Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio 3,21 May 2023,79 mins

The Women of Troy

Drama on 3

Available for over a year

Troy is lost. The great city is in ruins. All its men are dead, and its women await their fate at the hands of the Greek victors. Among them is Hecuba whose sons have all been killed in battle, and whose daughters are in present danger. This powerful drama examines the aftermath of war and asks if hope can be found in the face of immense grief and cruelty. In Linda Marshall Griffiths’s contemporary set re-imagining of Euripides's powerful anti-war drama the chorus of women are led by a female journalist Sappho and the other voices are those of the women all over the city who are recording and broadcasting their testimonies on social media so that the world can witness what is happening to them. A reminder that war is a thing of the present. The suffering endured by the women of Troy is still being endured by female victims of military action today. It is also a reminder of the continued repression of women’s rights and threat to women’s liberties globally. HECUBA.....Maxine Peake SAPPHO.....Christine Bottomley CASSANDRA.....Sade Malone ANDROMACHE.....Anneika Rose HELEN.....Ntombizodwa Ndlovu MENELAUS.....Tachia Newall TALTHYBIUS.....Rupert Hill POSEIDON / JOURNALIST.....Andonis Anthony ATHENA.....Jenny Platt PROTESTER.....Sacha Parkinson CHORUS OF WOMEN.....Jessica Bellamy, Helena Braithwaite, Phoebe Licorish, Sacha Parkinson, Jenny Platt, Anneika Rose and members of the Royal Exchange Young Company: Linnae Yllane Abraham, Ellie Banton, Alicia Deighton, Kiara Kiandra, Liliana Newsom-Smith, Obesi Osi-Iyere, Urmila Patel, Sharvi Rana, Jack So. SOLDIERS.....Andonis Anthony, Rupert Hill, Tachia Newall, Harvey Weedon. The Women of Troy by Euripides in a new version by Linda Marshall Griffiths Sound Design by Sharon Hughes Directed by Nadia Molinari A BBC Audio Drama North Production

Programme Website
More episodes