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Episode details

Radio 4,04 Jul 2021,60 mins

Available for 169 days

Women in Love by DH Lawrence. Dramatised by Ian Kershaw. The Brangwen sisters are looking for love in the Midlands mining town of Beldover. Ursula is a teacher and Gudrun an artist. They meet two friends who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich, heir to a coal-mine, and they become romantically attached. But Gerald and Rupert have a troubled friendship. Ursula ..... Cassie Bradley Gudrun ..... Katie Redford Rupert ..... Alexander Arnold Gerald ..... James Cooney Hermione ..... Emily Pithon Diana/Pussum ..... Verity Henry Julius ..... Rupert Hill Director/Producer Gary Brown ‘DH Lawrence: Tainted Love’ dynamically puts centre stage Lawrence's daring writing on the complexity of human love. Sexual awakenings, transgressive same sex love and internalised repression are explored as his characters try to find fulfilment in uncertain times. Set in a mining town in Nottinghamshire, this drama is a celebration of Lawrence at his most bold, pushing the boundaries of sexuality in the dawning of the Twentieth Century. In ‘Women in Love’ Ursula Brangwen's younger sister Gudrun comes into equal focus as the two sisters embark on love affairs. Gudrun is an artist who pursues a destructive relationship with Gerald Crich, a rich industrialist who is haunted by family tragedy. Lawrence contrasts this pair with the love that develops between Ursula and Rupert Birkin, an alienated intellectual who articulates many fashionable nihilistic opinions. The emotional relationships are given further depth and tension by an intense psychological and physical attraction between Gerald and Rupert. With thanks to the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli.

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