Russia

Russia is a radio play by John Fletcher. It was first broadcast on BBC Radio on 11 November 1991, as an installment of the Monday Play. It won The New York Drama Awards.

Recording available at British Library Audio Collection or on Radio Archive:

http://RadioArchive.cc/

Plot

War drama. A group of soldiers return from Flanders mud and realize there is no longer a welcome for them in England, despite what the politicians say. So they enlist again, to fight in Russia in a struggle they don't understand.

Cast

The Corporal - David Holt

Grigoriev - Peter Harlow

Captain Simmons - Brett Usher

Haskin - Jonathan Wyatt

Cecil - Terry Pearson

Smith - Peter Meakin

Goddard - Peter Mitchley

Percival - Chris Macdonald

The Sergeant´s Wife - Heather Barrett

The General - Roger Hulme

White Lieutenant - David Bannerman

Russian Girl - Susan Mann

• Music by Barrington Pheloung
• Directed at Pebble Mill by Nigel Bryant

Critical Reception

THE TIMES: RUSSIA. Nigel Bryant’s production of John Fletcher’s play about a British Army platoon in 1918 that is sucked into the maelstrom of the Russian Revolution, is epic drama painted on a huge canvas. We expect this kind of experience on the wide cinema screen. We rarely get it on radio. And when we do, it is rare that epic action is matched with the epic psychological depth we get in Russia. Fletcher brilliantly manoeuvres his story towards a climax that is as metaphysical in its own realistic way as the climax of his 1990 Giles Cooper award-winning comedy fantasy Death and the Tango.