David Edgar : A BBC Radio Drama Collection: 17 Full-Cast Productions including The Shape of the Table, Pentecost & Maydays

Summary: David Edgar – one of Britain's greatest living playwrights – introduces a collection of his outstanding works David Edgar is among the UK's leading contemporary dramatists, well known for his powerful plays chronicling Britain's changing political landscape over the past 50 years. This radio anthology begins with the award-winning Destiny , adapted for radio by Edgar himself, in which he analyses the rise of the right-wing National Front movement. In Saigon Rose , the sexual revolution is under the spotlight, as a couple and their cohorts are forced to face the darker side of the Swinging Sixties. This is followed by a play adapted from the journals of a South African lawyer – The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs is a dramatic account of his arrest and solitary confinement. Mary Barnes recounts the struggles of the titular heroine with her own madness, and Ecclesiastes deals with a fundamentalist preacher. A Movie Starring Me centres around a TV soap star and her obsessive fan, while Entertaining Strangers is about the struggle between a fundamentalist parson and a town's first woman brewer. The 1984 miners' strike forms the backdrop to That Summer. Two plays from Edgar's 'Iron Curtain Trilogy' are next: The Shape of the Table and Pentecost , examining themes of negotiation in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Talking to Mars looks at the collapse of the Cold War through the eyes of an international radio station. The Secret Parts is a gripping murder mystery, adapted for radio by David Edgar from the novel written by his late wife Eve Brook. Playing with Fire is a powerful exploration of racial tensions in multicultural Britain, and Something Wrong about the Mouth is about a man who wants to commission a portrait of a woman he can't produce, dressed for an event that didn't occur. If Only finds a Labour spin doctor, a Tory MP and a Lib Dem party worker stranded by the Icelandic ash cloud. David Edgar's 2019 solo show, Trying It On , sees him delving into the background of his landmark play, Maydays . This collection concludes with Maydays , refashioned by Edgar into a sweeping three-part audio epic charting the journey of idealistic young activists from the far-left to the die-hard right. Track List: 01: Introduction by David Edgar 02-05: Destiny 06-08: Saigon Rose 09-11: The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs 12-13: Mary Barnes 14-15: Ecclesiastes 16-17: A Movie Starring Me 18-19: Entertaining Strangers 20-21: That Summer 22-23: The Shape of the Table 24-28: Pentecost 29-30: Talking to Mars 31-32: The Secret Parts 33-34: Playing with Fire 35: Something Wrong About the Mouth 36-37: If Only 38: Trying It On 39-41: Maydays Written by David Edgar The Secret Parts written by Eve Brook Text copyright © David Edgar 1976 (Saigon Rose, Destiny), 1977 (Ecclesiastes), 1978 (The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs), 1979 (Mary Barnes), 1983 (Maydays), 1987 (That Summer), 1990 (The Shape of the Table), 1991 (A Movie Starring Me), 1994 (Pentecost), 1996 (Talking to Mars), 2005 (Playing with Fire), 2007 (Something Wrong About the Mouth), 2013 (If Only), 2018 (Trying It On) The Secret Parts text copyright © Eve Brook 2000 All rights reserved © 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (p) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd