Audio Drama – Page 22

BBCR4 + RA.cc: JAMES BOND: From Russia With Love RADIO DRAMA

Aural Noir: Online Audio

From Russia With Love is the third James Bond RADIO DRAMA made for BBC Radio 4 by the wife and husband team of Rosalind Ayres and Martin Jarvis. And it’s absolutely wonderful!

Compared to the movie adaptation, which complicates the plot and adds in more action sequences, this radio drama versio of the novel is much more of a straight-up espionage thriller. In fact it’s so straight-up it feels kind of like an episode of The Sandbaggers. Smart, realistic, gritty. But as with any Bond tale it’s also loaded with sexiness. I’m really in awe at the skill and scale of these adaptations.

Toby Stephens is absolutely terrific as Bond. And Olga Fedori, the spy who loves him, is the best “Bond girl” I’ve ever heard. Fedori plays Corporal Tatiana Romanova, the a Soviet state assigned seductress of 007. She’s a pawn in a game being played by SMERSH, the counter-intelligence agency of the Red Army.

Within the luxurious ninety minutes of the play you get a real sense of a story being told.

When I watch the James Bond movies it rarely occurs to me that there’s much of a plot in between the action sequences. In fact, I don’t well recall any of the Bond movie plots very distinctly. The movies, even though I mostly love them, are more apt to treat the plot’s premise as an excuse to get to the next exotic location or to the next fantastic stunt sequence. They’re more cartoon than novel. Not so with this adaption. Colonel Rosa Klebb, one of the big baddies of both, is creepy like she is in the movie, but with this radio adaptation you’ll almost feel bad for her in her later scenes. The one liners are there, but they’re not laughing jokes as much as they are punctuation marks for the gallows humour of Bond.

The radio drama adaptation offers a two kinds of Russian love, the sentimental and the soft, and the hard and the ruthless.

Indeed, the intimacy of audio version is amazing. Bundled up snugly on the Orient Express with the two sexy cold war era spies is a wondrous treat you can’t afford to let yourself miss.

Olga Fedori as Tatiana Romanova and Toby Stephens as James Bond

SFFaudio Essential From Russia With Love
Based on the novel by Ian Fleming; Performed by a full cast
1 MP3 via TORRENT – Approx. 87 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 – The Saturday Play
Broadcast: July 21, 2012
Provider: RadioArchive.cc
It’s 1955 and the Russians plan an act of terrorism. Choice of target? James Bond. To be ‘killed with ignominy’: a major sex scandal will leave his reputation, and that of MI6, in tatters. Colonel Rosa Klebb of the KGB devises a plan to lure Bond into their trap, using beautiful Corporal Tatiana Romanova as bait – plus a Spektor, the latest Russian decoding device. MI6 learns that Tatiana wants to defect and ‘M’ orders Bond to Istanbul. When Tatiana makes contact she seems to be in love with him – but is she? Either way, he soon falls for her and they leave Istanbul together, accompanied by larger-than-life Darko Kerim, Head of British Intelligence in Turkey. The climax of the drama includes a surprising confrontation between Bond and the murderous Rosa Klebb. In writer Archie Scottney’s brilliantly evocative ‘radio screenplay’, we see another side to 007. Unsure of his judgement, can he bring the lovely Tatiana safely to England, along with the precious Spektor? Will the Russians succeed in having Bond killed? If so, who is the would-be murderer?

Cast:
General/Rene ….. John Sessions
Kronsteen ….. Mark Gatiss
Major/KGB director/Barman ….. Jon Glover
Rosa Klebb ….. Eileen Atkins
James Bond ….. Toby Stephens
May ….. Aileen Mowat
‘M’ …… John Standing
Moneypenny ….. Janie Dee
‘Q’ ….. Julian Sands
Kerim ….. Tim Pigott-Smith
Manager/Conductor ….. Matthew Wolf
Tatiana ….. Olga Fedori
Announcer ….. Micky Stratford
Nash ….. Nathaniel Parker
Ian Fleming ….. Martin Jarvis

Specially composed music by Mark Holden and Michael Lopez

Director: Martin Jarvis
Producer: Rosalind Ayres
A Jarvis & Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.

From Russia With Love

Tatiana Romanova, the Hagia Sophia, and the Orient Express

Trailer for the movie version:

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBC R4: Operation Black Buck RADIO DRAMA

SFFaudio Online Audio

Vulcan bomber

Operation Black Buck visualization

I first heard about Operation Black Buck after watching a Channel 4 broadcast in anticipation of the 30th anniversary (April, May, and June of 1982) of the Falkland War. Falklands’ Most Daring Raid was the “humorous, heroic story of how a Cold War-era Vulcan flew the then-longest-range bombing mission in history with a Second World War bomb that changed the outcome of the Falklands War.” It’s a great watch (and is available via torrent HERE).

Falklands' Most Daring Raid

And now, thanks to BBC Radio 4 (and RadioArchive.cc) there is as a companion to that doc. And it is a very satisfactory BBC Radio 4 dramatization too!

Like the Dam Busters and Doolittle raids, the story of Operation Black Buck strikes me as an inspirational engineering problem. A kind of wartime terrestrial Apollo mission, but done with 1950s technology.

Operation Black Buck was conducted from Ascension Island in the mid-Atlantic to the Falkland Islands as a part of the initial British response to the invasion of the Falkland Islands by Argentina. That 7,500 km distance required an stunning amount of mid-air refueling check out this diagram:

Black Buck: Refueling Plan

Black Buck refueling plan: eleven Victors for one Vulcan

Afternoon Drama: Operation Black Buck
By Robin Glendinning; Performed by a full cast
1 MP3 – Approx. 44 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC R4
Broadcast: June 5, 2012
During the Falklands War 30 years ago, the RAF staged the world’s longest bombing run, in an attempt to damage the runway at Port Stanley. Using ageing Vulcan bombers, crews flew a round trip of 8000 miles from Ascension Island to the South Atlantic. Such a journey required not just in-flight refuelling, but re-fuelling of the refuelling planes – a hazardous undertaking that had never before been attempted on such a scale.

In this drama, Robin Glendinning recreates the nail-biting adventure. Not only were the raids themselves difficult to pull off, but even getting the aircraft ready for the flights was a major task. Aviation museums across the world were raided for spares, and key parts retrieved from junkyards.

But there are those who question whether or not the operation was militarily useful – or whether or not the same job could have been done more effectively using planes attached to the naval task force. Was this really about war, or was it about the RAF trying to carve out a role for itself in a conflict that threatened to be entirely dominated by the Army and Royal Navy? And how successful were the raids anyway?

Producer: Jolyon Jenkins

I got this show via torrent from our friends at RadioArchive.cc.

Posted by Jesse Willis

REPS Podcast: CBC Stage: Fahrenheit 451 adapted from the novel by Ray Bradbury

SFFaudio Online Audio

Fahrenheit 451

The REPS Podcast (Radio Enthusiasts Of Puget Sound) has recently podcast a 41 year old CBC radio drama that I’d never even heard had existed:

It’s Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451!

Apparently produced by CBC Radio in Vancouver, as a part of the long running “Stage” program, the drama is light on sound effects and high on fidelity to the original text.

In fact, the production is an amazingly faithful adaptation considering it’s only an hour long. Thanks REPS!

CBC Stage – Fahrenheit 451.
Adapted from the novel by Ray Bradbury; Adapted by Otto Lowy; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 52 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBC Radio
Broadcast: March 4, 1971

Cast:*
Neal Denard … Montag
Alan Scarfe … The Fire Captain
Linda Sorenson
Sharon Kurt
Peter Hobwerth
Dorothy Davies
Merv Componi
Eric Walston
Anni Scarfe

Sound by Lars Eastholm
Technical by Bob Spence
Produced by Don Mowatt

Podcast feed: http://feeds.repspodcast.com/repsrss

Check out these terrific illustrations from the first ever serialization of a novel in Playboy (March, April, and May 1954):
Fahrenheit 451 - illustration by Ben Denison

And while were at it here’s a letter from Playboy’s May 1954 issue written by William F. Nolan:
William F. Nolan letter in Playboy, May 1954

*These are mostly guesses on the spelling of these names.

Update (January 22, 2015):

Here are the original illustrations for Ray Bradbury’s The Fireman (the novella which was later expanded into Fahrenheit 451) from Galaxy Science Fiction, February 1951

Galaxy Science Fiction, February 1951 - illustration by Karl Rogers

Posted by Jesse Willis

Earbud Theater: Neil Gaiman’s Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar AUDIO DRAMA

SFFaudio Online Audio

Earbud Theater is a new audio drama podcast (without a podcast feed that I can spot). Casey Wolfe, who pointed it out to me, calls them “podplays” – which is a new word but and one that fits fine.

The first episode to catch my attention is an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar!

Young American Ben Lassiter is touring the British coastline when he’s forced to take refuge from the rain at a pub in the town of… Innsmouth. Here he meets the peculiar Seth and Wilf who have something to teach Ben about life, Lovecraft, death and unspeakable horror. Adapted by Casey Wolfe and performed by Jake Borelli, Simon Verlaque, Rees Pugh and Joanne McCallin, please sit back and enjoy a pint of Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar.

I quite liked this 17 minute adaptation. It’s faithful to Gaiman’s original story and that’s always a good thing. But, I should point out the the MP3’s volume is too low – even wearing earbuds I had a hard time catching every bit of it.

|MP3|

Incidentally, the beverage of the title is likely inspired by a real beer with an odd taste.

Posted by Jesse Willis

MuseCon 2012: Guest Of Honor: Gregg Taylor of Decoder Ring Theatre

SFFaudio News

Gregg Taylor of Decoder Ring Theatre is going to be the GUEST OF HONOR at MuseCon 2012!

This Chicago area convention begins August 3, 2012.

Here’s the convention’s description:

Most kids create an imaginary world where they have friends nobody else can see and which allows them to be firefighters or astronauts or whatever strikes their fancy. We were all kids like that and, as we grew, we found the worlds of science fiction, fantasy, media, music, art and other interests that allowed us to escape from the
mundane world.

Within the fannish community, we’ve found folks who have similar interests. This society of accepting, like-minded people allows us to create and educate. Whether it’s science, writing, art, music or even new ideas of what family and religion mean, fandom is a pretty creative bunch. MuseCon is a place to explore that creativity and learn from each other. You don’t have to be an expert–all you need is a willingness to try.

Come and play with us!

Here’s the two page spread in the MuseCon program book about our hero:

Gregg Taylor - Guest Of Honor at MuseCon 2012

And here’s the complete |PDF|.

[Thanks Xap!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBCR4 + RA.cc: The Hound Of The Baskervilles (1988)

Aural Noir: Online Audio

One of (if not the most) adapted novels in the history of cinema is The Hound Of The Baskervilles. I myself love the novel and have seen at least a half dozen screen adaptations. But the latest adaptation I’ve witnessed is my new favourite.

Bert Coules’ 1988 BBC Radio adaptation is absolutely fantastic. It keeps nearly every scene I like from the novel. Better yet, it’s use of sound, to both cut from scene to scene and to drive the action forward, is absolutely masterful. Audio drama of this quality is just that step above. It’s truly wondrous listening!

According to the notes on RadioArchive.cc (where I got it) this version has never been rebroadcast on the radio. That’s a big shame, it’s an absolute treasure!

Even more strangely this adaptation is actually the first of two separate Bert Coules adaptations of Hound done for BBC Radio.

The torrent is HERE.

The Hound of the Baskervilles
Adapted from the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Performed by a full cast
2 MP3 Files via Torrent – Approx. 110 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC
Broadcast: 1988

Cast:
Sherlock Holmes … Roger Rees
Dr John H Watson … Crawford Logan
Sir Henry Baskerville … Matt Zimmerman
Dr James Mortimer … Peter Craze
Jonathan Stapleton … Jonathan Tafler
Beryl Stapleton … Caroline Gruber
Barrymore … Richard Tate
Mrs Barrymore … Barbara Atkinson
Mrs Hudson … Barbara Atkinson
Arthur Frankland … Norman Bird
Laura Lyons … Moir Leslie
Postmaster … John Baddeley

Violinist: Katherine Adams
Script by: Bert Coules
Produced and directed by: David Johnston

The Hound Of The Baskervilles - original iIllustration

Posted by Jesse Willis