RADIO PLAYS-
PETER LESLIE WILDE
Our Producer of Choice this week is Birmingham-based Peter Leslie Wild. Peter's professional directing career started when he won the BP Young Directors' Award in 1989 and has flourished ever since. Since joining the BBC as a Radio Drama Producer in 1995, his work has included the Classic Serial version of Watership Down, a fifteen-part Woman's Hour dramatisation of Wuthering Heights, as well as more than 100 episodes of The Archers.
His chosen plays are:
- Skeggy by Chris Thompson (TX 3/9/99)
- Nevermore by Nicholas McInerny - (TX 29/3/00; rpt 24/5/01)
- My Mother And Other Strange Creatures by Claire Bennett (TX 12/6/01)
- Glorious John by Glyn Hughes (TX 8/8/02)
- The Perfect Wood by Andy Barrett (TX 30/5/03)
11:00 Producer's Choice: Peter Wild
Monday 1 March
Skeggy: By Chris Thompson. A play following the progress of three couples in the holiday resort of Skegness, each with their own reasons for returning to the scene of their happiest holiday. With Norman Bird, Susan Brooke and Alison Carney.
2 March
Nevermore: Nicholas McInerny's drama tells the story of Gauguin's painting, which was a response to the death of his baby just days after its birth. He depicted his teenage wife as a nude Venus in a tropical setting, with a raven gazing over the scene. With Anton Lesser and Inika Leigh Wright. The painting is discussed by Prof John House. (last in the Beyond The Canvas series, 3 drama documentaries about the creation of paintings.)
3 March
My Mother and Other Strange Creatures: Millie, a bright teenager, has an eccentric mother, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on the circumstances.
4 March
Glorious John: By Glyn Hughes. A retired lecturer looks back on his adolescence in Manchester through a dialogue with his childhood sweetheart.
5 March
The Perfect Wood: In a small village, the passion of Margaret and Bill is bowls, but they feel threatened when a young couple start to play.
..............info. located by Greg Linden
OTHER WORK BY PETER LESLIE WILD:
OUT IN THE DARK....1999
R4, by Vanessa Rosenthal; prod. Peter Leslie Wild, Birmingham. The poet Edward Thomas was a volunteer in the First War. He left behind a young family. He just begun writing poetry, after a meeting with Robert Frost. With Vanessa Rosenthal, Stephen Tomlin, Oona Beeson.
Plays of the Severn: A Magnificent Prospect of the Works....2000
By Peter Roberts, with poetry by Alex Jones. The
first of three plays charting the course of Britain's
longest river through history and landscape. An
artist looking for inspiration clashes with an
obsessed inventor at the dawn of the steam age.
With Jane Lapotaire, Stephen Tomlin, Nick Fletcher
and Jeffery Dench. Directed by Peter Leslie Wild.
WATERSHIP DOWN.... 2002 2 x 60min
A superb dramatisation of the story by Richard Adams, by Neville Teller, to celebrate
the 30th anniversary of the publication of the novel. With Simon
Chandler as Hazel, Tom George as Fiver; also stars Stephen Tomlin,
Christian Rodska, Ian Brooker, Peter Meakin, Sean Connolly, Robert
Lister, Colin Rote, Susan Jeffrey, Alison Belbin. Dir. Peter Leslie
Wild; music arranged and played by Chris Leslie. Classic Serial.
THE PERFECT WOOD, by Andy Barrett (R4, 1415, 30 May 03) was a lighthearted comedy - drama about rivalries on the bowling green. Bill has just retired and is looking forward to winning the local bowls championship with his wife; they're easily the best players in the area. But two skilful young newcomers move in, bringing some unwelcome changes and the realisation that perhaps the championship is not in the bag. Bill and his wife were played by Geoffrey Palmer and Stephanie Cole, and their rivals by Ben Crowe and Sara Poyzer; Peter Leslie Wild directed.......ND, VRPCC newsletter
BLOODY STEFI....2003
R4, 1415, 29 Sep 03; by Robin Brooks and Richard Heacock:
In 1907, the young Hungarian violinist Stefi Geyer was at the height
of her fame, enchanting audiences as much with her physical beauty as
with her playing. That summer, two men fell seriously under her spell.
Both were composers and both were besotted with her. Otherwise, they
could not have been more different: the intense, fiercely intellectual
and pathologically shy Hungarian, Bela Bartok; and the dashing,
hell-raising Swiss Lothario, Othmar Schoeck. Each rival sought to
immortalise his new-found muse by writing her a violin concerto.
With Cathy Sara, Tom Goodman-Hill, James Howard, Alexander Delamere,
Bella Merlin.
Directors Rosie Boulton and Peter Leslie Wild.
SAMPLER T6....2004
13 Jan 04, by Louise Ramsden. Among the collection of Victorian samplers in the Victoria and Albert Museum is a piece of needlework: catalogue number Sampler T6-1965. In tiny red stitching on plain linen it tells the amazing life-story of its creator, Elizabeth Parker. The play imagines how it came to be made, and why Elizabeth chose this unusual medium to tell her story. With Amy Shindler, Michael Maloney, Frances Jeater, Gbemisola Ikumelo and Stephen Critchlow; director / producer Peter Leslie Wild.
THE WALSALL BOYS....2004
R4, Saturday Play, 31 Jan 04, written by Nick McCarty. 1892, and a gang of Socialists in the
Black Country town of Walsall are targeted by the Fenian Branch and a group of international
anarchists. The secretary of the local Socialist club becomes drawn
into events and quickly gets out of his depth. With Alex Jones as
the secretary, and Stephen Critchlow, Julia Hills, Tom George,
John Webb, Ann beach, Jo Rafferty, Michael Tudor Barnes, Greg Hobbs and Ben Crowe.
Director: Peter Leslie Wild.
FALCO - THE SILVER PIGS ....2004
R4, 5-26 Mar 04. Written by Lindsey Davies; 4-episode serial. Dramatised by Mary Cutler. Exciting story set in ancient Rome. With Anton Lesser as Falco, with Felicity Jones, Fritha Goody, Ben Crowe, Robert Lister, Richard derrington, Frances jeater, Gillian Goodman, Sean Connelly, Michael Tudor Barnes, Jonathan Keeble, Declan Wilson, Susan Jeffrey, Helen Monks, Ian Brooker, Alex Jones.
FALCO - VENUS IN COPPER ....2006
Another Falco serial, 6 x 30m; began R4, 18 May 06. Writtem by Lindsey Davies.
In Form....2007
19 Mar 07. Drama-documentaries taking musical form as their starting point. 2/2. Variations. Pianist John Lill explores the shape of Beethoven's Variations at the end of his Sonata in E, Op 109, while Tim Jackson's interlinked drama reflects the beauty and pathos of the music.
Alex ...... Alex Jennings,
Kirsty ...... Anna Madeley,
Maximiliane ...... Alex Kelly,
Juliet ...... Christine Kavanagh,
Young Maxi ...... Olivia Coldicutt,
Producer Peter Leslie Wild.
TAKE-AWAY...BITTER BATTER....2007
5/5. By Gary Brown. In 1936; the business is run by a Jewish family. Melvyn's batter is limp and lifeless until a stranger arrives with a new recipe. Narrator ...... Stephen Greif Melvyn ...... David Fleeshman Malcolm ...... Jeff Hordley Jean ...... Olwyn May Bobby ...... Vanessa Rosenthal Rachel ...... Julia Rayner Harvey ...... Richard Jackson Rabbi ...... Lloyd Peters. Produced by Peter Leslie Wild.
BREAKING THE SILENCE....2007
This was originally a stage drama, written in 1984.
Edited excerpts from Radio Review, 18 Jun 07, "The Stage", by Moira Petty
Dramatist Stephen Poliakoff’s Russian Jewish emigre grandfather, an inventor who left his homeland with his family after the Revolution, smuggling diamonds in their shoes to fund their new life, inspired the 1984 play of a family in exile, Breaking The Silence.
It was first produced by the RSC, but his focus on the internal lives of his characters, living through change or looking back in reflective analysis, makes his plays eminently adaptable for radio.
In Breaking The Silence, a man of brilliant ideas and the polished manners of a previous era is forced, under Stalin, to eke out his life of the mind and refined politenesses in unimaginable new circumstances. He is ordered to work as telephone examiner on the Northern Railway and set up home, with the family silver, in one room. Anton Lesser played the inventor (who, like Poliakoff’s grandfather, was in the forefront of bringing sound to the movies) with an authentic sense of melancholy.
Juliet Stevenson was his wife, in an understated performance in which she evoked a woman freeing
herself of the constraints of her old life. She removed her stockings to feel the sun on her legs and
quietly did the office administration her husband ignored, an omission seen as subversive in such
dangerous times.
The entire household, which also included their son (Oliver J Hembrough) and servant (Anna Madeley),
were forced out of their old attitudes by the new challenges of their lives. Nikolai's’s wife voices how she
felt under her husband’s benevolent repression. As the family sped into exile, her husband
acknowledged how she had enabled the whole family to release their separate energies.
Additions by N.D. .....Broadcast 16 Jun 07, 90m; rest of cast: Gary Lewis, John Flitcroft, Jez Thomas; directed by Peter Leslie Wild. More information on RADIO PLAYS BY YEAR page....2007.
