Quarter 1 Reviews- 006 Contemporary Drama- Old

006 Contemporary Drama – Old

I was blown away by 24 Kildare Road; I thought it was new and wondered who on Earth this talented new radio writer was.  Turns out it was Katie Hims; of course it was.  By the end of it, it actually bore all the hallmarks of a Katie Hims story:  loved ones separated for decades, secrets, but a happy ending.  However, the characters and dialogue are just stunning, and it’s a wonderfully revealed mystery that at first glance seems like a shocking tragedy.  The story starts with children Ryan (Harry Grasby) and Jackson (Aaron Gelkoff) who discover the body of an elderly woman in a snow-covered park.  They alert police officers Mick (David Reed) and Hayley (Christine Bottomley); off to the scene are sent paramedics Ozzy (Ikky Elyas) and Ned (Will Kirk).  A young woman on her way to Hull who is meeting up with an online boyfriend in the flesh for the first time shares a train carriage with Marion (Marcia Warren), an elderly woman whose family has recently sent her from her home in Leeds to a care home in London.  Her daughter had recently died of cancer.  At the care home, Kadija (Nahel Tzegai) and Pat (Heather Craney) were trying to find the whereabouts of Marion, only slowly revealed by Rose (Jessica Turner).  In Hull—actually Bridlington—Marion takes a taxi to 24 Kildare Road, where she is trying to find Joe (John Rowe).  When she can’t find him, we are led to connect her with the body in the park.  However, the story is not so simply concluded.  Excellent performances complement plenty of cliffhangers. 24 Kildare Road was directed by Mary Peate in 2010, and also starred Ian Conningham, Neil McCaul, Amanda Wilkin, Sinead MacInnes, Greg Jones, Neil Dudgeon, and Amelia Bullmore.

Quarter 4 Reviews - 006 Contemporary Drama - Old

006 Contemporary Drama – Old 

I’m not used to hearing Anton Lesser in contemporary dramas, and he excelled as the put-upon Adam in Melissa Murray’s Pass the Parcel.  Adam wants to join a genealogy course, but at the last minute, he decides not to attend.  It’ too late, as he’s already been introduced to the damaged, spiky Alison (Carolyn Pickles) and the annoying, intrusive ex-copper Mark (Gerard McDermott at his best).  In spite of himself, Adam is interested in Alison, and the feeling is mutual, despite the fact that his ancestor may have committed a crime that caused her ancestor to be convicted of murder.  Alison is having trouble reconciling with the past, and Adam is having trouble getting over his emotional ex-wife Frances (Nathasha Pyne).  Mark is bored and lonely and left the police force after anti-corruption investigations were making him distinctly uncomfortable.  It’s hard to believe, but a series of events causes Adam to reconcile with Frances, and he and Alison start dating.  They also get over their initial frustration with Mark, who seems to have solved the case of the ancestors.  I knew from previous experience that Melissa Murray wrote good scripts, and this was well-written and well-acted.  It was directed by Cherry Cookson in 2005.

Also by Melissa Murray was the earlier, and more painful, The Inheritance.  I found it so painful to listen to, in fact, that I was honestly surprised when it managed to come up with a happy ending.  Simone (Kate Buffery) has been estranged from her family for many years after she took part in a Channel 4 documentary where she came out as gay.  Her parents disowned her, and she was only told about their death in car crash in Spain by her sister-in-law Imelda (the chameleon-like Carolyn Pickles).  At the funeral, her brother Peter (Roger Allam) called her unspeakable names and punched her partner Claire (Stella Gonet) in the face. What a difference twenty years has made to society, that fortunately this kind of bald-faced prejudice is (mostly?) absent.  Simone’s leukemia has not responded to chemo, so she needs a bone marrow transplant.  However, she doesn’t want to tell Peter.  When Claire finally forces her to go ask him, in the way that most family communication goes, Peter and Simone can’t speak plainly to each other.  It looks like Simone is going to die, having sold the bookshop she used to own, and Derek (Charles Simpson) used to manage.  However, might Imelda come to the rescue?  This drama featured superb performances in really challenging roles. It also starred Priyanga Alan, David Allister, Amelia Taylor, and Ben Crowe.  It was also directed by Cherry Cookson in 1999.

Quarter 3 Reviews- 006 Contemporary Drama- Old

You will have noticed a slowing down of listening to radio drama in this quarter.  This is partly due to life just getting in the way, but also due to the fact that I was forced to delete BBC iPlayer Radio and install BBC Sounds in its place.  Among BBC Sounds’ many, many flaws, it also now takes up so much room on my phone, I can only download a maximum of 5 programmes at a time.  I used to be able to download 10+ programmes with BBC iPlayer Radio app.  So, unfortunately, the BBC has shot themselves in the foot, at least as far as I am concerned, because I am now listening to LESS radio drama, not more, than I used to. Anyway . . .  

006 Contemporary Drama – Old 

Rachel’s Cousins was originally from 2015.  It’s written by Ann Marie Di Mambro, and I found it to be very effective and affecting (and a great lesson in avoiding voice clustering).  Rachel (Tamara Kennedy) is a Glasgow lawyer who has just had a double mastectomy after having had breast cancer.  The only person she can confide in is her colleague and lover, the married Alex (Robin Laing).  A chance encounter brings her into contact with her cousins, Glaswegians on the opposite class spectrum from Rachel.  Arrested for disturbing the peace and assaulting a police officer, there’s enmity between Rachel and her cousins Marilyn (Gabriel Quigley), Josie (Karen Bartke), and Shirley (Sarah McCardie).  Alex is able to help them get the charges dropped, but Rachel comes around to their brother Bobby’s (Alan McHugh) house and tells them they all may be carrying the same cancer gene that she was and urges them to get tested for it.  She is hooted out of the house, but eventually Marilyn comes to see her.  Marilyn has also recently had a breast removed.  Shirley, finding out she has the gene, opts to have a double mastectomy as a precaution, while Josie lies to everyone about having the gene, because her marriage to oil rigger Kevin (Stevie Hannan) is in serious trouble.  Rachel’s empty life becomes full, due to her raucous, vulgar, but supportive cousins, and she helps Josie have the courage to tell the truth and also to leave her husband.  Meanwhile, Bobby decides to tell his daughter Becca about the gene, a decision that causes his ex-wife Carol (Veronica Leer) to threaten him with a restraining order.  It seems that Carol has excluded Bobby from seeing Becca (Nicola Jo Cully) ever since Bobby fell in love with William and left to be with him.  Rachel is also able to help with this.  In the end, she realizes that she doesn’t love Alex and doesn’t need him and has, throughout their affair, selfishly not considered the feelings of Alex’s wife.  It was entertaining to hear Rachel’s restrained accent become a lot broader the more she identified with her lower class Glaswegian cousins.  I’d definitely listen to more dramas about these characters.  Rachel’s Cousins was directed by Bruce Young.

Of course I leapt at the chance to listen to Lenny Henry in a three-part series, Bad Faith, by the great writer Peter Jukes.  Along for the ride were the familiar tropes of organized religion and a Birmingham setting.  Henry is perfectly cast as police chaplain Jake Thorne, a man who has lost his religion (yet for some reason is allowed to continue as a police chaplain?).  He is helped or perhaps hindered by another police chaplain, the much more orthodox and evangelical Michael (Danny Sapani), of whom Jake cannot help taking the mickey.  In the lovely opening episode, “Vengeance Is Mine,” Jake is seeing Suzanne (a radiant Tracy-Ann Oberman), his Jewish shrink, as he goes through the trauma of his lost faith and the fact his father (Oscar James), also a minister, is suffering from dementia as well as other debilitating problems.  Jake’s wife Ruth is away, and he is tempted to do more than flirt with Suzanne.  Meanwhile, his verger Barry (Edward Clayton) is in despair, and Jake has to help prisoner Estelle (Lolita Chakrabarti), who is about to be released, confront Stacey (Kerry Mclean), the mother of the teenager she ran over.  

The second story was “The Fire This Time,” perhaps the most searingly critical of the three dramas, in which Jake and Michael disagree over what to do about Vincent Ngomwe (Jimmy Akingbola).  Vincent has been taken under the wing of corrupt evangelical preacher Elias Wright (Cyril Nri), who nonetheless knew Jake’s father.  Vincent is very confused. He’s been taught by his church that he needs to “de-gay” while Jake tells him that he must first be true to himself.  Rev Wright and Jake both use Vincent, Wright to foment religious tension between Birmingham’s Muslim and Christian communities, and Jake to dig up some dirt on Wright.  Chief Superintendent Khan (Vincent Ebrahim) of the Birmingham police is interviewing Jake for his role in Vincent’s radicalization, as he has threatened to blow up a mosque.  It’s quite a sad story.  Both dramas were from 2014.