TONY RAMSAY RADIO PLAYS
BBC BROADCASTS
03.11.96 Barking
02.10.97 Walton's Pike (play)
03.10.97 Walton's Trout (readings)
21.03.98 Black Velvet
11.01.00 Bluethroat Morning
24.06.01 The ballad of Billy Rainbow
18.05.02 Tango Sensations
08.09.02 New Grub Street (Gissing), dram, 3 x 60m
NOTES ON SOME OF THE PLAYS
BARKING 1996 (radio 3)
A dog eats a heretic's tongue and discovers the world of man's speech. While modelling for an altar piece - Virgin with Dog- he discovers the difference between man's godlike aspirations to high art and the beastlike reality of his carnal lusts. With Steve Hodson, Michael Williams, Frances Barber, Robin Nailey, Peter Woodthorpe, Abigail Docherty, Geoffrey Whitehead, Ann Beach, Jane Whittenshaw and Colleen Prendergast. Music by the Vasari choir, dor. Elizabeth Parker; play directed by Janet Whitaker.
WALTON'S PIKE 1997
Sir Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler was first published in 1653
and it's still well-known. Tony Ramsay's radio play follows the 80-year-
old Walton on his last fishing trip to meet his nemesis - a fearsome
pike which had escaped him once before. With Richard Johnson.
This was followed the next day by readings from The Compleat Angler, also featuring Richard Johnson.
BLACK VELVET 1998
A horror story set in the 1600s. A servant girl, Annie, is
forced to pretend she's the mistress of Thoresby Hall by young
Master Richard. But the game goes wrong...with Rachel Atkins,
Richard Pearce, James Taylor, Christopher Scott. Directed by Janet Whitaker.
BLUETHROAT MORNING 2000
Bluethroat Morning, by Tony Ramsay, consisted of two related plays set in Morston, Norfolk, a hundred years apart, and broadcast on successive days (R4, beginning 11 Jan, 1415). Morston is famous for its wildlife, especially its birds, but we gradually become aware that hidden in the marshes is a trace of a hundred-year-old murder. Both plays used the same cast, including Ronald Pickup, Alison Pettitt and Sean Baker; Janet Whitaker directed. (ND, VRPCC newsletter)
THE BALLAD OF BILLY RAINBOW 2001
The Ballad of Billy Rainbow, by Tony Ramsey (R4 1502 24 Jun 2001) was a comic detective story set in Elizabethan Norfolk. Billy Rainbow is an actor on the London stage, but because of his indiscretions with a local butcher's wife, is obliged to flee to the country. A series of misunderstandings force him to masquerade as an unmasker of devils and witches, on a country estate where there has been an outbreak of Satanism. The hapless Billy was played by Michael Maloney and Abigail by Daniela Nardini; Janet Whitaker directed.
NEW GRUB STREET 2002
Dramatised in three parts by Tony Ramsay. Harold Pinter narrates the story of a group of struggling writers, whose battles between artistic integrity and the dictates of the market place, are fought out in pokey garrets or the Reading Room of the British Museum in the 1880s. With Harold Pinter, Jonathan Firth, Emilia Fox, Jonathan Cake, Kenneth Cranham, Ann Beach, Tracy Ann Oberman, Ian Masters, Helen Longworth, Paula Jacobs, David Timson, Martin Hyder, and Carl Prekopp. Music by Mia Soteriou. Director Janet Whitaker.
TANGO SENSATIONS 2002
Victoria Mendez met a violent death during the war on dissidents
in Argentina in the 1970s. Her death has a profound effect on
a young English teacher. With Juliet Stevenson as Victoria
Mendez, James d'Arcy as David; also starring Tracy-Ann Oberman,
Vincenzo Nicolie, David Timpson, Peter Marinka, Gerard McDermott;
directed by Janet Whitaker.
Nigel Deacon , Diversity website
