JOHN DRYDEN RADIO PLAYS

John Dryden: writer, dramatist and radio producer...I have divided his work into four categories: original plays, plays where he has acted as dramatist and director, work where he has acted as director only, and radio documentaries (a long time ago he worked as a reporter). Where the category is not obvious the item is mentioned in the "notes" section.

RECENT WORK

Sept 06 ... "The Cairo Trilogy", recorded on location, dramatised by Ayeesha Menon from the novels of Naguib Mahfouz and starring Omar Sharif goes was broadcast on R4 on 15th-29th Oct.

"Three Days That Shook the World" by Penny Gold, a dramatisation of the 1991 coup to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev, staring John Shrapnel and Frances Jeater, went out on Fri 20 Oct 06 at 9pm, R4.

'My Name Is Red' by Orhan Pamuk, recorded in Istanbul, broadcast Aug 08 .

Aug 08: Recording of "A Tokyo Murder", a three-part thriller, in Tokyo.

BROADCASTS: RADIO PLAYS, BBC except where stated otherwise

as WRITER
07.10.00 Hotel Europa, 60m, rpt. as Fri play, 13.04.01

as DRAMATIST & DIRECTOR
30.06.97 The Hong Kong Holding Company (Matthew Solon)
08.05.98 The Shadow of Mir (Nick Fisher)
26.05.98 The Happiness Foundation (Matthew Solon)
13.12.98 Bleak House (5 x 60m; Classic Serial)
14.12.98 Fatherland (Robert Harris); conclusion 21.12.98
09.01.00 The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Attwood), 3 x 60m
03.08.00 Bucket and the Whited Sepulchre (James Hendrie)
03.03.02 A Suitable Boy (Vikram Seth) 5 x 60m
......03 Durham Crescent (Jo Randerson) for Radio New Zealand (see below)
03.12.05 Murder on the Leviathan 55m
01.05.07 Delayed Departures (Matthew Solon)
16.09.08 A Tokyo Murder (Miriam Smith)

date nk:
Election Lives (Matthew Solon)
Post Election Lives (Matthew Solon)

as DIRECTOR only
Mar-May 2000: Daughters of Britannia, 20 x 12m, with Hannah Andrassy
Talk to Sleep: Jan 1999, 4 x 15m, collaboration with Gregory Whitehead
21-07-06 The Appeal (Matthew Solon), 60m
The Cairo Trilogy: Classic Serial, 3 x 60m beginning 15 Oct 06 (dram. Ayeesha Menon)
2007-2008 Forty-three fifty-nine (see below)
2007 Q & A (part of the India & Pakistan 07 season)
2008 My Name is ... Red (O. Pamuk, dram. Ayeesha Menon)

finally- RADIO DOCUMENTARIES
Looking for Charlie
The Road to Barland
Mean Times - Australia 6 x 30m (1997)
Landscape of Fear (Sony Award for best Arts Documentary 1999)
The Mystery of the Affray
Art Atlas 6 x 30m (2001)
The Angry Brigade (2001)

NOTES ON THE BROADCASTS

LOOKING FOR CHARLIE....1991
40 minutes, JD as reporter. Producer: John Watkins. Editor: Sharon Banoff. The story of the search for Charlie my mother's parrot, lost in Kuwait, presumed dead, after the 1991 Gulf War. Part of the "Soundtrack" series.

THE ROAD TO BARLAD....1992
40 minutes, JD as reporter. Producer: John Watkins. Editor: Sharon Banoff. The story of an aid mission to Romania. Part of the "Soundtrack" series.

IF I COULD TALK TO THE ANIMALS....1993
40 minutes, JD as reporter. Producer: Chris Paling. Editor: Sharon Banoff. Part of the "Soundtrack" series.

THE ENGLISH NEW YORKER....1993
40 minutes, JD as reporter. Producer: Cathy Mahoney. Editor: Sharon Banoff. Part of the "Soundtrack" series.

THE TWO PRESIDENTS....1994
30 minutes, JD as reporter. Producer: Chris Paling. Editor: Sharon Banoff. Part of the "Your Place or Mine" series.

THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF WANDA....1994
2 x 30 minutes, JD as reporter. Producer: Cathy Mahoney.

THE TRAVELLER'S SOUK, (Series 1, 1995; Series 2 1996)
Produced with Rebecca Nicholson. Presenter: Robert Elms.

ITCHY FEET....Series 2, 1995
Presenter: Rory McClean. Editor: Mary Price.

ELECTION LIVES by Matthew Solon
(BBC Radio 4, 27.4.94, 45 min. drama) - Producer/Director – News-based drama completed and broadcast on the day of the South African elections. Presented at the Prix Futura, Berlin 1995.

POST-ELECTION LIVES by Matthew Solon
(BBC Radio 4, 27.4.95, 60 min. drama) Producer/Director – News-based drama recorded in Johannesburg and broadcast one year on after South Africa's first democratic elections.

EIGHT OF THE BEST ....1997
8 x 15 minutes, Producer.

THE HONG KONG HOLDING COMPANY....1997
Set at the time of the Hong Kong handover....a family business going through hard times; one of the firm more interested in politics than working, debts...struggling for money and power. Recorded on the streets of London and Hong Kong and transmitted from Hong Kong; the 2nd (concluding) episode went out only a few hours before the handover. Would it have been possible to broadcast it a fortnight later, I wonder? With Stuart Ong, Tin Lung Co; dir John Dryden.

MEAN TIMES - AUSTRALIA
Goldhawk production for BBC Radio 4, October-December 1997, 6 x 30 min. doc/drama - JD as Writer/Director. Travel/history series set in Australia.

BLEAK HOUSE....1998
With Michael Kitchen, Clare Price and John Shrapnel. The story starts with a contested inheritance...excellent dramatisation of a strong story. It won the 1999 Sony Gold Award for Drama and the 1999 Talkie Awards for Best Dramatisation and for Best Abridged Classic Fiction.

"...Only when you hear a production like this, in which different scenes have been recorded in different rooms, do you realise how monotonous is the acoustic used by most radio drama. David Sexton, Sunday Telegraph

"John Dryden has pioneered in radio a kind of movie for the wireless, in which fast cutting, music and location recording are used to create pace and atmosphere...Outstanding production..." Mark Lawson, Radio Times

FATHERLAND....1998
Grim novel by Robert Harris; JD as producer, director and adaptor; with Angeline Ball, Peter Ellis and Stratford Johns. A detective story set in the Third Reich Hitler might have built had he won the war. Now available on BBC CD / cassette - release date 4 Aug 2003. With Anton Lesser, Angeline Ball, Michael Burn, William Scott Massam (sp?), Peter Ellis, Stratford Johns, Andrew Sachs, Dan Fineman, Alan Dedicote, Ian Gelder, Thomas Copeland, Michael Culver, Jonathan Coleman, Patrick Godfrey, Eleanor Bron, Graham Haddon, Robert Portal, Amanda Walker, Alice Arnold, Trevor Nicholls, Ned Sherrin.

THE SHADOW OF MIR....1998
"The Shadow of Mir" (R4 2100 8 May) was the first of 3 plays by Nick Fisher scheduled for broadcast in May. A middle-aged Russian bureaucrat is sent into space to check the viability of the space station. But this is not her real motive........Fisher's plays are always interesting though sometimes rather macabre. Readers may have heard his thriller "The Turning of the Tide" - the ultimate revenge story, or his Julie Enfield police serials. "The Shadow of Mir" was directed by John Dryden, and starred Etela Pardo. ...ND, VRPCC newsletter, Sep 98 The play was presented at the Prix Europa, 1998, Berlin.

THE HAPPINESS FOUNDATION....1998
Dramatisation of the story by Matthew Solon, 45m...A successful family and successful children, but things start to go wrong... Afternoon play, dir. John Dryden, with Clive Mantle, Jan Ravens, Dermot Crowley.

LANDSCAPE OF FEAR....1998
(Goldhawk production for BBC Radio 4, February 1998, 2 x 30 min. doc. features) - Producer. Arts series presented by Robert McNab. Won the Arts Documentary Award in the Sony Radio Awards 1999.

TALK TO SLEEP ....1999
(BBC Radio 4, Jan 1999, 4 x 15 minute drama)- Producer. Late night "imaginary" interviews. Collaboration with Gregory Whitehead. Shortlisted for Sony Radio Award (Comedy), 2000.

FIRST NIGHTS....1999
(6 x 15 minutes), Producer.

HOTEL EUROPA ....2000
A psychological thriller. A hotel receptionist is drawn into what she thinks is a harmless scam giving jobs to illegal immigrants. But there is more to it...with Kerry Fox, Roshan Seth, Rod Lazar. Written and directed by John Dryden. This play was selected by the BBC to be presented at the 2001 Prix Europa in Berlin.

DAUGHTERS OF BRITANNIA....2000
British diplomatic life as recorded over 400 years of diaries and letters written by the duaghters and wives of diplomats. Car bombs, harems, meeting the Emperor, flower arranging, enormous insects, espionage, stranded travellers....they have seen it all. Jointly directed by John Dryden and Hannah Andrassy. Based on Katie Hickman's best-selling history of embassy life. Varied cast including Sylvestra le Touzel, Virginie Gilchrist, Lucy Tregear, Gabrielle Drake, Lucy Robinson. 20 episodes.

THE HANDMAID'S TALE....2000
Margaret Attwood's "Handmaid's Tale", (3 episodes, beginning R4 15 Jan, 1502, on successive Sundays) was unusual for the "Classic Serial" slot, which usually confines itself to "classic literature". Not so here; we are in a nightmare world where the marriage unit is man, woman and "handmaid" - a euphemism for legalised breeding machine. The dramatization was by John Dryden; and starred Marsha Dietlein, Leslie Hendrix and Dylan Chalfy. An imaginative and gripping piece of radio. ....ND, VRPCC newsletter, Apr 2000

"Faultless acting and imaginative, varied and multi-layered sound effects make this one of the best listening experiences I have had." ....Independent on Sunday

"Dryden's productions make most actors-round-the-microphone plays sound dull and false." ......Mark Lawson, Radio Times

"This three-part adaptation uses a documentary style, recorded entirely on location in the US, and avoiding the use of a single studio. It's from Goldhawk Universal Productions, the team who produced the BBC's Sony award-winning adaptation of Bleak House....." Time Out

BUCKET AND THE WHITED SEPULCHRE....2000
Comedy detective story by James Hendrie, based on a detective from Dickens' "Bleak House". With Tony Haygarth and Neil Pearson. Adapted & directed by John Dryden.

THE MYSTERY OF THE "AFFRAY"....2000
(2 x 30 minutes, 2000), Producer. Presenter: Edward Marriott. An investigation into the disappearance of HMS Affray the last British submarine to go missing at sea.

ART ATLAS.....BBC Radio 4, March/April 2001
6 x 30 minute documentaries) Produced with David Perry; series on the visual arts presented by Robert McNab.

THE ANGRY BRIGADE, .....2001
30 minutes,co-produced with Fran Robertson.

A SUITABLE BOY....2002
Indian epic based on the efforts of an Indian woman to find her daughter a suitable husband. 5-week Classic Serial. Produced and directed in India. It recently won the Spoken Word Publishing Association awards for Best Drama and Best Production and was short-listed in the Audio Book category of The British Book Awards.

..."wonderfully atmospheric, written with pace and performed, by an all-Indian cast, quite superbly. The novel may be vast but I was convinced by this version right from the start. Magnificent drama." Radio Times

"…sounds as much like India as it's possible to get without actually going there..." Time Out

"…It was recorded mainly in the faded elegance of the Maharaja of Dhrangadhara's palace in Pune with a 48-strong Indian cast ....the result is magical.......... Rachel Radford, The Observer

"…This was absolutely involving radio from the opening minutes…Echoes of Pride and Prejudice were unmissable, with talk only of class (here, caste), marriage and the entirely different matter of love." The Guardian

DURHAM CRESCENT .... 2003
Directed/Produced by JD for Radio New Zealand; recently (Feb 2003) broadcast by BBC World Service, CBC, ABC and RTE. 60m.

FLIPSIDE – THE MEN OF THE ROSE-NOELLE....2003
by Ken Duncam (Radio New Zealand. Feb 2003. 2 x 60 minutes) – Director/Producer.

TAKING OFF....2003
by Roger Hall (Radio New Zealand. Aug 2003. 6 x 30 minute)- Director/Producer.

MURDER ON THE LEVIATHAN....2005
55m; Saturday play 03.12.05. Unorthodox murder story set on a passenger ship.

THE APPEAL....2006
By Matthew Solon. When an asylum seeker's claim for asylum is rejected, the appeal court is their last chance to stay. This drama documentary reconstructs an asylum appeal court, using a mixture of actors, lawyers and refugees. It follows the case of a fictional Somali woman, and puts the audience into the position of those who decide if she can stay. Directed by JD.

THE CAIRO TRILOGY .... 2006
This classic serial (3 x 60m) is adapted from three novels by Naguib Mahfouz, who died recently aged 94. It's about a middle- class Egyptian family in the period 1917-1953. The lead is played by Omar Sharif (quite a common Asian name, but this is the well-known one) - a character called Kamal, the son of a prosperous man and bully. Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon, directed by John Dryden on location, with Egyptian actors. Other main cast members: Karim Fouda (young Kamal), Ihab Sakhout, Caroline Khalil, Mena Reda, Tamer Nasrat, Ola Roshdy. Music by Sacha Puttnam.

DELAYED DEPARTURES....2007
By Matthew Solon; dramatised and directed by John Dryden. Three passengers unlucky in love had simultaneous nervous breakdowns, then sought to rewrite the scripts of their lives - all before the next flight to Dubrovnik...at least the two played by Samantha Bond and Matthew Solon; Robert Gwylim temporarily transferred his angst to the task of getting the best out of the airline-issue meal vouchers - on balance, the most convincing storyline. ....part of a review from "The Stage", edited by N.D..


Q & A ....2007
This production went out in 10 episodes in the "Woman's Hour" slot as part of the India & Pakistan 07 season. It won the Sony Gold Drama Award in 2008. Here's the BBC information for the first episode:

1/10. 5,000 Rupees
Street kid Ram Mohammad Thomas is a contestant on the hit Indian TV show Who Will Win a Billion. As he ponders over the first question, his thoughts drift back to his childhood in Delhi. A baby abandoned on the steps of a church, Thomas was brought up by a well-meaning priest, until he was abandoned yet again.

Series credits: Assistant Director: Tasneem Fatehi, Composer: Sacha Puttnam, Sound Designer: Nick Russell-Pavier, Production Manager: Nadir Khan.

Cast: Anand Tiwari, Sohrab Ardeshir, Henry Goodman, Caran Arora, Rajit Kapur, Radhika Apte, Nadir Khan, Radhika Mital, Ratnabali Bhattacharjee, Ashley Cook, Rohit Malkani, Ayeesha Menon, Kenneth Desai, Pooja Ruparel, Armaan Malik, Vikrant Chaturvedi, Jaimini Pathak, Trikash Karkera, Devika Shahani-Punjabi, Pushan Kripalani.

Editor: Jeremy Howe , Director / Producer: John Dryden.

The Award panel thought this an outstanding serial, praising in particular the originality of the subject matter. The adaptation, performances, the adroit mix of contemporary and traditional themes, the surprises and the cliffhangers made this a superb piece of radio entertainment.

Production Company: Goldhawk Essential Ltd for BBC Radio 4.


FORTY-THREE,FIFTY-NINE- Dissident....2007
Written by Mike Walker and John Dryden. A dissident thinks someone is trying to assassinate him. He doesn't know who. He races across London with his daughter attempting to evade his pursuers. But - is anyone chasing him, or is there another greater danger? With Oleg Mirochnikov, Meghan Heggerty and Yuri Kilmov. Producer John Dryden.

Forty Three, Fifty Nine – Yara….2008
16 May 08. By Mike Walker and John Dryden.This occasional series (43-59) only includes plays where the action takes place in real time: forty three minutes and fifty-nine seconds. This second play by Mike Walker and John Dryden zooms in on a young woman walking across London heading for one of the tube stations, but an encounter with a middle-aged family man, Grant, in a car disrupts her plans.

John Dryden adds.......The idea behind this series is that the listener in some ways experience a seemingly unedited 45 minutes of someone's life at a critical moment. The motivation for their actions, though implied, is never explicit - because people don't usually go around explaining their motivation.

In this case, there are clues as to Yara's motivation - there is something on the radio early on about the Chancellor meeting the Russian Finance Minister in the City. We didn't want to make it too obvious!

With regard to whether Grant, who has two daughters, would run into the supermarket after Yara when he knew he would, in all likelihood, be killed - it's the sort of moment when you have to ask yourself, “what would I do?”. Grant is probably the only person who can now talk Yara out of doing this terrible thing. He has to make a quick decision; whether to walk away and save himself, or risk his life in the hope of saving other innocent lives. Ordinary people in the real world have made these selfless decisions and put their lives at risk to save others. I hope Grant is in some way a tribute to them.

Some of you may have heard another of these 43.59 dramas we made, towards the end of last year, which was loosely inspired by the Litvinenko poisoning, in which a man thinks he is being pursued by assassins, only to discover that he has already been poisoned by his trusted friend. We’ve been planning some more...

MY NAME IS RED....2008
By O. Pamuk. Murder story set in sixteenth century Istanbul, dramatised by Ayeesha Menon. The Sultan brings together the most acclaimed artists in his kingdom to create a secret book of miniature illustrated manuscripts celebrating the glories of his realm. But two of the miniaturists are murdered, and panic erupts. Classic serial, 2 x 55m. Aug 08.

This was an exciting tale, well dramatised and produced. John Dryden's sound engineers have perfected the technique of getting the effects exactly right. None of the recordings are done in a studio; they're done on location, and this is exactly how they sound.

The play received favourable comments on the BBC Drama messageboard. An interesting addition was a discussion about the use (or otherwise) of foreign actors in BBC productions. It began with a message from "c" , who said ......

........I like Orhan Pamuk. I reach for the Radio Times. Drat! They've done it again. Nearly all the cast have Turkish names.

Was the book written as a 'foreign' experience? Of course not. But R4 does this time and again. The audience Pamuk wrote for spoke the same language as him. The book is set in Turkey, their native country. Foreign-ness was not part of the experience.

John Dryden replies:

.............As the director of this one, I did consider doing it with British actors. A few years ago I directed a production set in Germany - based on the novel "Fatherland" by Robert Harris - and with this we had British actors with no German accent. It worked well because the characters were supposed to be speaking their mother tongue.

But with "My Name Is Red" (as with "The Cairo Trilogy", another production I did a while ago) it didn't seem quite right to take this approach. When the world and culture of the story is so different to ours on so many levels, it doesn't seem to work as well using straight British voices – especially in such an Islamic setting.

There are a lot of very good actors in Istanbul. It made sense to use them – as they were able to bring so much cultural authenticity to the drama. I should point out that none of the actors are putting on “accents”. They are just speaking English in their own voices. And as one of our readers points out, is there anyone who “speaks accentless English?”

John Dryden

A TOKYO MURDER....2008
This is a thriller in three parts By John Dryden and Miriam Smith about the disappearance in Japan of a young British teacher. The production was recorded in Tokyo. I am grateful to John Dryden who supplied full production details which I've shown, minus spoilers, on a separate page, along with photographs (courtesy of Daan Archer) of some of the recording sessions. Producer Tamsin Barber , director J.D, script editor Mike Walker. There is also a short video clip of John recording part of a scene from the play on "youtube". Click on the link below to see it. You'll need to click the back arrow afterwards to return to this page.

Watch John Dryden's unique style of recording documentary style radio dramas on location

'A Tokyo Murder" was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Tuesday 16th - Thurs 18th September, 14.15-1500.

There were lots of comments on the BBC messageboard about the three plays; mainly positive, though some listeners didn't like the absence of "beginning, middle and end" to the story. I thought the plot, or the crime, wasn't really what the play was about; it was offering three perspectives of life in Japan. One comment on the board, by "orbitor", expressed it beautifully; his (slightly edited) comments are here:

"......the subject of the play was Japan itself, and how incomprehensible some aspects of the culture seem from a Western point of view. It wasn't really about the crime. The play took three points of view: the police inspector's, the victim's, and the victim's parents.

The police inspector, confronted with Japan's rigid, hierarchical, male-dominated social structure finds a justice system seemingly more concerned with protocol than with solving a murder.

The victim, vulnerable, seeking escape, perhaps from emotional trauma back home, unwittingly finds herself at the mercy of a predatory side of Japanese society which she doesn't completely understand.

The parents come to Japan seeking justice and closure for their daughter, only to find themselves caught up as players in a TV show combining headline news with entertainment, justice and compassion, yet seemingly without emotional content, a strange parody of Western values".

It seemed to me that without the glare of publicity, the police would not feel obliged to seek the killer; the parents had no choice but to accept the television publicity, warts and all. - ND.

A number of these productions are available on BBC CD/Cassette: Bleak House, Fatherland, The Handmaid's Tale, A Suitable Boy, Daughters of Britannia.

Thanks to John Dryden for supplying the titles of programmes I had missed, and details about some of the others.

Nigel Deacon / Diversity website.

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