Solzhenitsyn: Cancer Ward
BBC Radio 3: The Sunday Play
Broadcast: Sunday 8th November 1998 @ 7:30 p.m.
Set in 1955 in a cancer hospital in Tashkent, this classic of the Soviet period is a metaphor for the corruption endemic under Stalin, as
revealed in Khrushchev's 'thaw'.
"Cancer Ward" examines the relationship of a group of people in the cancer ward of a provincial Soviet hospital in 1955, two years
after Stalin's death. We see them under normal circumstances, and also re-examined at the eleventh hour of illness. Together, they
represent a remarkable cross-section of contemporary Russian characters and attitudes. The experiences of the central character,
Oleg Kostoglotov, closely reflect the author's own: Solzhenitsyn himself became a patient in a cancer ward in the mid-1950s, on his
release from a labor camp, and later recovered.
Translated by Nicholas Bethell and David F. Burg from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1968 novel, "Rakovy korpus" (English translation -
"Cancer Ward").
Dramatised by Olwen Wymark.
With Malcolm Storry [Oleg Kostoglotov], David Ryall [Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov], Melanie Walters [Vera Kornilyevna Gangart],
Gillian Barge [Dr. Ludmila Afanasyevna Dontsovna], Rhian Hefin [Zoya], Dorien Thomas [Yefrem Podduyev], Robert Harper [Dyoma],
Simon Ludders [Vadim], Jonathan Adams [Alexei Shulubin], Christian Patterson [Proshka], Richard Elfyn [Lev Leonodovich], Siriol
Jenkins [Asya], James Greene [Doctor], Christine Pritchard [Kapa Rusanova], and Stevie Parry [Nelya].
Original music composed by Colin Sell.
Directed by Alison Hindell in Wales.
Re-broadcast on Sunday 15th August 1999 @ 9:55 p.m. on BBC Radio 3: The Sunday Play
135 min.
Jim
