Goethe's Faust - an entertainment?!

Did you hear the one about the bloke who sold his soul to the devil? No, really! Independent producer Nicolas Soames of Ukemi Productions Ltd. looks ahead to a unique opportunity to hear Goethe's surprisingly amusing Faust on Radio 3.

Goethe in Italy

'What I suggest,' I said to my friend, a sales manager for a classical CD label, but well-read, 'is that you clear the evening of 19 September and listen to Radio 3 - our production of Goethe's Faust. You don't often get the chance to hear it. And especially not Part 1 and Part 2, in one go - running for four hours.'

He looked at me with a pained expression as if I had suggested we swim the Channel together.

And that, to be really honest, is the response I have had from most people whom I have told. In a way, I understand. It does sound like a heavy duty. Sure, Goethe's Faust is a pillar of Western literature. We all know that even if we have never read it (most of us!). But four hours of a serious 18th century German verse drama on a Sunday night? Has Drama on 3 gone bonkers?

Well, I can tell you that when the 17-strong cast, with Samuel West as Faust, Toby Jones as Mephistopheles and Anna Maxwell Martin as Gretchen, gathered together at the studio, the biggest surprise to all was just how much fun it was. No, really!

Goethe's Faust is closer to Andy Hamilton's Old Harry's Game than Marlowe's Dr Faustus. As sure as eggs are eggs, Mr Hamilton's research involved reading Goethe, and probably in the delightfully colloquial, wholly accessible translation by John R. Williams which we used as the basis for our adaptation.

Mephistpheles tempts Faust

Let's not go completely over the top. This is A Great Work of Western Literature. It does address issues of the human condition: need and greed, integrity and deception, ambition and power; it does show mankind being tripped up by wavering emotions time and again - which underpin the tragedy of Gretchen and the despair of Faust. This is all embedded in poetry of the highest order, especially when spoken by an outstanding verse actor such as Samuel West.

But Goethe wrote a drama, not a tract. And it is truly funny. You will smile at the very beginning as The Lord (Derek Jacobi) and Mephistopheles start the banter that sets the story rolling. You will be entertained by the slapstick comedy in so many of the retorts or asides from the persuasively immoral Mephistopheles (a masterly characterisation by Toby Jones). And you will truly laugh at some of the outrageous lines and situations, (a homunculus in a glass, Walpurgis Night) even in Part 2 which slides into fantastical pantomime.

We never record the initial read-through of a play of course, but sometimes it is a pity. In this case, we could have captured the laughter of the cast as Goethe came alive in a 21st century radio studio - that alone would have confounded expectations of a worthy project. If David Timson, the director/adapter, who had lived with Faust for over a year, bringing in the composer Roger Marsh to write incidental music, had one single intention, it was to show Faust in its true colours. And worthy it is not.

• Goethe's Faust is broadcast on Radio 3 at 645pm on Sunday 19 September. For full cast details, click here.
• Click here for details of Radio 3's Drama on 3 series