Page 290 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

Drama on 3 marks the centenary of T.S Eliot The Waste Land with a new radio
performance (Sunday 10 July)

Marking the centenary of T.S Eliot’s The Waste Land, which was published in
December 1922, Drama On 3 presents He Do The Waste Land in Different Voices, a
new radio performance of the 20th century poetic masterpiece.

In this, the text has been studied as a piece of drama, with no narrative imposed on
the poem, just a representation of the collection of voices within it. Featuring award-
winning sound designer David Thomas, this is a faithful but creative response to T.
S. Eliot’s monumental poem. Sound is carefully selected to create a sense of a
fractured time, with whispers of catastrophes across the 20th and 21st century,
capturing a real sense of the unease of the post-WW1 period (when Eliot wrote the
poem), and of our times. It is recorded on location in binaural sound.

The programme is preceded by a feature about the poem, with contributions by
leading Eliot scholars Dr Lyndall Gordon, Professor Seamus Perry, Professor Mark
Ford and Professor Steven Connor, and taking listeners into the Eliot archive.

Other premieres of radio adaptations on Drama On 3

This Spring, Drama On 3 also premieres special new radio adaptations of
masterpieces of British and international theatre and literature. Amongst them:

• Shakespeare’s classic war drama Antony And Cleopatra, adapted and directed by
Neil Bartlett, with stellar performances from Adjoa Andoh (Lady Danbury in
Bridgerton) as Cleopatra, and Tim McInnerny as Antony (Sunday 24 April)
• A new radio dramatisation of the bestselling novel The Hummingbird by Sandro
Veronesi, produced by The Story of Books and adapted and directed by John
Retallack with sound design by Jon Nicholls, featuring Paul Ansdell as The Author,
Simon Lenagan as Marco, Caroline Faber as Luisa, and Dan Krikler as Dr Carradori
(Sunday 22 May)
• Tales From The 17th Arrondissement [W/T] presenting five beguiling dramas by
Simon Scardifield inspired by the stories of French writer and bon-viveur, Guy de
Maupassant, and focusing on the autobiographically tinged stories A Strange Night In
Paris, Mouche, Laid To Rest, Cockcrow and Le Horla (Monday 13 – Friday 17 June).

Marking May Day, award-winning North East folk band The Young'uns present their
production of The Ballad Of Johnny Longstaff, recorded in front of a live audience in
their hometown of Stockton-on-Tees. This is the true story of one man's journey from
unemployment, through the Hunger Marches of the 1930s, the mass trespass
movement and the Battle Of Cable Street, to fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil
War (Sunday 1 May).

Something Old, Something New - The Verb’s Centenary Poetry Series

Marking the BBC’s relationship with poets and poetry in the corporation’s centenary
year, which through the decades has seen on air contributions from the voices of
T.S. Eliot, Stevie Smith, Dylan Thomas, Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath, and Kamau
Brathwaite amongst others, Radio 3’s poetry and language programme The Verb,