Yesterday An Incident Occurred
by Mark Ravenhill
Mark Ravenhill - Yesterday An Incident Occurred
BBC Radio 3: Drama on 3
Broadcast: Sunday 20th April 2008 @ 8:00 p.m.
Originally performed as part of the "Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat" cycle of 16 playlets at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2007 and then
re-imagined for a special commission for BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival 2007.
After an unprovoked attack takes place in a shopping centre, no one comes forward as a witness. How can justice be done?
On Sunday 11th November 2007, Matthew Sweet presented a special evening of programmes including a specially commissioned
Drama on 3. 'Yesterday an Incident Occurred' was a new play by the acclaimed playwright Mark Ravenhill about people's relationship
to the 'war on terror'. It was recorded with a live audience in the atmospheric, disused Victorian Civil Court of St George's Hall,
Liverpool.
With Ian Puleston-Davies ['One'], Kathryn Hunt ['A'], Sam Kelly ['B'], Gerard Kearns ['C'], and Carla Henry [Marion].
Directed by Kate Rowland
55 min.
Jim
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This play was favourably reviewed in 'The Observer' by Miranda Sawyer. A small part of her piece is paraphrased (by me) below....
....Mark Ravenhill showed how a liberal consensus is not very far from fascist command. He did it all with use of current corporate, media and political language. The play started with the random beating of a man in a shop. 'It's available as a video download,' said a voice. 'Click your mouse now on "brutal attack".
There were constant references to live links and podcasts, text votes and red button-pushing.
It was chilling to see our society portrayed as in a scene from '1984' or 'A Clockwork Orange'.
ND
