When Alan Met Ray

Available for over a year

Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield star in a new drama set in 1948 in Milford Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Surrey. Told he has only six weeks to live, 18-year-old Ray begins painful treatment to limit the spread of the infection. By chance he meets Alan - the same age - who has just been given last rites following a severe haemorrhage. Striking up a friendship, they discover shared interests - football, girls, watching comedy films and listening to the hospital radio. Set against the banal routine of sanitorium imprisonment, the play's production and sound design recreate the intense loneliness, horror and abandonment experienced by both young men in the prime of their youth, alongside the camaraderie, period music and the lasting friendship between Alan and Ray, forged in such a challenging environment. They're surrounded by a range of characters trapped in this regimen - fellow patients, compassionate nurses and an unempathetic head doctor who enforces the rules for all patients. Alan and Ray start writing comedy sketches which they aim to perform on the sanatorium hospital radio. But first they have to get past the notorious radio committee - headed, of course, by the Chief Physician and the presenter of the dismal hospital radio service, Alastair 'Mac' McGuire. Alan Simpson ..... Paul Whitehouse Ray Galton ..... Harry Enfield Young Ray ..... Don Gilet Young Alan ..... Lee Ross Dr Ducaine ..... Tony Gardner Sylvia ..... Mika Simmons Harry ..... Simon Greenall Wally ..... Phil Cornwell Dr Franklin ..... Toby Longworth Mac Maguire ..... Andrew McGibbon Junior Doctor ..... Ian Pearce Alan’s Mum ..... Karen Bartke Written by Ian Pearce and Andrew McGibbon Script Editor: David Quantick Original music composed by Ozzie Temple and arranged by Duncan Lamont Produced and Directed by Andrew McGibbon A Curtains for Radio production for BBC Radio 4