Rhodri, Patient ...... Richard Elfyn, Iris's Assistants ...... Eiry Thomas/Caitlin Richards.
TROILUS & CRESSIDA...2009
26 4 2009, Classic Serial, 2 episodes. One of the great works of English literature; this powerful; compelling story explores love from its first tentative beginnings through to passionate sensuality and eventual tragic disillusionment. Lavinia Greenlaw's new version for radio brings Chaucer's language up-to-date for a modern audience while remaining true to his original poetic intention. After seeing the beautiful widow Cressida at the temple in Troy; Troilus falls instantly in love with her. Inexperienced in love; he is unable to act on his feelings and locks himself in his room to compose love songs. Pandarus; worried for his friend; eventually persuades Troilus to tell him why he is so miserable and is delighted to hear that the cause is Troilus' love for his niece Cressida. Worried about her reputation; Cressida is at first reluctant to enter into a relationship with Troilus. After much cajoling and manipulation; she reluctantly comes around to the idea. Pandarus is frustrated that the relationship is moving too slowly and engineers a complex plan to get Cressida and Troilus in bed together. Troilus ...... Tom Ferguson, Cressida ...... Maxine Peake, Pandarus ...... Malcolm Raeburn, Servant 1/Woman 1 ...... Kathryn Hunt, Calchas/Servant 3/Man 2 ...... Kevin Doyle, Priam/Servant 2/Man 3/General 1 ...... Terence Mann, Hector/Diomede ...... Declan Wilson. Music composed by Gary Yershon and performed by Ehsan Emam; Tim Williams and Mike Dale. Producer Susan Roberts.
The Glass Bead Game....2010
18 Jul 10. Dramatisation of Hermann Hesse's classic novel set in a futuristic, utopian society. Classic Serial, 2 episodes. Starring Derek Jacobi. Joseph Knecht is a rising star in the Castalian Order, a band of elite intellectuals who live a closeted life of study and Glass Bead Game playing. But Joseph's elevation to one of the highest and most respected ranks of the Order coincides with a crisis of conscience, as his ever deepening doubts about this idealistic and sanitised society threaten to topple its very foundations. Biographer...Derek Jacobi, Joseph Knecht...Tom Ferguson, Young Joseph...Aidan Parsons, Music Master...Malcolm Raeburn, Teacher/Van Der Trave...Terence Mann, Plinio...David Seddon, Fritz...Toby Hadoke, Father Jacobus...David Fleeshman, Elder Brother/Bertram...Jonathan Keeble. String Player...Kevin Flynn. Dramatised by Lavinia Greenlaw. Producer: Charlotte Riches. Director: Susan Roberts.
THE CHESS GIRLS....2011
16 Jun 11: Training three girls to play chess; a drama based on documented events. More details will be added when the 2011 radio plays page is complete.
OTHER BROADCASTS
16 Oct 97. Pen Friendly New Series
Six programmes in which a British writer exchanges letters about a shared obsession or experience with a `pen friend' elsewhere in Europe. 3: `Science for Poets'. Poets Lavinia Greenlaw and Miroslav Holub share their fascination with science, from the daily grind of the laboratory to the wonders of the unknown.
Stanza....1997
RT, 13 Dec 97; Simon Armitage talks to and hears new poems from Lavinia Greenlaw, one of Britain's best poets under 40 years old. Her second collection, `A World Where News Travels Slowly', has just been published.
A View from Abroad....1999
8 Aug 99. Eight personal journeys. 2: `As Far as the Eye Can See'. Poet Lavinia Greenlaw has been intrigued by 17th-century Dutch landscape painting since her teenage years. Now she travels to the Netherlands to explore the effect that the big skies and flat land have upon the eye - and discovers how artists, scientists and engineers negotiate the delicate balancing act between land and water.
The Year's Four Corners....2002
18 Sep 02. Lavinia Greenlaw looks at key dates in our calendar. 3: `Summer Solstice'. Blakeney Point on the Norfolk coast is home to countless breeding birds for a few weeks every summer
The Darkest Place In England....2005
4 Jun 05 - Poet and writer, Lavinia Greenlaw goes in search of darkness - nowadays banished as much from our imaginations as from our night skies. Is there anywhere truly dark left in England? How can we live without the dark? Can we recover its pleasures and its perils? With photographer Garry Fabian Miller and literary critic Alan Downie. (30m)
Nigel Deacon / Diversity website
Asterisked plays known to exist in VRPCC collections
