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BBC Radio 7 Newsletter - Friday 3rd July
New to Radio 7
The Selection
7 Breakfast
Classic Comedy
Comedy Zone
Comedy Club
7 Drama
7th dimension
crime and thrillers
Fact and Fiction
childrens
and finally
================================================
Hello again.
One of the most creatively rewarding and challenging jobs for an actor is surely to work as a member of the BBC Radio Drama Company (RDC), where actors have the opportunity to take part in hundreds of hours of radio plays, dramatisations and readings for Radios 3, 4, 7 and the World Service.
The majority of archive drama productions you hear on Radio 7 will almost certainly include performances from members of the RDC, or BBC Repertory Company as it was originally named.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of "the Rep" .
The idea of a radio repertory company came about because of the growing popularity of drama in the Golden Age of Radio, when dramas were broadcast live, and also, with the onset of war in 1939, it was sensible to retain an ensemble of actors always available and on the spot.
Rather than risk the danger of traversing London during a time of frequent air raids, the group of actors that made up the Rep could camp out in the stronghold that was Broadcasting House’s Concert Hall – now the Radio Theatre.
After the war, the "Rep" continued, with a cast of around 50, many of whom became household names - amongst whom were Carleton Hobbs and Norman Shelley in their roles of Holmes and Watson, and Marjorie Westbury, as Steve, wife of the debonair writer/detective Paul Temple.
To give drama students the opportunity to join the Drama Repertory Company, in 1953 an annual Student Acting Prize was set-up, and when the distinguished actor Carleton Hobbs died in 1978, the acting prize was re-named the Carleton Hobbs Award in his honour.
To complement the Carleton Hobbs Award, and to broaden the range of actors keen to work in radio, the Norman Beaton Fellowship was introduced in 2003. Named after the Guyanese actor, Norman Beaton, who died in 1994, the Fellowship encouraged applicants from non-traditional training backgrounds.
The list of actors who began their careers in radio drama as a result of these awards is impressive and includes, to name but a few:
Edward Kelsey, Jeremy Kemp, Nerys Hughes, Carole Boyd, Clive Merrison, Richard Griffiths, Tim Bentinck, Stephen Tompkinson, Emma Fielding and Julian Rhind-Tutt.
On Wednesday this week, this year's Carleton Hobbs Award winners and Norman Beaton Fellowship winners plus the runners-up were announced at a ceremony which also celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Radio Drama Company.
I wish these prize-winning newcomers fruitful and happy careers in radio drama, and although the Radio Drama Company now consists of only eleven actors, long may these talented performers bring us many more hours of listening pleasure through their radio expertise and vocal versatility.
And now on to my selection of programmes for the week ahead:
New to Radio 7
Book Club - Flashman
Sunday at 11am and 5pm
Hut 33 (pictured)
Sunday at 10:30pm
Flash For Freedom
Tuesday and Wednesday at 10am, 3pm and 3am
The Selection
Comedy Greats: The Seventies - Part 1
Barry Cryer presents his first selection from the sensational seventies:
The News Huddlines (07/11/1979, Roy Hudd pictured); All Gas And Gaiters - Only Three Can Play (09/02/1971); The Frankie Howerd Show (02/11/1975), Parsley Sidings - A Bird In The Hand (03/11/1973); Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? - Count Down (08/10/1975); Hello Cheeky, starring of course Barry himself (21/10/1979).
Saturday at 10am and 8pm
7 Breakfast
Beachcomber... By The Way
Series 3, 1/6
Beachcomber sings of wicker hats, talks of naughty schoolboys, and gets sick of Prodnose. Starring Richard Ingrams, John Wells, John Sessions, Joan Sims, Brian Bowles, Simon Greenall, June Whitfield and Patricia Routledge, it was written by J B Morton and dramatised by Mike Barfield.
Friday at 9am and 5pm
The Small World of Dominic Holland
Series 1, 1/6
It's a small world - ask Dominic Holland, he lives in it. Luckily for us, he can tell us how absurd it all is. In this opening episode, Dominic (pictured above) takes on the pitfalls of growing up, becoming an adult and having children. First heard on Radio 4 in August 2000.
Thursday at 9am and 5pm
Millport
Series 1, 1/6 - The Storm
Mystery surrounds a pensioner's disappearance. Lynn Ferguson stars as a thirty-something barmaid on a tiny Scottish island. The producer was Kathy Smith, and the series was first broadcast on Radio 4 in 2000.
Friday at 9:30am and 5:30pm
Classic Comedy
The Wodehouse Letters
1/3
Not content with writing 86 published novels, short stories, plays, films and features, P.G.Wodehouse also penned thousands of personal letters. These letters open a window onto the shy and reclusive Wodehouse, who found it easier to express himself on the page than in person. In the first of three programmes Simon Cadell (pictured) reads a selection of letters from Wodehouse to his step-daughter Leonora, to whom he was devoted. Explanatory foot-notes are supplied by Lady Frances Donaldson, who was a friend of Leonora's from schooldays, and by Sir Edward Cazalet, Leonora's son. The producer was Susan Roberts.
Sunday at Midday and 7pm
Hancock's Half Hour
The New Radio Series
The first episode of the Fifth Series, scripted by the great writing partners Galton and Simpson. In this programme, Hancock's plans to become a recluse are too easily accepted. From January 1958.
Wednesday at 8am, Midday and 7pm
Comedy Zone
Book Club - Flashman
Homecoming Season
New to Radio 7
The late George MacDonald Fraser chats to James Naughtie (pictured) about the womanising anti-hero of his popular Flashman adventure stories. Recorded in 2006 in Manchester with a mixture of die-hard fans and new readers.
Sunday at 11am and 5pm
Comedy Club
The Now Show
More topical tomfoolery from Punt and Dennis (pictured) and the team, first heard on Radio 4 on Friday 26th June.
Sunday at 10pm
Hut 33
New to Radio 7
1/6 - Bridge Too Far
Sitcom set in Bletchley Park in 1941, focusing on three code-breakers forced to share a draughty wooden hut as they try to break German ciphers. Unfortunately, the trio dislike one another. Written by James Cary and starring Alex MacQueen, Olivia Colman, James Cary, Tom Goodman-Hill and Robert Bathurst, it was produced by Adam Bromley.
Sunday at 10:30pm
7 Drama
Flash For Freedom
Homecoming Season
New to Radio 7
A two-part dramatisation by George MacDonald Fraser of one of his celebrated novels recounting the high adventures and low behaviour of that renowned bounder, blackguard, liar, lecher and self-confessed coward, Sir Harry Flashman, V.C. It is 1848, and Flashman is considering a career in politics. Starring Joss Ackland, Rhys Meredith, Nigel Anthony (pictured), Christian Rodska, Emily Wachter, and William Hope, the producer was Patrick Rayner.
Tuesday and Wednesday at 10am, 3pm and 3am
Rob Roy
Homecoming Season
1 - 2/3
This tale, by Sir Walter Scott, is set in the north of England and Scotland in the years before, during and after the first Jacobite rising in 1715. Rob Roy is a swashbuckling chieftain of the clan MacGregor who is forced to become an outlaw for his alleged espousal of the Jacobite cause. With Sean Chapman, Tom George, Liam Brennan, Michael Perceval-Maxwell and Gareth Thomas. Produced by Gaynor McFarlane, the series was first heard in 2002 on BBC Radio 4.
Thursday and Friday at 10am, 3pm and 3am
Man In Snow
As a climber escorts a group of honeymooners up Mount McKinlay he recalls his relationship with his dead son. Written by and starring Israel Horowitz, this beautiful production was directed by Ned Shaillet, and the programme was first broadcast in 2000 on Radio 4.
Thursday at 11:15am, 9:15pm and 2:15am
7th dimension
Lullaby
Another chance to hear this made-for-Radio 7 tale. With an attic perfect for a painting studio, artist Kate soon settles into her new home. But when she starts hearing unexplained noises; footsteps, children's laughter and, most disturbingly of all, the refrain of a haunting lullaby echoing through the walls, Kate is pushed to the very limits of her sanity. An atmospheric and haunting story from Francis Turnly, directed by Heather Larmour.
Monday at 6pm and Midnight
The Phantom of the Opera
An audio dramatization in four parts of Gaston Leroux’s novel. Written and directed by Barnaby Edwards, and starring Anna Massey (pictured), James D'Arcy, Alexander Siddig and Peter Guinness, it is a Big Finish production.
In the cosmopolitan Paris of the 1880s, the new proprietors of the Opera House are amused to discover that their costly acquisition is said to be haunted. But their smiles quickly vanish, as tragedy follows misfortune: a murdered stagehand, a fatal accident, a missing girl. Fearful tales of the Opera Ghost race through the corridors and dressing rooms of the theatre. And with good reason - for deep in the catacombs beneath the Opera House, something is stirring...
Tuesday to Friday at 6pm and Midnight
The Willows
This 1907 Algernon Blackwood story builds up an atmosphere of almost unbearable suspense from the simple situation of two friends on a canoeing trip down the Danube. Spending the night on a small island in a remote stretch of the river between Austria and Hungary, they eventually realise that malevolent supernatural forces are at work against them, and what at first promises to be a straightforward camping expedition escalates into an ordeal of survival against a powerful agency from another dimension. Produced by Lawrence Jackon, this four-part story is read by Roger Allam.
Monday to Thursday at 6:30pm and 12:30am
The Parasite
In this Arthur C. Clarke classic, a man starts having terrifying dreams in which he is plagued by a monstrous creature who, although hideously repellent, seems strangely familiar to him. When these visions begin to interrupt his everyday life, the man fears for his sanity. The true horror is revealed when the narrator discovers that he is being haunted by his future self. Read by Nicholas Boulton, it was abridged and produced by Gemma Jenkins.
Friday at 6:30pm and 12:30am
crime and thrillers
The Three Act Tragedy
Hercule Poirot, his amateur detective acquaintance Mr Satterthwaite, and the distinguished Harley Street nerve specialist Sir Bartholomew Strange are amongst the guests at a weekend party being given by the celebrated actor Sir Charles Cartwright at his clifftop house in Cornwall. On the first evening after their arrival there is a cocktail party - at which an elderly clergyman, who's only had a sip of dry martini, drops down dead. Was it through natural causes – or murder? John Moffatt (pictured) stars as the Belgian sleuth, with George Cole, Michael Cochrane and Clive Merrison.
Monday to Friday at 1:30pm, 8:30pm and 1:30am
Fact and Fiction
Those Baneful Articles
Homecoming Season
As part of our season celebrating Scottish culture, Billy Kay takes a wry look at the arrival of tea and whisky in 18th century Lowland Scotland. You can hear our own Penny Haslam's interview with Billy Kay via the
Homecoming Season webpage.
Saturday at 9am and 7pm
This Sceptred Isle: The Twentieth Century
In a sequel to the popular series, This Sceptred Isle, Anna Massey now takes us through the history of Britain in the twentieth century.
01/90 1901 A New King, a New Century
The Boer war was still raging and the British set up the first ever concentration camps.
02/90 1902 - South Africa, Balfour and Education
It's 1902. London is stricken by small-pox and many had died. It was difficult to control the outbreak.
03/90 1903 - Naval Build-Up, Free Trade and Empire
It was considered a British right to win wars and cricket matches. By 1903 there was a belief there would be war with Germany.
04/90 1904 - Ships, Cars, Conurbations and Churchill Crosses the Floor
The Entente Cordiale was formed which meant that if France went to war with Germany then Britain would have to go too.
Tuesday to Friday at 2pm and 4am
Stuck In The Middle
A series about the joys and trials of middle age, with thoughts from Clare Short, Stephanie Calman and many more middle-agers. First heard in 2003 on Radio 4.
Monday to Friday at 2:15pm and 4:15am
Ronald Frame Short Stories
Two tales from the Scottish writer.
The Trinket Box
A prank Valentine card cannot possibly cause a marriage to break down - can it? Read by John Gordon Sinclair (pictured).
The End of the Season
Rhona has run away from her relationship problems. At her hotel, she comes to an understanding. Read by Jilly Bond.
Thursday and Friday at 2:45pm and 4:45am
childrens
CBeebies
Join all your CBeebies friends for an early breakfast of songs, rhymes and stories in their new time slot on Radio 7.
Daily at 5am
Big Toe Books
An hour of classic children's readings every day, presented by Kirsten O'Brien.
Weekends at 8am
Weekdays at 4pm
Saturday
Big George and the Seventh Knight, by Eric Pringle and read by Rupert Degas.
Sunday
Lily Quench and the Black Mountains by Natalie Jane Prior and read by Helen Lederer.
Monday to Wednesday
The Phantom Tollbooth, written by Norton Juster and read by James Rawlings, The Kingdom of the Golden Dragon written by Isabel Allende and read by Anne Marie Duff, and The Suitcase Kid by Jacqueline Wilson and read by Jessica Wilcox.
Thursday
The Phantom Tollbooth continues, as does The Kingdom of the Golden Dragon and the Suitcase Kid. Also featuring The Spiral Stair by Joan Aiken and read by Wendy Peters.
Friday
The final episode of Phantom Tollbooth and The Spiral Stair. A Very Naughty Boy from Naughty Stories For Good Boys and Girls written and read by Chris Milne.
www.bbc.co.uk/bigtoe
and finally
And finally,
Earlier this week, the annual Radio Festival was held in Nottingham.
Practitioners throughout the entire radio industry met up to attend sessions and lively discussions ranging from the latest developments in radio to the challenges facing the industry in the current economic climate.
DAB, Digital Britain and the government plans for "switch-off" year were hotly debated.
If you'd like to hear some of the DAB debate, plus a discussion on other issues such as presenters' salaries, you still have time to listen again to a special edition of Radio 4's Media Show , which was recorded on stage at the Nottingham Playhouse on Wednesday 1st of July.
With Steve Hewlett in the Chair, the guests were radio veteran, Paul Gambaccini, Tim Davie, Director of BBC Audio and Music and Phil Riley, Director of The Orion Media Group - oh, and listen out for a "mystery voice" from someone with very strong views on DAB (clue: he's a former editor of The Sun newspaper).
It's a fascinating programme, and you can catch it again
here via the BBC iPlayer.
I leave you now with the
Schedule and the
iPlayer .
Happy listening!
Mary Kalemkerian
Head of Programmes
BBC Radio 7
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