The Angela Carter BBC Radio Drama Collection

By: Angela Carter

Narrated by: full cast, Fiona Shaw, Andrew Sachs, Jessica Raine, Anton Lesser, Susannah Clapp, Roisin Conaty, Lewis Fiander, Ariyon Bakare, James Anthony Rose

Angela Carter was one of the most important writers of the 20th century. A pioneer of British magical realism, her work was described by Salman Rushdie as 'without rival and without equal'. Her radical, inventive novels influenced countless writers, while her dark, sensual short fiction turned traditional fables inside out, giving women the power over their desires and fates.

Susannah Clapp, Angela Carter's literary executor and friend, introduces the productions and offers fascinating insights into Angela Carter's life and work.

This landmark collection includes five new dramatisation of stories from her iconic collection of fairy tales retold, The Bloody Chamber. Alongside the title story are 'The Erl-King', 'Wolf-Alice', 'The Tiger's Bride' and 'The Company of Wolves', with casts including Sophie Cookson, Ariyon Bakare, Lily Lesser, Hannah Genesius and Adjoa Andoh. A sixth tale from The Bloody Chamber, 'Puss in Boots', is adapted by Carter herself and stars Andrew Sachs as Puss.

Also included is an adaptation of Carter's award-winning Nights at the Circus, starring Roisin Conaty as Cockney trapeze artist Sophie Fevvers, and the world premiere of her unproduced screenplay The Christchurch Murder. Based on the real-life story of two New Zealand schoolgirls who killed for love, it was an inspiration for the Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures, and stars Fiona Shaw, Nancy Carroll and James Wilby.

Accompanying these are three thrilling radio plays: the Gothic Vampirella (starring Jessica Raine and Anton Lesser); the hallucinatory drama-documentary Come Unto These Yellow Sands (featuring James Anthony Rose as patricidal painter Richard Dadd); and an exploration of the life of Ronald Firbank, A Self-Made Man (with Lewis Fiander as Firbank).

Finally, Liza Ross reads the short story 'Lizzie's Tiger', originally commissioned for radio, in which the four-year-old Lizzie Borden has an extraordinary encounter at the circus.

A bonus documentary, Third Ear: Angela Carter, comprises Paul Bailey's lively interview with the author, recorded shortly before her death in 1992. In it, she discusses her novel Wise Children, and examines the impact of Britishness, politics and the oral tradition on her subversive writing.

Contents:

1. Introduction

2. The Bloody Chamber

3. The Erl-King

4. Wolf-Alice

5. The Tiger's Bride

6. The Company of Wolves

7. The Christchurch Murder

8-9. Nights at the Circus (in two parts)

10. Vampirella

11. Come Unto These Yellow Sands

12. Puss in Boots

13. A Self-Made Man

14. Lizzie's Tiger

15. Third Ear: An Interview with Angela Carter

Credits:

Linking material by Susannah Clapp was produced by Caroline Raphael at Dora Productions.

The Bloody Chamber stories, The Christchurch Murder, Vampirella and Come Unto These Yellow Sands were produced by Fiona McAlpine at Allegra Productions.

All other programmes produced by the BBC.

©2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Fractured Faerie Tales & Workes of Wonder

I’d long sought after Angela Carter’s legendary radio plays, anthologized in text form in the collections COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS, and also THE CURIOUS ROOM (which combines the original radio plays in YELLOW SANDS with screenplays, a stage play, and a libretto). This collection has those elusive radio plays, and much more. It leads off with adaptations of short stories from her famed collection of revisionist fairy tales, THE BLOODY CHAMBERS — uncovering unexpected twists of eroticism, darkness, danger, and delight in the Grimm classics, often with a piquant & fierce feminist twist. Next up is an audio play version of Angela Carter’s unproduced screenplay of THE CHRISTCHURCH MURDER — the true crime story of a feverish schoolgirl friendship that led to bloodshed and exposed secret, seething undercurrents in peaceful postwar Christchurch, New Zealand. (It’s the same story that inspired Peter Jackson’s breakthrough feature HEAVENLY CREATURES.) Next up is a bawdy & brilliant BBC dramatization of Carter’s novel NIGHTS AT THE CIRCUS — channeling Carter’s playful delight in interweaving high art with low places in the strange, hilarious & mesmerizing tale of Sophie Feathers, the Cockney Venus, who implausibly soars above her adoring public on actual wings. (Fact or fiction? You decide!) Next up are Carter’s original radio plays, VAMPIRELLA (a vampire princess), COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS (about the true-life madness of fairy painter Richard Dadd), and more. More than an audiobook, these full-fledged radio plays are a joy for anyone who shares Angela Carter’s love of language and embrace of the gothic, garish & unexpected. A tribute to a beloved author gone from this world too soon.