CHANDLER, WILDER AND HITCHCOCK

Strangers on a Film, my play about the relationship between Raymond Chandler and Alfred Hitchcock while working on Strangers on a Train is now available as a download from AudioGo. It stars Patrick Stewart as Chandler and Clive Swift as Hitchcock and is directed by Claire Grove.

And by the way Double Jeopardy with Patrick Stewart and Adrian Scarborough as Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder is also still available for download.

TOM JONES and YELLOWPLUSH

Just discovered that my dramatisation of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding for Radio 4 directed by Claire Grove is now available for download as an audiobook from AudioGo.

So is my dramatisation of Thackeray's The Yellowplush Papers directed by Abigail Le Fleming and Jessica Dromgoole.

This is a complete surprise to me and I'm delighted!

CHANDLER FOR NORWAY

Just finished the revisions on my dramatisation of THE LONG GOODBYE for Norwegian Radio. Expanded from ninety minutes into four half hour episodes, it's been possible to include material we had to exclude from the BBC version, restoring the characters of Linda Loring and Harlan Potter. The dramatisation is now being translated into Norwegian for recording in August!

BLUE PLAQUE FOR FABIAN WARE

I have just heard that Sir Fabian Ware, Founder of the Imperial War Graves Commission and the central figure in my radio play MEMORIALS TO THE MISSING is to get a Blue Plaque on the house he lived in Marylebone between 1911 and 1919. I proposed him for commemoration at the time of my play, saying that a man who did so much to create memorials to others deserved one of his own. I'm delighted that the Blue Plaques Panel has agreed with me. The ceremony is scheduled for 2014.

THE WAVING CAT

In rehearsals today for the latest Krazy Kat show THE WAVING CAT in my continuing role as Company Dramaturge. Early days but it looks like another very funny, imaginative and visually rich show. Details of the run can be found on the Krazy Kat website.

Here's a link to a rave review in The Stage.

GREATEST SHOW AND AUDIOGO

AudioGo  has acquired the audio rights in Stephen's second Dr Who novel for the Target range, THE GREATEST SHOW IN THE GALAXY following the success of Bonnie's version of PARADISE TOWERS.

It's scheduled for release on August 1st. No word yet on who's going to be the reader. I must say I'm intrigued as I can think of at least four excellent candidates from the original cast, all still very much around.

UPDATE 4th JUNE: The reader is Sophie Aldred, one of the aforementioned candidates and obviously an excellent choice!

GREATEST SHOW

For the first time I've been catching up via Google on some of the debates on GREATEST SHOW although obviously I'd read the Amazon reviews (see my previous blog). I was rather pleased to realise after all these years that there's actually quite a lot of (not unqualified) affection for GSITG out there as well as some really interesting and intelligent posts. And, of course, some fans who still hate it with a vengeance. But then everybody's entitled to their opinion. Oddly the only comments that irritate me are the ones where Ian Reddington's wonderful performance as Chief Clown is quite rightly praised with the additional remark "despite not having many lines." As if it'd been better if he'd been given more lines. When I was writing the script, I realised the image I had in my head of the white-faced, spangle suited clown was so powerful that to give him too much to say or too much to explain would seriously detract from his visual presence. Ian was fantastically inventive and convincing but I think the comment should really be "because he'd not been given too many lines."

GERONTIUS SCRIPT ON AMAZON

The script of my radio play about Cardinal Newman, GERONTIUS, which won the Tinniswood Award for best radio drama script in 2012 is now available via Amazon -

ALICE ON RADIO 4

My favourite comment so far on the ALICE broadcast is from Sarah Vine in The Times - "Stephen Wyatt's new dramatisation is as charming as it is bonkers."

Lots of other nice comments from press and from chums so feeling pretty pleased (and relieved) with how it's been received.

THE DEVIL IN THE BELFRY

The talk Rob Orledge and I gave at Gresham College earlier this year on our reconstruction of Debussy's Devil in the Belfry - with extended musical extracts from the world premiere - is now available via You Tube