BBC – Page 45 – SFFaudio

BBC7 and The 7th Dimension have Matheson’s Duel again!

Online Audio

BBC Radio 7 always has a slew of good Speculative Fiction in its daily 7th Dimension slot and another nicety is that they often rebroadcast an old show. That’s the case this week with a reading that was specially commissioned last year by BBC7 to celebrate the 80th birthday the legendary Richard Matheson. Here is yet another chance to experience one of his most enigmatic and ominous tales: Duel. Also coming are an abridged reading of Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (get an unabridged reading HERE) and a interestingly described BBC Radio 4 drama that was first broadcast in 1998, Paradise Lost In Cyberspace…

Duel
By Richard Matheson; Read by Nathan Osgood
Radio Broadcast – Approx 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC 7 / 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Saturday at 6.30pm and 12.30am
“Driving to San Francisco, a businessman finds himself the victim of a deadly game being played by the driver of a huge, mysterious truck. Later to become Steven Spielberg’s classic 1971 film.”

Metamorphosis
By Franz Kafka; Read by Benedict Cumberbatch
Radio Broadcast -Approx. 30 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC 7 / 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Sunday at 6.30pm and 12.30am
“Franz Kafka’s acclaimed novel sees Gregor Samsa awake one morning to find he has turned into a grotesque insect. His family initially react with horror, which slowly gives way to revulsion, then hideous indifference, as Gregor is left to fester in his room and begins to adapt to his new state which his family find so hard to accept. First published in 1912.”

Paradise Lost In Cyberspace
By Colin Swash; Perfomed by a full cast
Radio Broadcasts -Approx. 30 Minute Segments [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC 7 / 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Weekdays starting from Tuesday at 6pm and midnight
“Set in a future world of genetics and cloning where living beyond the age of seventy is prohibited. George Smith is enjoying his 69th birthday when a Central Admin error convinces everyone he’s a year older than he actually is, and his time to die arrives a year too early.”

NOTE: Those outside the UK can get all of the above using the BBC7 Listen Again service for up to 6 days following the broadcasts.

posted by Jesse Willis

BBC announces Douglas Adams RADIO DRAMAS

News

The BBC has written in to tell us that there are three new dramatisations of Douglas Adams’s novels in the works! The two Dirk Gently novels (previously released as unabridged audiobooks) will be adapted into Radio Dramas! Also in the works is a Radio Dramatization of Adams’ last, and unfinished novel: The Salmon Of Doubt. These will all be published by BBC Audiobooks, beginning later this year and are being produced by Above The Title Productions with Dirk Maggs on board as director!

Maggs and Above The Title are the team responsible for the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy‘s Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phase productions. The three new series will also be broadcast on BBC Radio 4, beginning with Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency in October 2007. The other two titles are The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul and Adams’s unfinished novel The Salmon Of Doubt. Each series will be comprise of six 30 minute episodes. Recording begins in May 2007. BBC Audiobooks will publish Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency on November 8th 2007 .

Personally I’m super-juiced at the prospect of hearing dramatizations of the Svlad Cjelli adventures – I still haven’t heard much about The Salmon Of Doubt though. Is that a Dirk Gently novel too?

posted by Jesse Willis

OTR Plot Spot dredges up: Deep Station Emerald

Online Audio

Jeff Dickson, webmaster of the indefatigable OTR Plot Spot has posted up a neat sounding radio drama, one he describes as…

“A whodunit which comes across much like an Alistair MacLean thriller. Tense, gripping, with excellent writing, acting, and sound effects. Beyond the idea of an undersea habitat, there is very little here that is particularly futuristic. The most unusual aspect of the story involves a man-made virus which mutates its victims into psychopathic quasi-humans, a plot device which seemed unnecessary– the story could easily have been told without it. Nevertheless, I found it suspenseful, engaging, and well-plotted. If you’re a fan of the film The Abyss, you’ll likely enjoy this one.”

Deep Station Emerald
By Joe Turner; Performed by a full cast
4 Parts – Approx. 2 Hours [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: 1996
Part 1 “Five Miles Down” |MP3|
Part 2 “Conspiracy” |MP3|
Part 3 “Heat” |MP3|
Part 4 “And Then There Were Three” |MP3|
“The crew of a research base on the ocean floor discovers a source of cold fusion, the solution to all the world’s energy problems. Elation turns to terror, however, when a series of ‘accidents’ causes several deaths, and a strange virus which mutates DNA is loosed— obviously, someone on board is a killer…..”

posted by Jesse Willis

DataJunkie showcases Asimov’s The Caves Of Steel

Online Audio

DATAJUNKIE, the blog that delivers more high-res scans of vintage SF pulp art than you can shake a keyboard at has paired-up the images from the original magazine publications of Asimov’s The Caves Of Steel with the 1989 BBC Radio 4 audio dramatization. Go check out the lovely images in the DataJunkie post and listen to the acclaimed Science fiction murder mystery …. personally though I’m going to wait. I’d like to listen to the dramatization after I hear the Tantor release of the unabridged novel of The Caves Of Steel, it is coming out this spring!

The Caves Of Steel
By Isaac Asimov; Performed by a full cast
2 MP3 Files – Approx. 90 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: 1989
Adapted by Bert Coules. Starring Ed Bishop, Sam Dastor and Matt Zimmerman.

Click HERE to visit the original post with links to the 2 MP3s.

posted by Jesse Willis

BBC7 goes apocalyptic with 3 John Wyndham readings

Online Audio

Three John Wyndham readings start on BBC Radio 7 over the next few days.

Survival
By John Wyndham; Read by Nicholas Boulton
2 parts – [ABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Saturdays at 6pm and 12am
“The instinct for survival is explored in all its complexities when a group of space travellers are trapped on board a shuttle to Mars.
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.

Trouble With Lichen
By John Wyndham; Read by Joanna Tope
5 Parts – [ABRIDGED?]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Sundays at 6pm and 12am
“Biochemist Diana Brackley and her boss Francis Saxover have discovered that a rare strain of lichen can slow the ageing process. Idealistic Diana embarks on a lifelong mission to ensure that their discovery will benefit man-, and more particularly, woman-kind. But the trouble with lichen is that there’s not enough for everyone…”
Directed by Eilidh McCreadie.

The Day Of The Triffids
By John Wyndham; Read by Roger May
17 Half-hour RADIO BROADCASTS – Approx. 8 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC7 / The 7th Dimension
Broadcast: Weekdays from June 5th to July 2nd at 6:30pm and 12:30am UK TIME.
The consequences when the vast majority of humanity is suddenly rendered blind, in a world that is then quickly overrun with poisonous ambulatory plants (the titular Triffids).
Produced in Belfast by Susan Carson

NOTE: Those outside the UK can snag each installment using the BBC7 Listen Again for up to 6 days following the broadcasts.

posted by Jesse Willis

More Damn Dirty Apes! Planet Of The Apes audiobook

Online Audio

Hunter Goatley‘s site also has an abridged reading of the original novel of Planet Of The Apes by Pierre Boulle. It was originally published in 1963 in French as La Planète Des Singes. “Singe” translates to both “ape” and “monkey.” Translator Xan Fielding called it Monkey Planet. In the English-language POTA films, the apes are insulted when called “monkeys,” but in this reading no distinction is made, the term “singes” is used interchangeably with both “apes” and “monkeys.” This abridged reading regrettably dispenses with the framing story, which offers one of the twists that people who’ve only seen the films could still have enjoyed. Despite this, the audiobook is worth hearing, it falls into the tradition of A Strange Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder, in which dystopian society acts as social commentary.

posted by Jesse Willis