BBC Radio 4 and Royal Court Theatre Join Forces for 70th Anniversary Celebration
BBC Radio 4 and the Royal Court Theatre have announced a collaboration to mark the Sloane Square venue's 70th anniversary, pairing a new audio production of Lucy Kirkwood's play The Children with a week of landmark Royal Court plays drawn from the BBC archive. WhatsOnStage
The new version of The Children will air on BBC Radio 4 on 26 September from 3pm to 4.30pm. Emma Fielding stars as Rose, with Anastasia Hille as Hazel and Stanley Townsend as Robin — the play's three characters, all retired nuclear physicists whose quiet life near a damaged power station is upended when a former colleague arrives unannounced. Mary Peate directs, with production by Jessica Dromgoole for Hooley Productions, sound design by Peter Ringrose and original music by Jon Nicholls.
Kirkwood's play premiered at the Royal Court on 17 November 2016, directed by James Macdonald with a cast of Francesca Annis, Ron Cook and Deborah Findlay. It went on to international productions, including a Broadway run. Kirkwood, an Olivier Award winner, is also known for Chimerica.
Following the broadcast of The Children, a curated season of seven BBC radio adaptations of Royal Court plays will air on BBC Radio 4 Extra at 8.30pm each evening from 26 September through 2 October, all available on BBC Sounds for 28 days. Playwright Mark Ravenhill selected the seven, spanning the theatre's full history: John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (26 September), Arnold Wesker's Roots (27 September), Sizwe Banzi Is Dead (28 September), Caryl Churchill's Top Girls (29 September), Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good (30 September), debbie tucker green's Random (1 October) and Charlene James' Cuttin' It (2 October).
The archive casts read like a roll-call of British acting talent: Ben Whishaw, David Bradley, David Troughton, Adetomiwa Edun, the late Helen McCrory, Siobhan Finneran, Sheila Hancock, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Kate Fleetwood, Adjoa Andoh, Elliot Levey, Nadine Marshall and Susan Wokoma.
Ravenhill said the Royal Court discovered and produced his first play, giving him "a particular bond" with the theatre. For the Royal Court's executive director Will Young, the partnership with Radio 4 during the anniversary year was "an absolute gift." Alison Hindell, Radio 4's commissioner for drama and fiction, noted that the BBC is the biggest commissioner of audio drama in the world. BBC Media Centre
The Royal Court opened in 1956 and has been a launching pad for generations of British and international playwrights. The 70th anniversary season reaches beyond London to nationwide audiences through the radio partnership.
For listeners, the week offers a compressed tour through nearly seven decades of new writing — from the anger of Osborne's 1956 breakthrough to James' 2016 play about female genital mutilation, each a Royal Court premiere later adapted for radio.
