Copenhagen

A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Michael Frayn's award-winning play, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Greta Scacchi and Simon Russell Beale.

Benedict Cumberbatch, Greta Scacchi and Simon Russell Beale star in Michael Frayn's award-winning play about the controversial 1941 meeting between physicists Bohr and Heisenberg. Copenhagen, Autumn 1941. The two presiding geniuses of quantum physics, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg meet for the first time since the breakout of war. Danish physicist Bohr and his wife, Margrethe, live in Nazi-occupied Denmark; their visitor, Heisenberg, is German, the two old friends, now on opposing sides have between them the ability to change the course of history. Frayn's Tony award-winning play imagines the three characters re-drafting the events of 1941 in an attempt to make sense of them. With Greta Scacchi as Margrethe Bohr, Simon Russell Beale as Niels Bohr and Benedict Cumberbatch as Werner Heisenberg. This new version of Copenhagen is adapted for radio and directed by Emma Harding.

Michael Frayn

Benedict Cumberbatch

Greta Scacchi

Simon Russell Beale

Dawn French

Samuel West

Dinsdale Landen

Penelope Wilton

Martin Jarvis

Harriet Walters

Deborah Findley

Nine Full-Cast Productions including Copenhagen

Original plays and dramatisations from the award-winning novelist and playwright, plus bonus documentary Viewing the Century: Michael Frayn 
 
A renowned playwright, novelist, journalist, memoirist and translator, Michael Frayn has had a varied and prolific literary career spannning over seven decades. His play Noises Off was one of the 20th century’s most beloved and successful plays, and he has been lauded for his dramas and prose fiction exploring the absurdities and suffering of the human condition. 
 
This collection opens with his Tony Award-winning play Copenhagen, centring on the controversial 1941 meeting between the two presiding geniuses of quantum physics, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. Between them, they could change the course of history… Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Heisenberg and Simon Russell Beale as Bohr, with Greta Scacchi as Bohr’s wife, Margrethe. 
 
Next, we turn to a selection of his philosophical comedies, featuring star-studded casts including Samuel West, Dawn French, Michael Kitchen, Barbara Flynn and Harriet Walter. Clouds finds rival Sunday supplement writers clashing in 1970s Cuba; Here revolves around Phil and Kath, newly cohabiting and facing important decisions; and Birthday sees the heavily pregnant Jess disrupting her sister’s party. Benefactors follows idealistic architect David, as he endeavours to redevelop a London slum – and preserve his personal relationships – and Alphabetical Order depicts a battle between order and chaos, in the forms of disorganised newspaper librarian Lucy and her methodical new assistant Lesley. 
 
An adaptation of Frayn’s comic 1967 Fleet Street novel, Towards the End of the Morning stars Martin Jarvis as John Dyson, an unfulfilled editor on a national daily, who jumps at the chance to become a TV celebrity. In Jarvis’s Frayn Too, the acclaimed actor performs a selection of classic sketches, columns and vignettes written by Michael Frayn. And in our final drama, Make and Break, also starring Martin Jarvis, a workaholic manufacturer attending a trade conference in Frankfurt finds himself facing a dark night of the soul. Capping off our collection is an illuminating bonus programme, Viewing the Century – Michael Frayn, in which Kevin Jackson talks to the celebrated author about Copenhagen, determinism and the future of the theatre. 
 
Production credits 
Written by Michael Frayn 
 
Copenhagen 
Cast: Greta Scacchi, Simon Russell Beale, Benedict Cumberbatch 
 
Clouds 
Cast: Dinsdale Landen, Morag Hood, Don Fellows, Paul Chapman, Arturo Venegas 
 
Here 
Cast: Samuel West, Lucy Tregear, Margaret Courtenay 
 
Birthday 
Cast: Dawn French, Deborah Findlay, Thomas Wheatley, Liz Crowther, Oona Beeson, 
Matthew Morgan, John Webb, Peter Gunn, Ann Windsor, Joanna Wake 
 
Benefactors 
Cast: Michael Kitchen, Barbara Flynn, Harriet Walter, Clive Francis 
 
Alphabetical Order 
Cast: Penelope Wilton, Rosalind Ayres, Martin Jarvis, Deryck Guyler, Geoffrey Matthews, 
Marcia Warren, Nigel Lambert 
 
Towards the End of the Morning 
Cast: Martin Jarvis, Rosalind Ayres, Sian Probert, Trevor Martin, Fenella Fielding, Kathryn Hurlbutt, Lockwood West, Peter Whitman, John Green, Andrew Lodge, Sean Arnold, 
Ronald Herdman, Stephen Garlick, Miranda Forbes, Rosalind Adams 
 
Jarvis’s Frayn Too 
Performed by Martin Jarvis 
Produced by Pete Atkin 
 
Make and Break 
Cast: Martin Jarvis, Rosalind Ayres, Christopher Godwin, John Bayton, Mark Patten, Elaine Claxton, Neville Jason, Gareth Armstrong, David Jarvis 
Adapted by Martin Jarvis 
 
Viewing the Century – Michael Frayn 
Presented by Kevin Jackson 
With Michael Frayn 
 
© 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. ? 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Michael Frayn

Books by Michael Frayn

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