unidentified radio plays

I am often contacted by listeners of radio plays who ask me to identify something they heard years ago from a description (which they supply) of the plot, and ask whether a recording is available.

Sometimes the play is one which is difficult to identify. I am therefore starting this web page (on an experimental basis) to see if it attracts any interest. If you can supply the title (and/or a recording, if missing) I'd be pleased to hear from you.

Do not expect an instant response. This is a non-commercial site run in my spare time; I can only allocate a couple of hours a week to it.

Nigel Deacon, Diversity website



do you recall.......


AN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM.....
I once heard a great radio play with two characters (man and woman) and an elephant in the room. My am-dram company wants to do it as part of a triple bill, but I can't find it anywhere. It was broadcast in Britain, on the BBC. Also.....


PARROT BEING FLUSHED AWAY.....
have you ever heard a play in which a parrot ends up being flushed down the toilet after speaking out of turn? I am looking for that one too.

Very interesting website, by the way...

A.P., from the frozen north.

Reply from Clive Lever and S.W:

I remembered hearing a play about a mynah bird on Producer's Choice on BBC7, and thought it may have been one of Cherry Cookson's choices. I asked Gerard McDermott and he said that he starred in the play in the part of the bird, with Marcia Warren in the role of the wife, and somebody called David in the role of the husband. Armed with that, I found this on the 'Diversity' Cherry Cookson page:


Mon 16 Feb, 11:00 - 11:45 45 mins (29 June 1999) Bodies and Souls By Martyn Wade. Harry's long and tedious marriage to selfish Joyce reaches an all-time low when she begins to experience reincarnation. Her claims that the simplest domestic item contains the soul of a long-lost loved one has Harry reaching for desperate measures. With David Horovitch, Marcia Warren and Gerrard McDermott.

Cherry Cookson- "One of the joys of radio drama is having one of those ideas which couldn't possibly work in any other dramatic form. Bodies and Souls, one of the most popular afternoon plays of recent years, was written by Martin Wade. The theme of this domestic black comedy is revenge; one of the main roles is that of the talking mynah bird who is bought by the husband to annoy his very irritating wife. She has become obsessed by the idea of reincarnation, convinced that everything around them, even the plants in the garden, have been taken over by the souls of various famous personalities. The husband plans his revenge with a visit to the local pet shop. David Horovitch and Marsha Warren join forces with Gerard McDermott as the bird in this entertaining comedy".....

Could this be the second play in this lady's enquiry?

Many thanks, Clive, for following this up for us......ND.


A PLAY ABOUT KING ARTHUR....1985/5
In 1984/5 I heard a play about King Arthur and his knights and they came back when England was most at need and I seem to remember that they took part in WWII as fighter pilots.

Does this ring a bell with anyone?

J.G.C


TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENT IN THE FUTURE

..........a play in the early hours of the morning on the world service around 10 years ago.

It was a depressing description of life in the UK under some kind of seemingly new government which became increasingly totalitarian. In the end, all undesirables, criminals, etc were rounded up and herded into an increasingly small area where they would presumably finish each other off.

Grateful for any information.

Gwyn

This sounds like "2004", by Wally K. Daly, broadcast in 1996 by World Service. - N.D.


EEL IN A RESTAURANT
I was listening to it on a journey up to Yorkshire. My journey ended but the play hadn't. It was about a preserved eel in a restaurant. Strange, I know but I'm curious to know how it ended. Can't remember the title.

J.W.

I think this was part of a series by Nick Warburton: On Mardle Fen - The Twisted Eel - N.D..


MINERS TRAPPED UNDERGROUND......
Two miners trapped underground; periodically the oxygen level would fall and the walls would seem to collapse. But they are really twins in utero being born and the collapsing walls represent contractions.

Farah

A.S. sent the following comments:_
.........................This would be the play mentioned under your Michael Bartlett listing ... GETTING OUT....1979 - by Christopher Russell, with Ian Holm & James Bolam. Producer: Michael Bartlett; broadcast 5-Jan-1979 . It was in the series Just Before Midnight. When Michael was directing Dirty Tricks (which starred James Bolam's opposite number Rodney Bewes) I talked about it with him. I seem to recall that to get the claustrophobic feeling of the twins in the womb, he had the two actors crouched up on chairs, sitting back to back.


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF.....
-a boy, in which an old woman cut the strings of children's kites with her big scissors, and decapitated birds, stringing the heads around her as a necklace. The boy was an artist. He came across two old women who urinated into their well before offering him a drink from it.

Jane, Australia.

.....This rang a bell as I'd listened to this just recently, so a quick search came up with ... The Tyger Hunt by Lavinia Murray.

Lavinia Murray's play imagines a surreal day in the life of the young William Blake. With a runaway tiger on the loose, William is out with his sketch pad to capture the magic of a truly enchanting and extraordinary afternoon.

William ...... Barney Clark
Mrs Blake/Mary Capper/Smock race runner ...... Pippa Haywood
Mr Blake/Broadsheet yeller/Innkeeper ...... David Fleeshman
Tol Tiddle Doll/Matchsyick seller ....... Jonathan Keeble
Ann Capper/Corncutter ...... Kathryn Hunt
Dog/Drunk/Bellows mender ...... Seamus O'Neill
Music consultant: Philip Tagney; directed by Pauline Harris.
Last on: 29 Jul 2008 14:15 BBC Radio 4
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008crmn

.......N.W, Cornwall, UK.


A haunted cathedral....1997
The story of a cathedral which was the site of mysterious deaths of boys every 50 years or so - it turned out that a supernatural horror was built into the cathedral ... broadcast 1997.

Paula

ND replies.......It sounds like "The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral", 1996, repeated 1997, by Robert Westall. One of my 'top 10' radio plays.


ON ILKLEY MOOR.........c1995?
A radio play in which the scenes were linked by the tune "On Ilkley Moor Ba' Tat", but whistled. I don't usually like listening to whistling, but this was beautiful.....can anyone supply the title / author / date of this play?

D.P.

ND replies.......This is 'The Colliers' Cathedral' by Robin Brooks; 22 May 1984, with Jon Strickland/Hilda Schroeder. A cross between "Hobson's Choice" and Monty Python's "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch - no exaggeration - and an excellent comedy.


SHOEMAKER ATTENDING TO A NAZI OFFICIAL
A play set just before WW2 and involved a person going to Germany to attend to a member of the Nazi hierarchy. During his stay he finds out intimate physical details about senior party members from their wives. The play ends with Winston Churchill during VE Day celebrations where the shoemaker is being congratulated on having boosted morale with new lyrics to 'Colonel Bogey' mocking Hitler and his cronies.

Secondly, a series set in old Edinburgh, possibly 19th century. I only heard snippets, but the main character was a police officer and he was very friendly with a woman who operated a brothel.

Ian James

ND replies ..........The first play is "Dear Dr. Goebbels", by Neville Smith, broadcast in 2001. Here's what I wrote at the time:

Philip Morgenstein never realised when he applied for his first job that he would be fitting Dr. Goebbels with surgical boots at his private mansion a few months later. In Dear Dr. Goebbels, by Neville Smith (R4, 1415, 30 Nov 01), something of Goebbels' private life is revealed. Most people have never heard of Morgenstein, but he was offered an honour by Churchill (which he refused because his boss was not offered one) on the strength of the little ditty he wrote making fun of the Nazi leadership and their unfortunate medical conditions, sung by squaddies to the tune of "Colonel Bogey":

Hitler, has only got one ball
Goering, has two but very small
Himmler has something similar
But poor old Goebbels has no balls at all.

The second item is "McLevy", by David Ashton. There have been several series of this excellent 'police drama'.

N.D.


PETER TINNISWOOD?
...........A play set in London on a Sunday morning; a "sound montage". One of the parts consisted of a group of pigeons which kept repeating "cheep bloody cheep". That's all I can remember, other than, as usual for Tinniswood, it was hilarious.

Doug Lewis

Les Smith emailed me as follows: "The play is not by Tinniswood, but by Louis de Bernieres and is called 'Sunday Morning in the Centre of the World'.

D.G, Salisbury, emailed as follows:

I also heard this frightening play as a child. No radio play has ever made a bigger impression on me. I think it is “The Raven” by Alfonso Sastre broadcast on Saturday Night Theatre on the 31st of Dec 1966.

The play takes place in the winter when a group gathers in a house where the previous year the lady of the house had been murdered by a man who had knocked at the door. Everybody has a strong feeling of déjà vu and one of the group comments how snow had fallen on him from a tree just like it had done the year before. After rising tension the woman who had been murdered the year before walks down the stairs and joins the group as if nothing had happened. She asks why everybody looks as if they have just seen a ghost! Then somebody knocks at the door and, although everybody is aghast, the woman opens the door and history repeats itself.....................(many thanks - ND)