9 April 2005
Saturday 9 April 2005 21:45-22:30 (Radio 3)
Ian McMillan presents the literature and performance programme, featuring a new short story from acclaimed Irish playwright Billy Roche and performance from Ken Campbell.
Programme Details
On the programme this week, BILLY ROCHE performs a dazzling new short story, SUSSEX GARDENS, specially commissioned by The Verb. Billy Roche's play 'Cavalcaders' prompted The Daily Telegraph to describe him as 'the finest new dramatist in years'. A former barman, labourer and factory worker, Billy Roche is the author of The Wexford Trilogy, which comprises 'A Handful of Stars', 'Poor Beast in the Rain' and 'Belfry', three plays about the lives, dreams and frustrations of small-town Ireland. Billy's fascination for the language of his native town is the soul of his drama: "a poetic, strange, sly language that can be so devastatingly economic, particularly in the affairs of the heart, and yet has the knack of going right to the core of the matter," he says.
In SUSSEX GARDENS, a man wakes up in The Miami, a shabby hotel near Paddington Station, and sets off towards the Goldhawk Road. His wife of 20 years has left him, but he has had a tip off that she may be working in a west London pub. In three pages the essence of Tommy Shannon's entire life is revealed; the man he is, the woman he loves, and the other woman who loves him. Billy Roche has also been a singer, songwriter and actor: his virtuoso performance of 'Sussex Gardens' should not missed.
'Poor Beast in the Rain' opens at the Gate theatre in Dublin this week.
Playful, pedantic, idiosyncratic and word-struck in the extreme, SAMUEL JOHNSON would have made a perfect Verb guest. Two hundred and fifty years after the publication of his famous Dictionary, his is ably and honourably represented by HENRY HITCHINGS, author of 'Dr Johnson's Dictionary', who talks about the story of Johnson's eight year odyssey into the definitions of English words. Henry is joined by STEVE CONNOR, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, for a discussion about Johnson's great endeavour. How were meanings determined before the dictionary? What effect did its publication have on England? How did defining the language change it? In defining English, did Johnson also define the English? Hitchings and Connor discuss.
"Dr Johnson's Dictionary" by Henry Hitchings is published by John Murray.
ROS BARBER is a poet who has thought hard about the differences between reading and performing poetry. While starting out and struggling to find a publisher, she looked at the different audiences at readings and performances, observed their contrasting expectations and experiences, and turned herself into a poet in demand in both camps. A star of the burgeoning South Coast scene, she performs pieces from 'How Things Are On Thursday', her first collection, and reads from a new sequence, 'Lost Gardens'. Her beautifully weighted performances for The Verb are by turns harrowing, sexy and sad: click on 'Listen to the Last Programme' to hear them.
'How Things are on Thursday' is published by Anvil Press.
And KEN CAMPBELL, writer, actor, performer, seer, comic, joker, player and essayist returns to the programme with another monologue. Ken begins by decking the Verb studio with a series of abstract artworks, and proceeds to explain their provenance...
