The Streets of Pompeii by Henry Reed
Produced by Douglas Cleverdon
Music by Anthony Smith-Masters
First broadcast in 1952
and
A stereo version was first broadcast in 1970.
The Streets of Pompeii was awarded the Italia Prize in 1953
Foreword to The Streets of Pompeii and Other Plays for Radio by Henry Reed
Summary[]
In The Streets of Pompeii, ideas of fecundity and sterility, imagination and pedantry, love and death are woven together through the patterning of the experiences of a dozen Pompeian natives and visitors. Several modes of speech are woven and patterned too; and they include, along with colloquial and heightened prose, a formal verse for the elegies of the Cumaean Sibyl and a more relaxed pentameter for the young lovers, Attilio and Francesca. (The lovers are even given a full-dress sonnet apiece as a soliloquy at their moment of most intense feeling.) Bask in the glowing sun of this most perfect incarnation of the art of radio drama. An echo of a golden past.
The Cast[]
The Cumaen Sibyl....Flora Robson
The Traveller.......Marius Goring
Attilio.............Carlo Cura
Francesca...........Rosalind Shanks
The Lizard..........Carlton Hobbs
MacFarlane..........John Laurie
MacBride............Frank Duncan
Judy................Hilda Criseman
Walter..............David Spencer
Bill................Derek Seaton
Margery.............Deborah Dallas
The Guide...........Hector Ross
The Merchant........Godfrey Kenton
his Wife............Kathleen Helm
An Old Man..........Malcolm Hayes
The Silent Old Gentleman..Carlton Hobbs
The Silent Old Lady.......Kathleen Helm
References[]
Savage, Roger - The Radio Plays of Henry Reed - British Radio Drama - ed John Drakakis