James Saunders Radio Plays

07.12.57 Women are so unreasonable
26.08.58 Dog accident
20.11.59 Barnstable
07.09.60 Alas poor Fred
01.01.63 Gimlet
01.04.64 It's not the game it was
19.05.64 The Pedagogue
26.01.65 Pay as you go
02.07.71 After Liverpool
24.10.72 The Flower Case* (dir. Richard Wortley) detective-comedy
20.01.74 Random moments in a May garden*
01.10.74 Bye bye blues
13.01.79 Poor old Simon.
1986 Barnstable*
13.03.88 A day at the dentist's* (Fear on Four)
12.07.88 Headlong Hall* (Peacock), dram, 90m
02.04.89 A child crying* (Fear on Four)
date nk.... Nothing to declare*
date nk.... The Magic Bathroom*
date nk.... I live upstairs*

UPDATE.....A recording of "The Pedagogue" made in July 2010, produced by Nigel Deacon, with Nick Oliver playing the role of the pedagogue, is available for download. The file is 36 MB and is in MP3 format. See Weed's James Saunders site.



NOTES ON SOME OF THE PLAYS

HEADLONG HALL....1988
Narrator Michael Hordern, with Daniel Massey as Escot, the deteriorationsist; Ronald Lacey as Foster, the perfectibilian, John Grillo as Jenkison, the statu-quo-ite, and John Horsley as Cranium, the craniologist. Harry Headlong, like all Welsh squires, is fond of shooting, hunting and fishing. But he also wants the company of philosophers and dilettanti...other cast members: William, Simons, Alan Dudley, Andrew Branch, Simon Cuff, Norman Bird, John Baddeley, Richard tate, Michael Deacon, Caroline Gruber, Polly James, Joan Walker. Music by Terence Allbright, with violinist Katherine Adams and harpist Skaila Kanga. Directed by Matthew Walters.

BARNSTABLE....1986
With Dinsdale Landen, Gwen Watford and Alison Steadman, producer Richard Wortley. 10 Apr 87. RT: In the drawing-room of the Carboys' home on a spring morning, disaster looms but no one seems to take notice.

A family chats on, oblivious, whilst the house falls down around them - N.D.

Also stars Peter Howell, Sheila Grant. An earlier production, by Donald McWhinnie, was broadcast on 20 Nov 59 on the Third Programme. The play was produced for the stage in 1960 as a set of three one-acts under the title Ends and Echoes.

RANDOM MOMENTS IN A MAY GARDEN....1974
Play directed by Richard Wortley. A couple move into a new house, and they find the remains of an ancient photograph pinned to the inside of one of the cupboards. It's two little girls, photographed in a garden. We learn what they were doing there. It's a superb tale - stories occurring in parallel in the same house, and cutting between the two. Excellent production. ("Should have been entered for the Prix Italia but wasn't" - R.W.)

THE PEDAGOGUE.....1964
25m. A play about a teacher and his pupils. However, it slowly transpires that there is more to it. There are oblique references to nuclear explosions, and this is the time of the Cold War. Unfortunately my recording lacks the end credits so I am unsure of the performer or the producer. Donald Pleasance, possibly, as the pedagogue?

I have recorded a version of this with an actor friend (June 2010) and have now done the post-editing. This is available on CD if you email. You can also read a review of it on the James Saunders website , and listen to it here . ......N.D.

Nigel Deacon / Diversity website

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