Lucy Caldwell
Biog. update: Lucy Caldwell’s novella, The Furthest Distance is published by the small Irish press Netherlea. Her stage play Guardians, which premiered at the HighTide festival in May last year, had a London run and tour in 2010.
NOTES ON THE PLAYS
10 Mar 21: The Flowers Are Perfect in the Garden
By Lucy Caldwell. A man spends his final days in a hospice surrounded by his wife and once-estranged children. They have travelled far and wide to be by his bedside at this time. It is full of laughter and tears and it is a chance for them to reconnect. They are able to come together as a family and as a result of the death of their father the family is unified once more.
Pat ... Dermot Crowley,
Mary ... Dearbhla Molloy,
Oisín ... Patrick O'Kane,
Emma ... Charlene McKenna,
Emma (child) ... Clara Murphy,
Oisín (child) ... Alex Warburton,
Letitia ... Deborah Bahi,
Corazón ... Maria Cristina Crampton,
Other parts played by Alice Hoskyns and Tom Glenister,
Producer ... Celia de Wolff.
BBC Northern Ireland.
11 Mar 21: At Sea
By Lucy Caldwell; second of a trilogy of plays looking at different ways families say goodbye. It is set in a near future; in a refugee camp in Berwick Upon Tweed, filled with families fleeing from a cholera-torn London. We follow three generations of a family as they struggle to hold themselves together in such extreme circumstances. The father has already escaped to Norway to try to set up a new home for them there.
Lily ... Clara Murphy,
Oliver ... Alfie Hurley,
Elaine ... Ger Ryan,
Susan ... Emma Amos,
Chris ... George Anton,
Cameraman/Smuggler 1/Fisherman 1 ... Tom Glenister,
Smuggler 2/Fisherman 2 ... Finlay Paul,
News Anchor/ Woman ... Julia Grogan,
Producer - Celia de Wolff.
BBC Northern Ireland.
12 Mar 21: Martians
Third play of the trilogy, this one is a rpt. A young midwife is preparing to leave her family and the world she knows to begin life on another planet. She is one of the twelve people to be chosen to take their skills to Mars to begin new life, just as her grandmother did when she moved from Jamaica to London and her father’s ancestors leaving a famine-riddled Ireland for America,. Laura has to choose what to take and what to leave behind. She also has to say goodbye to her family.
Laura ..... Tia Bannon,
Michael ..... Toheeb Jimoh,
Margo ..... Angel Coulby,
Lorraine ..... Michelle Greenidge,
Eoin ..... Lloyd Hutchinson,
Joan ..... Joy Richardson,
Angharad & Young Woman 1 ..... Tallulah Bond,
Ijaaz, Male Voice ..... Ronny Jhutti,
Older Woman, Radio Presenter & Automated Voice ..... Beth Goddard,
Producer ..... Celia De Wolff.
BBC Northern Ireland.
13 Jul 2018: Mayday
By Lucy Caldwell, rpt. A Northern Irish student faces a huge decision when she discovers she is pregnant. Coralie: Eileen O'Higgins, Emma: Sophie Robinson, with Imogen Doel, Niamh McEnhill, Anthony Boyle, Annie Farr, Caolan Byrne, Will Irvine, Claire de Boer, Caitriona Hinds, Lynsey-Anne Moffat. producer: Heather Larmour. For those who are unaware, the 1967 Abortion Act does not apply in Northern Ireland; abortions there are, with few exceptions, illegal. Rpt. from 12 Jun 2017.
QUICKSAND....2014
R4, 1415, 8 Dec 14 .... a family holiday is shattered by a life-threatening incident. A couple and their children are wandering over the dunes when mother and daughters get stuck in quicksand. The husband can do nothing without getting sucked in himself, so he runs off to get help. The wife's take on this is that she has been deserted and left to drown. The story is told in flashback by an elderly woman in a care home, describing how her husband deserted her in such vitriolic langauge that you can (in the words of Jane Anderson) feel the hatred pouring from the radio. But for each of her outbursts we hear the husband's response. His version of events is the opposite of hers. They all survived, but whose memory is correct? Tessa was played by Barbara Adair, James by James Greene, young Tessa by Laura Pyper and young James by Gerard McCarthy. The producer was Heather Larmour.
(....ND, Diversity Website review, Dec 2014)
Notes to Future Self....2012
By Lucy Caldwell. Afternoon play 30 Oct 2012. When thirteen year old 'Philosophy Rainbow'- better known as Sophie - is diagnosed with a terminal illness, she, her mother Judy, and her sister Calliope, return to live with their grandmother Daphne in Birmingham. The women must prepare themselves for the loss of Sophie from their lives, and Sophie must come to terms with her own mortality. The radio version is adapted by Lucy from her own stage play.
Sophie .......... Imogen Doel,
Calliope .......... Jayne Wisener,
Judy ..... Amanda Ryan,
Daphne .......... Jane Lowe,
Producer .......... Heather Larmour.
THE MEETING POINT....2011
A reading, not a drama; ten episodes, finishing 4 Feb 2011. Lucy Caldwell's second novel. Ruth Armstrong and her husband and daughter travel to Bahrain to carry out missionary work. Read by Laura Pyper and Yasmin Paige. Producer Heather Larmour.
GIRL FROM MARS....2008, IMISON AWARD
Girl from Mars, Lucy Calwell's radio play, (broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 3 Jun 2008), had already won the Irish Writers' Guild Award for Best Radio Script of 2008.
“I came home because they found a body. It was two weeks before my twenty-first birthday and a month before my final exam results were out. Which meant I was almost exactly as old as she was. As she was.”
Five years ago, almost to the day, Eleanor’s big sister Amy disappeared. At about 3pm on a Saturday afternoon she walked out of the house and no-one ever heard from her again. They never found out what happened to her, either. Until now…
Cast: Alana Kerr, Joe Armstrong, Kieran Lagan, Maggie Cronin, Andy Moore, Nikki Doherty, Christopher Fitzsymons, Fo Cullen, Mary Kelly, Hannah Gordon, Martha Gordon, Naomi Fearnon, Connor Williamson and Harry Robinson. Producer Heather Lamour, director Anne Simpson.
(Lucy's site can be found at http://lucycaldwell.com.)
- Imison Award Judges’ Comments
This is a gripping and powerful depiction of the effect on a family when one sibling goes missing. The beautifully-told story begins when a body is found and the remaining daughter returns to be with her family while they await identification.
Girl From Mars is moving and emotionally taut. It veers away from sentimentality and felt personal and believable. The structure is complex – combining three different timescales – and uses radio to its full potential, using many techniques including voice-overs, dialogue, text messages, and voice mail. The story has a shades-of-grey resolution about how a story ends, the way a person’s life can tragically stop short - and this is echoed in the subtle way the writer ends her own play too.
