The series that examines books, plays and stories and how they work. John Yorke looks at the 1968 theatre novel Next Season by Australian writer and director Michael Blakemore. Based on Blakemore’s lived experience as an actor in English repertory theatre in the late 1950s in Stratford-upon-Avon, the novel has been described as one of the true great theatre novels.The novel follows young Australian actor Sam Beresford as he joins a six-month repertory season in the fictional town of Braddington, where he brushes up with the company’s great stars and battles with its powerful and aloof director. That the novel’s characters were based on real-life theatre greats that Blakemore knew and worked with meant it caused a stir at the time of publication.John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for R4.Contributors:
Simon Callow, actor
Greta Scacchi, actor
Michael Billington, author and arts criticReadings from Next Season by Michael Blakemore (Faber & Faber, 1968)Reader: Ciaran Owens
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Lucy Hough
Executive Producer: Caroline RaphaelA Pier production for BBC Radio 4
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14:41
Underfoot in Show Business
The series that examines books, plays and stories and how they work. John Yorke looks at the 1962 theatre memoir Underfoot in Show Business by Helene Hanff. The text is a comic account of Hanff’s attempts to break into New York theatre in the early 1940s, which found a new audience after the success of Hanff’s later epistolary memoir 84, Charing Cross Road.Underfoot in Show Business is a dispatch from a golden era in New York theatre, in which Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams were actively producing plays. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for R4.Contributor:
Howard Sherman, US writer for The StageReadings from Underfoot in Show Business by Helene Hanff (Futura Publications, 1980)
Audio from Friday Night, Saturday Morning (BBC Television, 1980) and Desert Island Discs (BBC Radio 4, 1981)Reader: Madeleine Paulson
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Lucy Hough
Executive Producer: Caroline RaphaelA Pier production for BBC Radio 4
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14:45
Casino Royale
John Yorke looks at Casino Royale, the novel by Ian Fleming that introduced James Bond to the world. First published in 1953, Fleming’s thrilling novel plunges us immediately into the murky underworld of high stakes gambling. Today we may be more familiar with Bond as portrayed in the movies, but here we discover a more nuanced character. James Bond is vulnerable and at times filled with self-doubt, a far cry from the confident hero on the screen. Bond is on a mission to confront a private banker called Le Chiffre in a baccarat game at the Casino Royale and it doesn’t all go to plan. John Yorke first read Casino Royale at the age of twelve and credits it with a lifetime of enthusiasm for reading novels. In this Opening Lines he explains why.John has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for R4.Contributor:
Kim Sherwood, author and creative writing lecturer, University of EdinburghReader: Matthew Gravelle
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Mark Rickards
Executive Producer: Sara DaviesA Pier production for BBC Radio 4
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14:20
London Belongs to Me
Ian Sansom celebrates the evocative portrait of London on the brink of war that Norman Collins paints in his 1945 novel London Belongs to Me.The book centres around the lives of the inhabitants of 10 Dulcimer Street, a down-at-heel south London boarding house, and spans the two years from December 1938 to December 1940. Deftly mixing comedy and tragedy, Collins invites us into the lives of these disparate characters, a handful of seemingly unremarkable people whose minor triumphs and bruising setbacks combine to provide a poignant and compelling account of the human face of history, away from the headlines and the corridors of power.Ian Sansom is a novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He is the author of more than 20 books, including the Mobile Library and the County Guides series of detective novels and his work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He has worked as a columnist for The Guardian and The Spectator and currently writes for the TLS, The Irish Times and The Dublin Review. He is a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3. He was formerly the Director of the Oscar Wilde Centre at Trinity College Dublin and a professor and Head of English at Queen’s University Belfast.Contributors:
Ed Glinert, writer, lecturer and historical tour guide
Katherine Cooper, writer, academic and broadcasterReadings from London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins (Penguin Books, 2008)Reader: Ewan Bailey
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Executive Producer: Caroline RaphaelA Pier production for BBC Radio 4
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14:05
Kramer Versus Kramer
The novel Kramer Versus Kramer was published in the US in 1977 and was an instant bestseller. Its story of a marriage, a divorce and a fierce custody battle tapped into the highly charged debates of the time about changing sex roles, marriage and parenting. It was immediately optioned by Hollywood, and the film came out in 1979 starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. Attitudes to custody at the time - which were still rooted in the idea of a wife as a homemaker and carer - were at odds with the sweeping demands for change made by the women’s movement, and it’s this tension that lies at the heart of the story. John hears from Sue Moss, top New York divorce and custody attorney, about how the legal landscape has changed, and from dramatist Sarah Wooley about what drew her to the story.John has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative, including many podcasts for Radio 4.Contributors:
Sue Moss, partner at Chemtob Moss & Forman LLP, New York
Sarah Wooley, dramatist of BBC Radio 4’s production of Kramer vs KramerReader: Riley Neldam
Producers: Tolly Robinson, Sara Davies
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Executive Producer: Caroline RaphaelA Pier production for BBC Radio 4
Producer and writer John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact behind the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in Radio 4's weekend afternoon dramas.
Ireland