Sara Davies Radio Plays

2020-08-31, The Lying Life of Adults
By Elena Ferrante. Reading, not a drama. A teenage girl uncovers family secrets and lies in 1990s Naples. Abridged from the novel by Sara Davies. Read by Juliet Aubrey. Produced by Mary Ward-Lowery and Mair Bosworth.

2018-01-21 The Bastard of Istanbul, 1
By Elif Shafak, ad. Hattie Naylor. The original novel weaves together the stories of two rival cultures: those of the Turks and the Armenians; peoples who have not yet healed from the wound opened by the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Mr Bitter ..... Raad Rawi, Mrs Sweet ...... Laurel Lefkow, Asya ....... Lara Sawalha, Zeliha ...... Nathalie Armin , Banu ...... Mia Soteriou, Armanoush ....... Gillian Saker, Rose ...... Laurel Lefkow, Mustafa ....... Philip Arditti, Gulsum ...... Anna Savva, Feride ...... Baris Celiloglu, Cook ..... Jonas Khan. Other voices by Murak Erkek, Catriona Stirling and the cast. Music by Gorkem Sen. Sound design by James Morgan and Steve Bond. Executive Producer: Sara Davies. Produced and directed by Nicolas Jackson. Indie (Afonica).

2017-11-28, Lou Reed: A Life
By Anthony de Curtis. Book Of The Week; reading. 5 x 15m. Abridged and produced by Sara Davies. Lou Reed was born in Brooklyn in 1942 into a Jewish family. They moved to Long Island when he was a young boy. He was a rebellious teenager; he discovered R&B and rock and roll and began playing in bands early on. He took a song-writing job with the budget label Pickwick Records, and met avant-garde musician John Cale. With guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Maureen Tucker they formed the Velvet Underground. Read by Demetri Goritsas.

2016-04-11 Writing the Century: The Secret, Innocence
By Muriel Howard. 5 x15 Minute Drama. The series which explores the 20th century through the words of real people. Muriel Howard's account of her Somerset childhood and the secret that defined it, adapted by Tina Pepler with Sara Davies. It's 1911 and Muriel at 5-years-old begins to question her mother's night-time absences. Muriel grew up in the Somerset village of Sampford Brett with her brother and widowed mother after her father, the rector, died of consumption.Adapted from her unpublished memoir, The Secret, explores the emotions of a child caught in an adult drama she doesn't understand. The story spans the years 1911-1923. Muriel Howard-Tripp went on to become a trail-blazing career woman, Director of East Europe at the British Council and cultural attache in the Soviet Union after WW2. Muriel ... Scarlett Brooke, Mother ...... Jeany Spark, Young Muriel ...... Madeleine Power, Young Philip ...... Finn Monteath, Jinks ...... Joe Sims, Mrs Burnel ....... Susan Jameson, Mrs Sawyer ......... Adie Allen, Ethel and Violet ........ Nicola Ferguson, Violinists ..... Sam and Andrew McGregor. Produced and directed by Gemma Jenkins.

The Kane Conspiracy....2010
2 Oct 10 Saturday Play - By Jonathan Holloway. In 1941 Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane, now regularly voted top in critics' and audience polls, picked up nine Oscar nominations and was already being spoken of as a work of genius. But there were powerful forces lobbying hard against it, not least among them William Randolph Hearst, the media mogul on whom the story is based, and FBI supremo J Edgar Hoover. The characters in the drama are real people; only the character of Agent Wood is imagined, although he is based on a documented but shadowy figure mentioned in the FBI archives. And it is Wood who finally confronts Welles with the uncomfortable truth about the film: in hijacking Hearst's life for Citizen Kane, Welles has replaced it with his own. Orson Welles.........Jeff Harding, J. Edgar Hoover........Toby Jones, Herman Mankiewicz.....John Guerrasio, William Randolph Hearst...Peter Marinker, George Schaefer.......Garrick Hagon, Agent Wood..........Val Jobara, Radio Interviewer.......Paul Mundell. Producer: Sara Davies.

2010-03-01 Beyond Black, Voices from the Other Side
Dramatisation by Caroline Harrington of Hilary Mantel's novel about a professional medium with a troubled past. 10 x 15m drama. Alison Hart is a professional medium with a gift for empathy. Her familiar spirits are figures from her childhood, the main one a foul-mouthed circus performer called Morris who is her spirit guide. She has taken on an assistant, Colette, who is a sceptic. Alison ...... Alison Steadman, Colette ...... Rosie Cavaliero, Morris ...... Bill Wallis. Producer: Sara Davies.

A Night with Johnny Stompanato....2009
13 11 2009 Friday Play; R4. Jonathan Holloway's hard-boiled Hollywood drama is based on a true story. One night in 1958; police were called to the home of 'sweater girl' Lana Turner. The actress' current boyfriend Johnny Stampanato lay in a pool of blood; stabbed to death by Lana's daughter Cheryl. At the subsequent inquest; Turner gave the performance of her life. Lana Turner ...... Laurence Bouvard, Johnny Stampanato ...... John Guerrasio, Cheryl ...... Georgie Moffett, Del ...... Demetri Goritsas, McGinley ...... John Chancer, Geisler ...... Paul Mohan, Langhauser ...... John Telfer, Bill Brooks ...... Oliver Millingham, Annie ...... Kim Baker. Directed by Sara Davies.

Aftershock....2009
14 8 2009 Friday BBC Radio 4 14:15 Afternoon Play Ten years after the 1999 earthquake in Turkey; Tina Pepler's powerful drama-documentary tells the story of a young engineering student who returns to Istanbul to find the friends she left behind. They are still trying to deal with the aftermath of the last quake; in a city trying to ready itself for the next. Eleanor ...... Eleanor Zimmermann, Cansu ...... Serra Somay, Baris ...... Hakan Silahsizoglu, Merve ...... Sirin Onder. With contributions from Kubilay Hicyilmaz; Polat Gulkan; Mustafa Erdik; Gokay Bostan; Tamer Aker; Husamettin Alper; Ozgur Demir; Zeynep Turkmen. Directed by Sara Davies. Ozgur Demir Ozgur Demir; who tells his story (in translation) in the play; works for Neighbourhood Disaster Support Project (NDSP). Neighbourhood Disaster Support Project Professor Mustafa Erdik Professor Mustafa Erdik works at the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute; Bogazici University. Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute Gokay Bostan Gokay Bostan (Gokaybey) is the Director of the Istanbul Provincial Disaster and Emergency Directorate. Provincial Disaster and Emergency Directorate.

Afternoon Play Ladies' Day....2009
29 7 2009 Wednesday BBC Radio 4 14:15. By Amanda Whittington. To celebrate her early retirement; Pearl takes her two best friends from work for a day at the races. The outing becomes a rollercoaster ride of emotions; changing fortunes and some unexpected revelations. Pearl ...... Katharine Rogers, Jan ...... Lynda Rooke, Shelley ...... Louise Kempton, Kevin ...... John McAndrew, Jack ...... Robert Gwilym, Announcer ...... Charlie Parkin. Directed by Sara Davies.

Power Play 2 - Wilful Blindness ....2009
23 6 2009 Tuesday BBC Radio 4 14:15 Afternoon Play Second of two plays by business writer and broadcaster Margaret Heffernan about the collapse of US company Enron in 2001; combining drama with audio archive from Senate hearings. It is now the summer of 2006. Kenneth Lay; the former chairman of Enron; has been convicted of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud and is awaiting sentencing at his home in Aspen; Colorado. On the day before Independence Day a new gardener arrives; a young woman with a business background who has made a recent career change. Lay doesn't know her; but she knows him - she once worked for his company. Vanessa is determined to confront her ex-employer; and in the course of one intense day; she demands that he face up to a responsibility he has refused to recognise for four years. Kenneth Lay ...... John Fleck, Vanessa ...... Andrea LeBlanc, Linda Lay ...... Mary Lou Rosato. Produced in collaboration with the Centre for New Performance; California Institute of the Arts; Los Angeles. Directed by Sara Davies.

Power Play 1....2009
22 6 2009 Monday BBC Radio 4 14:15 Afternoon Play. First of two plays by business writer and broadcaster Margaret Heffernan about the collapse of US company Enron in 2001; combining drama with audio archive from Senate hearings. It is spring 2000 and new recruit Vanessa; fresh out of business school; joins the aggressive band of traders on the trading floor of Enron's Western Power desk; whose market manipulation; dishonesty and culture of macho ruthlessness is bringing California to its knees. Vanessa ...... Andrea LeBlanc, Karl ...... Jin Suh, Hank ...... Hilario Saavedra. Produced in collaboration with the Centre for New Performance; California Institute of the Arts; Los Angeles. Directed by Sara Davies.

A City Full of Swindlers ....2009
By Jenny Howarth. 7 5 2009 Thursday BBC Radio 4 14:15 Afternoon Play. Cassandra Austen narrates the shocking story of her aunt's arrest and imprisonment for stealing a piece of lace; a story which reveals Georgian Bath to be a far less decorous place than it appears in her sister Jane's novels. Jane Leigh Perrot ...... Pamela Miles, James Leigh Perrot ...... Tim Pigott-Smith, Cassandra Austen ...... Lucy Black, Mr Bond ...... Robert Gwilym, Miss Gregory ...... Alison Reid, Mr Filby ...... Howard Coggins, Mr Gibbs ...... David Collins, Mrs Scadding ...... Heather Williams, Judge ...... Ross Harvey, Mayor ...... Tom Sherman. Directed by Sara Davies.

THE GLASS MAN....2006
By Martin Sorrell (R4, 21 Sep 06, a repeat of a play broadcast in Dec 05) was about an unusual medical condition causing sufferers to believe they are turning to glass. The 'glass delusion' - a state of profound anxiety now associated with severe depression - was relatively common in the Middle Ages. King Charles VI of France was a sufferer and had iron ribs sewn into his clothing to protect himself in case of a fall while in 1610, Cervantes wrote a novella The Glass Graduate about the condition.


Neil Sorrell, Martin's musician brother, senior lecturer at York University, was asked to create 15 minutes of music for the play, using only the sounds of glass. He used as his instruments wine glasses, large vessels from the University's Department of Chemistry and even the inside of a vacuum flask. He enlisted the help of second-year postgraduate student in the Department of Music, Chilean Felipe Otondo, to act as recording engineer.


It took 24 hours of studio time to produce 15 minutes of music. Directed by Sara Davies, it starred Cark Prekopp, Saskia Reeves, Barbara Flynn and Stephen Perring.
The play included interviews with glass makers and also had a contribution from Andrew Solomon, who has written about the delusion.


LETTERS FROM AFRICA....2005
R4, 1415, 29 Jun 05, the story of Karen Blixen's years in Africa, was dramatised by Sheila Hannon, from her letters. Karen had an unusual life: marriage to a man old enough to be her father, moving from England to Africa, and a long, passionate love affair. Eleanor Bron was Karen, Ian McElhinney played her husband, and Sara Davies directed.


VENUS....2004
17 Mar 04; by Angela Turvey. Woman's Hour serial.A five-part fictionalised account of the true story of the Hottentot Venus, Sara Baartman, who travelled to England in 1810 from her native South Africa and was exhibited around the country in a cage as a scientific curiosity. Janice Acquah, Peter Gevisser, Mark Meadows, Ben Tinniswood, Cornelius Garrett. Produced by Sara Davies.


The Prison Father....2003
By Caspar Walsh, 24 Oct 03. The story of a man's coming to terms with the memory of his father who wasn't there for him, based on a real sequence of letters sent to writer Caspar Walsh by his own father from prison. Jake Geneva is an apparently successful businessman, but he has a secret which threatens to destroy his relationship with his partner and young son. To resolve his dilemma, he must find a way of escaping from the shadow of his father, who was imprisoned for embezzlement. With David Hemmings, Mark Meadows, Billy Kenber, Lisa Coleman, and Edward Blancke. Director Sara Davies.


Dear Little Burney ....2000
July 2000. The journals and letters of Fanny Burney, adapted by Jennifer Howarth in 15 parts. 1: `A Most Important Event'. In 1778, Fanny Burney is 26 and her novel `Evelina' is published anonymously to instant acclaim. With Juliet Aubrey, Timothy West and Eleanor Bron. Director: Sara Davies.

compiled by Nigel Deacon / Diversity website

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