1999 Radio Plays
SEVEN CIRCLES AROUND THE FIRE....1999
Saturday Play by Mahesh Dattani, 9 Jan 99. Uma Rao, who teaches Sociology at Bangalore University, is the daughter-in-law of Bangalore's deputy commissioner of police and her husband is a superintendent. While researching the Hijra community (eunuchs who sing and dance at weddings and births) for her university thesis, she unravels a thread of corruption that leads back to the cream of Bangalore society and the trail of a vicious murderer.
Cast: Priyanga Elan [Uma Rao], Rehan Sheikh [Suresh Rao, the Police Superintendant], Shiv Grewal [Constable Muniswami], Saeed Jaffrey [Jumpa], Rikki Beadle-Blair [Anarkili], Amejit Deu [Saleem], Nitin Chandra Ganatra [Mr. Shirma], and Ajay Chhabra [Suba Shirma]. Directed by Jeremy Mortimer.
JUSTICE OR MURDER? THE DEATH OF CHARLES I....1999
30 Jan 99. By Jack Emery. Saturday play, 90m.
SAY IT WITH FLOWERS....1999
By Kevin Wong. R4 5 Feb 99. Light-hearted drama. 45m,
afternoon play.
EATING AT COOPER'S....1999
Radio 3, 20 Feb 99. Interesting play about a fictional new
eating house. What will Herschel think of it? With Simon Carter.
LARKRISE & BEYOND....1999
By F. Thompson. Three episodes, 45m each; the third on 26 Feb 99.
Rural life of c1890 compared with today.
MAD MAN BLUE....1999
By Tracey Aston, 30 Mar 99. Unusual comedy play starring
Roy Hudd. 45m, afternoon play.
LETTERS FROM A STRANGE LAND....1999
By J. Clifford. R4, 15 Mar 99. A true story - Will Adams set off
from Kent for the West Indies but was shipwrecked and eventually
ended up in Japan. With D. Brooks and B. Kwouk. 45m.
EAST COAST LINE SOUTHBOUND....1999
By Lesley Glaister. 18 Mar 99. 45m afternoon play.
M FOR MOTHER....1999
19 Mar 99. By M. Riddell, dramatised by G. Lloyd. A girl wants to leave home.
Her mother and aunts have a lot of trouble coming to terms with it.
45m.
THE MEANING OF LUNCH....1999
29 Mar 99. By T. Anfiligoff. A restaurant is invaded by
undesirables, including - a vegetarian. 45m afternoon play.
VOYAGE....1999
Serial - beginning 12 Apr 99. By Stephen Baxter. Excellent
science fiction - what could have happened if the Mars programme
had continued in the 70s.
BRISTOW....1999
Several 30m plays based on the famous cartoon strip character,
Bristow, the ineffectual rebel. With Michael Williams, Rodney
Bewes, Owen Brenman, Dora Bryan. Weekly, starting 21 Apr 99. By
Frank Dickens. Director Neil Cargill.
LEARNING THE LANGUAGE....1999
30 Apr 99, by H. Bains. Romantic comedy. 45m afternoon play.
A Venture Too Far....1999
By Julia Keay. Afternoon Play, 7 May 99. Scotland once again has a parliament. Nearly three hundred years ago, political union (and the suspension of the Scottish Parliament) was accepted after the nation went bankrupt. Half of Scotland's wealth and thousands of lives had been lost in a disastrous venture which attempted to set up Caledonia, a Scottish trading colony in Panama on the Isthmus of Darien.
Cast: Ian Cuthbertson [Ian Patterson] and Siobhan Redmond [Janet Drummond].
With Peter Woodthorpe, James Bryce, Sandy Morton and Nigel Anthony.
Music by Anthony Philips; produced by Keith Halden.
A history of the misadventure can be read on this Wikipedia page.
DON'T BE A STRANGER....1999
19 Jun 99. By C.S.Jones. A young lady turns up on a lecturer's
doorstep.
BOW ECHO....1999
By Lisa Schlesinger. Friday Play, 19 Nov 99. An elegiac drama, set on a farm in Iowa, by the winner of the 1997 BBC World Service Playwriting Competition. A father's love for his sick daughter forces him to make a choice between his conscience and the law. When his daughter's pain becomes insufferable and one last storm blows over his head, he is compelled to take action.
Cast: William Hope [Rusty], Buffy Davis [Beverly] and Harper Marshall [Young Lily], Teresa Gallagher [Older Lily] and Ian Clancy [Robert].With William Hootkins and Nathan Osgood. Guitar by Chris Newland. Producer Andy Jordan.
IF MUSIC BE THE FOOD OF LOVE, MINE'S A JAM BUTTIE....1999
By Lesley Whiteley & Pamela Wilkinson, producer Pauline Harris. A woman who's never sung before finds herself in a choir after her Dad dies. 45m. R4 29 Dec 99, rpt. BBC7 23 Dec 04.
ON SELF-DELIVERANCE...1999
Helena Kennedy, Q.C., presents eight dramatised accounts over two series of trials that brought about a change in the law because of changing social attitudes. Theme music by Simon Morecroft. Series 2, play 4. 22 Dec 99, 2.15 R4.
Dr. Colin Brewer, a London physician and psychiatrist, had written an article on the philosophy of voluntary euthanasia and in the course of that article, admitted that he had tried to end the life of a terminally ill cancer patient, but had failed. Under the 1961 Suicide Act, suicide itself was no longer an offence, but it was illegal to aid, abet, counsel, or procure someone else to do so. The maximum penalty was 14
years imprisonment. Had the doctor admitted to a successful attempt, he could have well have landed in prison, as others already had.
Brewer joined the Voluntary Euthanasia Society where, in 1978, a new General Secretary, Nicholas Reed, was appointed. Reed decided to publish a booklet on how to commit suicide because one of the biggest problems was that even when people are desperate and totally sure that this is what they want to do, they don't know how to do it. So, either they don't do it at all or they bungle it with sometimes horrible consequences. Nicholas decides to go ahead with publication after seeing no response by the government or courts after the publication of "Jean's Way: A Love Story", a book by Derek Humphry. The book was Humphry's true account of helping his terminally ill wife's planned self-deliverance from suffering through the final stages of breast-cancer. Also, at the
same time as the booklet's publication, the Voluntary Euthanasia Society changed its name to 'Exit', thus avoiding use in their title of the word 'euthanasia' with its Nazi overtones.
When the publication of this booklet suggesting practical ways of taking your life finally came out, how did the government respond? Was this technically a prisonable offence? How did the courts respond?
With Iwan Thomas [Nicholas Reed, General Secretary of 'Exit' (formally 'The Voluntary Euthanasia Society'], Tim Treloar [Dr. Colin Brewer, a member of 'Exit'], Lynne Verrall [Jean Davies, a member of 'Exit'], Elizabeth Bell [Brenda Able, a member of 'Exit' / Celia Fremlin, the Mystery Writer, a member of 'Exit'], Derek Waring [Mr. Justice Woolf / Mark Lyons, a member of 'Exit'], and Helena Kennedy,
Q.C. [Narrator].
Other parts were by James Greene, Gavin Muir, and John East. Directed by Peter Kavanagh.
.....thanks to s-j, 'radiofans'...-ND
Above plays known to exist in VRPCC collections
