Radio Plays about
music & musicians (fictional)

NOTES

Five Lessons....2017
By Marcy Kahan; no. 2 in a series of 4 plays starring Maureen Lipman. A person well-known in another field takes piano lessons. Fascinating play for musicians and others.....R4, 11.30am, 13 Nov 17. Pianist: Peter Ringrose. With Maureen Lipman as the student and Julian Rhind-Tutt as the teacher. Producer: Marion Nancarrow.

THE MUSIC LESSON....2017
(R4, 1415, 11 Jul 2017) by Hannah Silva took a brief look at musical performance. Mika is learning to play the recorder; a famous teacher offers to help her. This was an extraordinary two-hander, looking at the relationship between between an exasperating, fairly talented music student and a highly skilled master musician who will not compromise on standards. As a pianist I found some of the philosophical insights on playing Bach interesting. Fiona Shaw played the teacher and Erin Doherty the student; the producer was Melanie Harris and the director Susannah Tresilian. (...ND, Diversity Website review, Sep 2017.)

FLEE AS A BIRD TO THE MOUNTAIN....2003
7 Aug 03, R4. A group of friends in their 60s revive the New Orleans jazz band which they formed in their youth. They're not a bad group...but then something happens. With Jack Shepherd, Philip Jackson, Trevor Cooper, Thomas Arnold, Philip Joseph, Elizabeth Bell, Martin Hyder. Music by Bob Dwyer's Hot Six; producer Peter Kavanagh.

MUSIC AT NIGHT....2002
See Don Taylor page.

BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT....2002
R4, Fri play, 60m, 29 Nov 02. A comedy with music set in the north of England; with James Ellis.

THE DEVIL's MUSIC....2001
Three linked plays about a tune which passes through the generations of a family. See Alan Plater's page.

THE DEVIL & PAGANINI....1998
Very odd play...

Next Time We Might Play Better (R4 1402 15 May, 1997) by Peter Tinniswood was an excellent comedy. An excruciatingly inept quartet of musicians - this play charts their progress in village halls, tea rooms and providing the background music at funerals.. .......Graham Crowden & Hugh Dickson take the lead parts and the ubiquitous Stephen Thorne occurs a little way down the cast list.

Rediscovering Leo....1995
-play about a reclusive composer.

THE SURPRISE SYMPHONY....1991
By Guy Meredith. Readers will perhaps be familiar with Haydn's Surprise Symphony. As it's played, the musicians gradually disappear, one by one, until the conductor is left alone on the stage. Apparently Haydn was hinting to Count Esterhazy, his boss, that he wouldn't mind a holiday. This play has a similar structure - there's a murder, an orchestra on tour (seemingly full of assorted lunatics), and one by one the performers getbumped off ..... an excellent play, repeated on BBC7 in May 2004. (thanks to Paul Bines for alerting me to this).

THE LANTERN BEARERS....c1985
play about an odd fictional composer bearing some resemblances to Ben Britten. Not sure who wrote it...

PRODIGIES....1980
31.10.80 60min... A concert pianist, often away from home; his daughter a good musician but no genius; will she make the grade - and is this what she wants? And what about the pianist; will the girl on the train be more than a passing acquaintance? With David Buck as Tom, Sonia Fraser as Gabrielle, Elisabeth Lindsay as Isolda, Elizabeth Rider as Sarah, David Bradshawe as Jeremy, John Webb as Felix, Roger Hammond as Peter, Judy Franklin as Cynthia.

THREE MEN IN A BOAT....1962
Although Jerome's story is semi-autobiographical, I'm classifying it here as fiction. Three men in a boat,musical version, with K.Horne and L.Phillipps, 26.12.1962

Nigel Deacon / Diversity website

Asterisked plays known to exist in VRPCC collections

Back to top