Patrice Chaplin Radio Plays

Patrice Chaplin is an internationally renowned playwright and author who has published about 25 books plus plays and short stories. Her work includes Albany Park, Siesta, which was made into a film starring Jodi Foster and Isabella Rossellini, Into the Darkness Laughing, Hidden Star, Night Fishing, and Death Trap.

As a Bohemian in Paris during the 50’s and 60’s, she spent time with Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Married to Charlie Chaplin’s son Michael and living and working in Hollywood , she was friends with everyone from Lauren Bacall and Miles Davis, to Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau, who gave her a starring role in one of his films.

Chaplin has contributed to collections of short stories, including Black Valentine and The Minerva Book of Short Stories 1. Her plays, documentaries, and short stories have been extensively written and adapted for radio. The short story Night in Paris has been translated and made available in many countries, and other short stories of hers have appeared in magazines and newspapers, including The Independent.

Her stage play From the Balcony was commissioned by The National Theatre in London in conjunction with Radio 3 and was performed at the Cottesloe Theatre. She has also written articles for The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Jewish Chronicle, The Daily Mail, Marie Claire, and The London Magazine.

Chaplin is the director of The Bridge®, a non-profit organization which leads workshops based in the performing arts as a new and unique way to help fight addiction. [information from http://www.patricechaplin.com (Quest Books)]


RADIO PLAYS:
04/05/98 If You Knew Suzie
01/08/94 Fatal Distraction
22/03/93 Into The Darkness, Laughing*
12/03/88 The Girl Who Knew Too Little
04/11/86 Forever Blowing Bubbles
16/06/86 The Tinker's Daughter*
30/05/85 Lover In The Cards
22/01/85 By Flower & Dean Street *

date nk From the balcony, R3

If you know of other Patrice Chaplin radio plays, please get in touch.


NOTES ON SOME OF THE PLAYS

FATAL DISTRACTION....1994
01/08/94 Monday Play.

INTO THE DARKNESS LAUGHING....1993
Patrice Chaplin’s adaptation of her own novel, published by Virago Press in 1990. Monday Play.

During World War I in Montparnasse, the young artist Jeanne Hebuterne met the Italian painter Modigliani. She was a young girl with a beauty and a talent recognized by Foujita and Severini. He was in his thirties, unstable, penniless and unrecognized. From 1917 they lived together in Modigliani's studio, Jeanne posing for him continually, as he, increasingly embittered, found escape in drink. By the freezing January of 1920, Modigliani's health had failed. For a week he lay dying of tubercular meningitis with only Jeanne beside him. Too late, they were found by the Chilean painter, Ortiz de Zarate. Modigliani died in the Charity Hospital the following day Jeanne, nine months pregnant, fell to her death from a fifth floor window. (taken from the description of the novel on www.Amazon.co.uk).

.....I had a moment or two with Patrice Chaplin (yes, she was related to Charlie, by law). Her bohemian enthusiasms took her as far as a radio study of Jeanne Hebuterne, main mistress of the painter Modigliani, who committed suicide by throwing herself backwards out of an upstairs window the day after he died. We left this part of the tragedy to the imagination and did not embellish it by sound effects. (Richard Wortley....from 'Some Reflections of a Lifetime in Radio', Diversity Website 2005)

If you like the Fear On Four episodes where a woman has a terrifying experience and struggles to convince those around her of its reality, or you enjoyed Stephen Sheridan’s dramatization of Mary Belloc Lowndes’ story "The Lodger", this play will appeal.

Daniel and Connie are a happily-married thirty-something couple. On their anniversary, he buys her a heart-shaped brooch. They celebrate with a trip to a nightclub, but the evening is marred by an encounter with a mystic. For Connie it's the beginning of a nightmare; she starts to experience flashbacks to a Hampstead street where something nasty is taking place. That's not all; whenever she is alone in her house she sees a frightening shadow.

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