The Stage

Radio 4 to record drama in Sri Lanka with foreign cast

Published Tuesday 26 August 2008 at 12:20 by Matthew Hemley

BBC Radio 4 is to explore the assassination of campaigning human rights journalist Richard de Zoysa, with a drama recorded entirely on location and featuring an all-foreign cast.

The Last Time I Saw Richard will run in the broadcaster’s The Friday Play slot in November, featuring drama alongside real-life testimonies from people who knew and worked with him.

It is being made by independent production company Art and Adventure, which makes its shows out of the studio and on location.

Last year, the company produced The Two Gentlemen of Valasna, an adaptation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, for BBC Radio 3. The play transposed Shakespeare’s play from Italy to India and was recorded entirely on location in Maharashtra, with an all-Indian cast.

Producer Roger Elsgood told The Stage that recording the production in Sri Lanka would give it an authenticity that could not be achieved in a studio.

A well-known journalist and broadcaster, de Zoysa was shot and killed in 1990. After his death, reports claimed he was killed because of articles he had penned on human rights.

Elsgood said that he and the production’s director Willi Richards had used testimonies from those who knew de Zoysa to script the drama.

Meanwhile, Art and Adventure has also been commissioned to make an adaptation of the P C Wren novel Beau Geste.

A two-part serialisation, Beau Geste will be recorded on location in the UK and Algeria, and is scheduled to run on Radio 4 in the new year.

Elsgood, who is producing the drama, said: “It’s a rollicking boy’s own adventure. It just needed doing because it has not been done on radio forever. It was a commissioning opportunity Radio 4 seized.”

The story is being adapted by Graeme Fife. Casting has not yet been finalised, but Elsgood said the drama had parts for “good young actors” from the UK.