Jack Klaff Radio Plays
FLYING BACKWARDS....2012
19 Jun 12. Radio play about making a radio play. By Jack Klaff.
Johnnie is back in Cape Town to record his new radio play - his first in his home town after many years abroad. In the cast, to Johnnie's surprise, is Vicki, with whom he had a passionate affair decades ago.
Cast:
Vicki/Maureen........................ALICE KRIGE
Johnnie.................................JACK KLAFF
Ma.......................................DOREEN MANTLE
Deon/Andrew/Bruce.................VINCENT EBRAHIM
Tyrone...................................DON MCCORKINDALE
Michelle/Lizzie........................HELEN SZYMCZAK
Producer/Director: David Ian Neville.
Three-Five-Silly-Twerp
shortlisted for Tinniswood Award 2003
Three-Five-Silly-Twerp explores the ability of love and personality to triumph over the loss of the power to speak.
Peggy suffers a stroke. Then, just a few months later, as if in sympathy, her husband, Don, has a stroke, too. Same part of the brain, same limbs affected, speech affected in very similar ways. Peggy ends up with just two all-purpose words: 'Esscum' and 'Nkyou'. Don has only one expression: 'Three-five-silly-twerp'. In a series of extremely moving scenes, with minimal dialogue, we hear Don and Peggy communicate with warmth, humour and compassion. But as their son, Karl, tries to come to terms with his parents’ illness he finds his marriage disintegrating. Karl and his wife Julie are highly intelligent and extremely articulate, but try as they may they can’t communicate with each other.
Three-Five-Silly-Twerp was inspired by a true story. The real Don and Peggy really did manage to continue their loving relationship with only three expressions between them.
Cast: Alec McCowen (Gangs of New York) Vivian Pickles (Elizabeth R; Harold and Maude), William Gaminara (The Archers) and Tara Fitzgerald (Brassed Off)
Producer: David Ian Neville
Broadcast: 02/10/2003, BBC Radio 3
Jack Klaff is an author, journalist, broadcaster, performer, director and comedy writer. His radio credits include the following dramas, adaptations and documentaries: Siggie and Carl; Lots of Suddenlies; On The White Line; Hullo Fridge; That’s Easy For You To Say; My Best Poetry Voice; Acting for the Deep Future - Talk about Starlab
TV & film credits include: Reconstructed Heart; Nagging Doubt; The Fifty Minute Hour; Maybe Baby; Out to Lunch and A Short film About Slipping.
His theatre credits as a writer include: Cuddles; What’s Inside? ; Nagging Doubt; Kafka; Letters Alone; The Whole Shebang; and Daddy Take Me To The Funfair.
His novels include Miss McKirdy’s Daughters Will Now Dance the Highland Fling (co-author) and Bluff Your Way in the Quantum Universe.
He has won two Fringe First Awards at the Edinburgh Festival and the Jack Hargreaves Award from BBC TV’s Script Unit for innovative use of the medium of television.
Information supplied by Jo Hodder, Society of Authors; used by permission.
Nigel Deacon / Diversity website
Asterisked plays known to exist in VRPCC collections
