John Osborne: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
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John Osborne: BBC Radio Collection
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, and entrepreneur. Born in London, he lived in poverty for several years before his third play, Look Back in Anger (1956), brought him national fame. Osborne was regarded as part of a wider cultural and literary movement in post-WWII Britain known as kitchen sink realism, which utilised social realist depictions of domestic situations to address disillusionment with British society in the waning years of the Empire. The phrase "angry young man," used by theatrical press officer George Fearon to describe Look Back in Anger, was subsequently used as the name for a loosely-defined group of predominantly working class and left-wing writers within this movement, with Osborne considered its leading figure. The Entertainer (1957), Luther (1961), and Inadmissable Evidence (1964) were also well-received, Luther winning the 1964 Tony Award for Best Play.
In 1958 he partnered with Look Back in Anger director Tony Richardson and film producer Harry Saltzman to form Woodfall Film Productions, initially in order to produce the 1959 film adaptation of Anger, also directed by Richardson. Under Richardson's leadership, Woodfall subsequently went on to produce some of the most celebrated British films of the 1960s, many of them part of the British New Wave which grew out of kitchen sink realism. These include adaptations of the Entertainer (1960), and Inadmissible Evidence (1968), both written or co-written by Osborne, as well as Tom Jones (1963), for which he won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar.
Collected here are a number of Osborne plays, broadcast on BBC Radio over 5 decades.
Look Back in Anger
The play follows Jimmy Porter and his wife Allison as it explores the generation which didn't participate in World War 2 and is both angry and disappointed in the world it created. John Osborne's classic play that launched the Angry Young Man movement has lost none of its bite and still disturbs and questions in equal measure.
Jimmy Porter......David Tennant
Alison......Nancy Carroll
Cliff......Daniel Evans
Helena......Claire Price
Colonel......Sir Ian McKellen
Written by John Osborne
Directed by Richard Wilson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2016
The Entertainer
Set in the 1950s, Archie Rice is a seedy third-rate comic in a tatty twice-nightly seaside show. Archie's tragedy mirrors not only the dying music hall, but a dying era, symbolic of the decline of post-war Britain. John Osborne's potent drama was first produced on stage in 1957.
Archie Rice ...... Bill Night
Billy Rice ...... David Bradley
Phoebe Rice ...... Cheryl Campbell
Jean Rice ...... Sarah-Jane Holm
Frank Rice ...... Bertie Carvel
Written by John Osborne
Adapted for Radio by John Foley
Directed by Marion Nancarrow
First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in March 1981
The Charge of the Light Brigade
John Osborne's unperformed screenplay of the famous Charge of the Light Brigade at the battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War encapsulates all the grandeur and folly of war.
Nothing in British military history has ever equalled the tragic farce that was the charge of the Light Brigade. John Osborne's screenplay captures the spirit of this military disaster in which the fatal mismanagement of the events rested with the Earls of Cardigan (Charles Dance) and Lucan (Sir Donald Sinden), brothers-in-law and sworn enemies for more than thirty years.
The fatal message for the troop to charge was carried by Captain Nolan (Joseph Fiennes) and the whole scene was witnesses by the Commander in Chief, Lord Raglan (Alec McCowen) and General Airey (Geoffrey Palmer) from the heights above the battlefield.
The radio version opens in London with Osborne (Michael Feast) himself writing the screenplay and setting the scene (taken from Osborne's own directions) in which the characters and situation emerge whereby this giant folly occurred.
John Osborne ...... Michael Feast
Lord Cardigan ...... Charles Dance
Morris ...... Jasper Britton
Nolan ...... Joseph Fiennes
Captain Lockwood ...... Trevor Ray
Mrs Duberly ...... Lynne Miller
Captain Duberly ...... Guy Lankester
Lady Errol ...... Angela Douglas
Clarissa ...... Charlotte Emmerson
General Airey ...... Geoffrey Palmer
Lord Raglan ...... Alec McCowen
Sergeant O'Hara ...... James Ellis
Ist Soldier/Braithwaite ...... John Tams
2nd Soldier/James ...... William Macbain
Lord Lucan ...... Donald Sinden
3rd Soldier/Charteris ...... Robert Oates
Sir George Cathcart ...... Sebastian Graham Jones
Written by John Osborne
Adapted for Radio by Bill Bryden and Michael Hastings
Directed by Bill Bryden
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2002
Luther
A psychological study of the religious reformer Martin Luther, who is portrayed as an angry man struggling with self-doubts and his desire to believe. With the Pope using the sale of indulgences to fund his own obsessions and works, Luther had begun to see the church as corrupt. Luther reputedly hammered his 95 theses on the door of All Saints Church, Wittenberg - starting what became known as the Reformation. He was excommunicated in 1521.
Martin .... Harry Lloyd
Tetzel .... David Troughton
Staupitz .... Adrian Scarborough
Cajetan .... Nicholas Murchie
Hans .... Christian Rodska
Brother Weinand .... John Hollingworth
Prior / Leo .... Jamie Newell
Miltitz .... David Ajoa
Lucas / Eck .... Kieron Jecchinis
Knight .... Nigel Cooke
Katherine .... Amanda Root
Written by John Osborne
Directed by Clive Brill
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2017
The Right Prospectus
An affluent middle-class couple look for "the proper school", not for their children but for themselves. Based upon the prospectuses they study, they select and enrol at Crampton's School. When they arrive, they are immediately treated like every other pupil; no-one responds to them as adults at any point in the play.
Mr. Newbold ...... George Cole
Mrs. Newbold ...... Elvi Hale
Jenkins ...... Allan Warren
1st Headmaster ...... John Horsley
Tester ...... Tom Criddle
Shippard ...... Aubrey Richards
Groom ...... Robert Gillespie
Classics Master ...... Kenneth Ives
Heffer ...... Christopher Witty
Partridge ...... Keith Skinner
Boy in Bedroom ...... Michael Peake
Boy in Corridor ...... Peter Duncan
Boy in Grounds ...... Brian Pettifer
Written by John Osborne
Directed by Alan Cooke
First broadcast on BBC1 in October 1970
A Patriot for Me
Set in the decadent society of Austria-Hungary and Poland between 1890 and 1913, A Patriot for Me centres on an ambitious rising star in the army, whose journey of self-discovery leads to blackmail, betrayal and murder. Redl is compromised by his newly realised sexual freedom and is compelled by the Russian army to spy on the country and countrymen he cares for.
Narrator ...... Alexander John
Alfred Redl ...... Gary Bond
Siczynski / Stanitsin / 'Lady Godiva' ...... Haydn Wood
Kleinbauer / von Taussig ...... Sean Arnold
Young Man / 'Marie Antoinette' ...... John McAndrew
Von Mohl ...... Norman Rodway
Albrech / Paul ...... Martyn Read
Hilde ...... Kathryn Hurlbutt
Col. Oblensky ...... Robert Lang
General von Hotzendorf ...... Patrick Barr
Countess Delyanoff ...... Jill Bennett
Kunz ...... John Church
Baron von Epp ...... John Moffatt
Ferdy ...... Philip Fox
'Tsarina' / Mischa / Viktor ...... Richard Gibson
Stefan Kovacs / Dr Schoepfer ...... Gordon Reid
Von Kupfer ...... Anthony Hyde
Written by John Osborne
Adapted for Radio by Anton Gill
Directed by John Tydeman
First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in March 1981
Dearest Squirrel - the John Osborne Letters
John Osborne met Pamela Lane in 1951 and within three months the couple were married. So began an extraordinary love affair that lasted over 30 years. The letters between John Osborne and his first wife, actress Pamela Lane, are also a love letter to a now defunct system of repertory theatre and life in post-war Britain.
As these letters reveal, soon after their divorce, Osborne and Lane began a mutually supportive, loyal, frequently stormy and sometimes sexually intimate alliance lasting thirty years until Osborne's death. By the mid-1980s, they had become closer and more trusting than they had been since their earliest years together.
"You are for me what you always were," Pamela told him, "I am in love with you still." It is, he replied, "my fortune to have loved someone for a lifetime." Acerbic, witty, candid and heartbreaking, the letters reveal a unique relationship - troubled, tender and enduring.
Collated by Peter Whitebrook
Abridged by Polly Coles
Read by Simon Shepherd and Amanda Root
Produced by Clive Brill
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2018
- Look Back in Anger (79.7Mb)
- The Entertainer (125.5Mb)
- The Charge of the Light Brigade (79.6Mb)
- Luther (79.3Mb)
- The Right Prospectus (67.6Mb)
- A Patriot For Me part1 (75Mb)
- A Patriot For Me part2 (73.6Mb)
- Dearest Squirrel (63.4Mb)
MP3 files hosted by archive.org.