Arctic & Antarctic
Features, drama and readings
Classic Serial: The Worst Journey in the World....2008
21 Sep 08. Apsley Cherry-Garrard's account of his experiences as the youngest member of Captain Scott's polar expedition team, adapted by Stef Penney. 2 episodes. Notes to episode 1:
In the austerely beautiful icescapes of Antarctica, things go disastrously wrong.
Apsley Cherry-Garrard ...... Matt Green,
Captain Robert Falcon Scott ...... John McAndrew,
Dr Atkinson ...... Carl Prekopp,
Captain Oates ...... Mark Meadows,
Lieutenant Bowers ...... Peter Callaghan,
Charles Wright ...... Simon Lee Phillips,
Dr Edward Wilson ...... Richard Mitchley,
PO Tom Crean ...... Jack Reynolds,
Taff Evans ...... Huw Davies.
Specially composed music by Will Gregory of Goldfrapp, orchestrated by Ian Gardiner and performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Grant Llewellyn. Directed by Kate McAll.
Ep. 2: 4 Oct 08. After two months of hard marching, Scott has to tell four of the surviving twelve men that they must turn back. Apsley Cherry-Garrard ...... Matt Green, Captain Robert Falcon Scott ...... John McAndrew, Dr Atkinson ...... Carl Prekopp, Captain Oates ...... Mark Meadows, Lieutenant Bowers ...... Peter Callaghan, Charles Wright ...... Simon Lee Phillips, Dr Edward Wilson ...... Richard Mitchley, PO Tom Crean ...... Jack Reynolds, Taff Evans ...... Huw Davies, PO Keohane/Dimitri ...... Andrew Byron.
Reading: The Worst Journey in the World....2001
29 Oct 01; ten episodes. Robert Glenister reads Apsley Cherry-Garrard's account of Scott's last expedition to the Antarctic, of which, at the age of 24, he was the youngest member.
Arctic Stories....2000
BBC Radio 4, readings, all produced by Tracy Neale:
1.4 Audun's Tale (4 January 2000) The first of four daily winter stories is translated from the Icelandic sagas by Hermann Palsson and read by Brian Blessed. Audun gambles everything when he leaves his homeland to travel the world.
2.4 Adventures with a Dog and a Glacier ( 5 January 2000 )By John Muir , read by Henry Goodman. Caught in an ice storm on a windswept Alaskan glacier, one man and a dog fight for their lives.
3.4 The Sailor Boy's Tale (6 January 2000 ) By Isak Dinesen , read by Barbara Flynn. The magical ways of the Lapps save a young boy's life.
4.4 The Bear Hunt ( 7 January 2000 ) By Leo Tolstoy By Leo Tolstoy , read by Anton Lesser. In the depths of a Russian winter, the hunt for a bear unfolds in a dramatic way. Translated by Louise ahd Aylmer Maude. -AW
Aglooka: John Rae and the Lost Navigators....1997
30 Jan 97. Paul Young plays Dr John Rae in Tom Pow's new play for radio.
Rae was the foremost Arctic explorer of his day. He was involved in the search for Sir John Franklin , who was lost 150 years ago with 129 men while searching for the Northwest Passage. Rae was the only significant person involved who was not honoured with a knighthood. The drama is set in Berstane House, where Rae has retired. Produced by Hamish Wilson.
Black Ice ....1995
18 Oct 95.
by Bruce Bedford. In 1911, as a prelude to Captain
Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole, three men set off in the darkness of the Antarctic winter from Scott's overwintering hut to secure examples of the eggs of the emperor penguin. Their survival, in temperatures of minus 60 or 70, can only be ascribed to astonishing courage and willpower.
Director: Hamish Wilson.
Apsley Cherry-Garrard: Richard Greenwood,
Edward A Wilson: Crawford Logan,
Henry R Birdie Bowers: Martin Walsh.
The Other Man in the Tent....1973
6 Feb 73. The rescue party which set out in search of Captain Scott's expedition to the South Pole at the end of that terrible Antarctic winter of 1912 eventually discovered a small tent sticking out of the snow. Inside were the frozen bodies of Scott, Bowers and Wilson.
Diaries revealed that the Norwegian explorer Amundsen had beaten them in t to be first at the South Pole. The scrawled pages told of an ordeal which although it ended in tragedy was to pass into history as an epic story of courage and endurance.
Much is known about Scott, but who was this ' other man in the tent.' Edward Wilson , who was said to be 'a first-class scientist, first-class artist, first-class Christian, first-class gentleman, and as near perfect as a man may be.'
Why did the expedition which started with such high hopes end so disastrously? Sixty years after the event, modern research has come up with new answers. With NIGEL GRAHAM, ROBIN BROWN, JOHN SAMSON, TERRY SCULLY,WILLIAM SLEIGH, JOHN RUDDOCK. Narrated by JOHN CARSON.
Script by MARY JEAN HASLER. Producer ALAN BURGESS.
Captain Gravill of the 'Diana'....1969
A reading. On one of the Diana's Arctic voyages the ship's surgeon jotted down the captain's stories of northern waters 100 years ago.
(The Interval Talk: BBBC Radio 4 31 October 1969).
Compiled by MICHAEL HYDE.
Read by WILFRED HARRISON. -AW
The Whaler 'Diana' of Hull....1969
Not a drama....BBC Radio 4 FM, 3 March 1969 21.35.
In 1866 the Diana was trapped for the winter in the Arctic ice.
MICHAEL HYDE has compiled from the journal of the ship's surgeon the story of her feat of endurance.
GEOFFREY BANKS as Narrator, COLIN EDWYNN as C. E. Smith.
Priginally broadcast in ' Talkabout ' (Radio 4: North) on December 8. 1968.
Amundsen....1968
Feature. (BBC Radio 4 4 December 1968) The story of the great Norwegian polar explorer. Written by MARY-JEAN HASLER.
Forty years ago Amundsen, the Norwegian who had beaten Captain Scott to the South Pole and had spent all his life in poiar exploration, set off by aeroplane to try to find an Italian airship party which had crashed and disappeared in the Arctic waste. Produced by Alan Burgess. -AW
THE TIME OF MY LIFE: Duncan Carse....1967
16 Sep 67. Between 1951 and 1957 he organised and led to the sub-Antarctic a series of small expeditions known as the South Georgia Surveys. It was a time when the whalers were still whaling, the sealers still working the beaches from small boats under oars. the time when a man could go out with a blank sheet of paper and come back with a map. In between whales. broadcasts, and lectures, Carse did his best to live down Dick Barton. 'In those years it was still possible for the private explorer, given funds and luck, to stick his neck out and do the complete job'.
Produced by David Woodward.
A GLORIOUS FAILURE....1966
27 Dec 66. The story of Sir Ernest Shackleton 's expedition to the Antarctic which sailed,on August 4, 1914, and ended with the rescue from Elephant Island of twenty-two marooned men on August 30, 1916. Compiled from the original chronicles of members of the party and newspapers of the day by LESLIE BAILY. With Leigh Crutchley, Charles E. Stidwill, Nigel Clayton, Victor Platt.
Narrator: HUGH BURDEN.
THE TIME OF MY LIFE....1966
24 Jul 66. Sir Vivian Fuchs recalls the years 1955-58 when he led the successful Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition which crossed Antarctica in ninety-nine days from Shackleton Base to Scott Base via the South Pole.
Produced by Harold Rogers.
WHALES AGAINST MAN....1965
12 Aug 65. Whaling is a never-ending search for new hunting grounds as the old ones are over-fished: the Antarctic is nearly finished, and now the fleets are turning towards the North Pacific. The story is told here both through letters and eye-witness accounts of the early whalers and by representatives of some of the countries still involved.
Narration by GORDON GARDNER. Historical excerpts read by members of the BBC
Drama Repertory Company.
SCOTT AND WILSON OF THE ANTARCTIC....1962
6 Nov 62. A portrait of the leader and chief of scientific staff of Scott's last expedition, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the finding of their bodies on November 11, 1912. Drawn from the personal reminiscences of surviving companions, the writings of other members of the expedition, biographies, letters, and diaries.
Written by MARTIN CHISHOLM.
Robert Falcon Scott: NOEL JOHNSON,
Edward Adrian Wilson: MANNING WILSON,
Narrators: ALAN WHEATLEY, Ronald Baddiley, Carleton Hobbs, with
Stanley Beard, Ronald Wilson,
Gerik Schjelderup, Paul Martin,
Geoffrey Wincott, Michael Collins,
Vivienne Chatterton. Produced by MAURICE BROWN.
ALONE IN ANTARCTICA....1962
25 Mar 62. Duncan Carse talks to Anne Sharpley and Brian Groombridge about what it was like living by himself on South Georgia
He intended an eighteen-month stay but a tidal wave dashed nearly everything except his hopes.
THE LONG WAIT....1962
19 Feb 62. A year ago DUNCAN CARSE was landed on the coast of the remote sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. He planned to live for several months entirely alone. In May his hut was destroyed by a tidal wave. In this talk he tells the story of the 116 days he spent under canvas waiting for the spring and the sealers who found him.
A WOMAN ON MACQUARIE....1961
MARY GILLHAM was one of the first women allowed to land on Macquarie Island, the Australian National Antarctic Base.
Contributors
Mary Gillham 9 Jun 61. Home Service.
Nigel Deacon / Diversity website
