The Shoplifter, by Arthur Rawlinson
Arthur Rawlinson - The Shoplifter
BBC Radio 4: Saturday Night Theatre
Broadcast: Saturday 25th September 1976 @ 8:30 p.m.
The play opens in the office of Harvey Grinton, a Security Officer of a Kensington High Street store. It's 4:30 in the afternoon in the present day. May Bridgerton, a woman well into he 60s, has been brought in, accused of shoplifting after unpaid goods were found in her shopping bag. When asked if she'd ever stolen before, May replied she did once help steal an ocean liner many years earlier. It was a 15,000 tonne Italian liner which, when Italy entered World War II, had docked in the neutral Spanish port of Santa Isabel on the island of Fernando Pó (just off the Cameroon coast) to escape capture.
For Mr. Grinton to truly understand her reasons, she needed to tell him more than just the facts - he must understand the circumstances that gave rise to them - so she proceeds to tell him the whole story on how she became involved in stealing an ocean liner.
It all began in Surbiton on the 9th of April, 1939. May was living there with her parents and two younger siblings when she received a letter from Tom Bridgerton, secretly her fiancé, telling her of his promotion to District Officer in the Nigerian Colonial Service. He will now be making enough money for them to get married so the 25-year-old May packed up her belongings and, later that month, set off to join him in Lagos, Nigeria....
Cast Credits:
Elizabeth Proud ......................................................... May Bridgerton
James Cossins ........................................................... Harvey Grinton, Security Officer at a Kensington High Street Store
Christopher Good ..................................................... Tom Bridgerton, May's Husband, D.O. in the Nigerian Colonial Service
Sean Barrett .............................................................. Mervyn Grant-Ellison, a District Officer in the Nigerian Colonial Service
Leonardo Pierroni ...................................................... Paolo, an Italian Ship's Officer
John Rowe ................................................................ Mr. Norton of the British Council on the Island of Fernando Pó
Hilary Sesta ............................................................... Miss Oliver, Harvey's Secretary
Patrick Barr ............................................................... Jimmy Send, the Resident Minister in Nigeria
Cecile Chevreau ........................................................ Mrs. Jenny Send, Jimmy's Wife
Irene Sutcliffe ............................................................ May's Mother
James Thomason ....................................................... John, May's Father
Anne Rosenfeld ......................................................... May's Younger Sister
Earl Rhodes ............................................................... Bill, May's Younger Brother
Steve Hodson ............................................................ The Ship's Officer
Carol Boyd ................................................................ The Spanish Governor's Wife on the Island of Fernando Pó / The Spanish Ship's Stewardess
William Fox ............................................................... The British Governor of Nigeria
Michael N. Harbour ................................................... Resident Minister / Norton's Clerk
Simon Jones ............................................................... The Man in the Restaurant
Ilarrio Bisi Pedro ........................................................ Mervyn's Secretary / the Resident Minister's Clerk
The Technical Assistants were Patience Pratt, Penny Lester, and John Walsh
Produced and directed by Gordon House.
Jim
