A BBC Radio full-cast drama

Virus

Sarah Woods is an award-winning playwright and systems thinker who communicates current issues through innovative drama. She has written over 30 plays, series, adaptations and drama-documentaries for BBC Radio, including Borderland, which won the Tinniswood Award for Best Audio Drama at the 2018 BBC Audio Drama Awards.

A love story, about flu. 
 
It's January 1969, the winter after the summer of love, and Jill and David's fledgling relationship is about to be put to test by the outbreak of Hong Kong Flu. As they huddle under blankets together, full of flu, neither of them is aware of how this moment will impact them in both the near and distant future. 
 
Over five episodes, we follow Jill’s story across five decades as she struggles with the highs and lows of life, love and viral infection. At the same time the story tracks the life of Hong Kong Flu – how, over 45 years, it traversed the globe, evolved and was ultimately superseded by new, more virulent strains, such as Swine Flu and now COVID-19. Using cutting edge science – of transmission, viral evolution and genetic predisposition – it tells the story of flu, and investigates the unique qualities of Jill's genome which make her a 'severe responder'. The human story at the heart of this drama underlines the deep connection we have to the viruses that survive through us, and how illness can shape the course of our lives. 
 
First broadcast in 2014 under the title ‘My Life with Flu’, this programme has new resonance today in the time of coronavirus. It touches on many of the subjects that we are now all too familiar with – the ease of transmission, the way that some people react more severely than others to flu, how the body’s reaction to the flu virus creates a perfect climate in the lungs for pneumonia to develop, and flu’s deadly potential. 
 
Cast and credits 
Narrator.... Eiry Thomas 
Jill/Polly.... Hannah Daniel 
 David.... Ronan Summers 
 John.... Liam Williams 
Older Jill… Sharon Morgan 
Older David… William Hope 
Older John… Simon Armstrong 
 Doctor.... John Norton 
 Protestor/Yvette/Paramedic 2.... Eirlys Bellin 
Minister/Paramedic 1/Doctor.... Alun Raglan 
 
Directed by James Robinson 
Produced in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute 
 A BBC Cymru/Wales Production 
First broadcast 27-31 October 2014

A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation

Getting To Zero

With George Monbiot, Paul Allen and Peter Harper.  Have you got what it takes to get to zero carbon? Our expert panel set one average family the task of eliminating their carbon footprint... and living with the consequences. Originally broadcast in March 2009. Starring Kate Ashfield, Don Gilet, Poppy Lee Friar, Ryan Watson, Malcolm Tierney, Jonathan Tafler, Janice Acquah, and Stephen Hogan. Producer/Director: Jonquil Panting.

Sarah Woods

David Threlfall

Samantha Dakin

Ben Cura

Ron Cook

Kimberley Nixon

Full Cast

Philippe Spall

Catherine Ayers

Four full-cast BBC Radio Dramas inspired by Das Kapital, News from Nowhere & more

Four full-cast BBC Radio dramas inspired by classic texts about democracy, consumerism and our future 
 
Sarah Woods has developed a reputation for taking seemingly un-dramatisable non-fiction classics and turning them into gripping and immersive audio drama. Four seminal political books are here brought to life and into the twenty-first century, and ideas that have been fascinating and shaping society for hundreds of years are developed into brilliant, insightful dramas. 
 
How does humanity's success also mean its potential destruction? And what do we need to turn from this danger, and instead develop a global system that's positive, sustainable, and better for the masses rather than the few? 
 
In Das Kapital, Karl Marx's iconic work is reinterpreted as we imagine what Marx would make of our current global economy and its key commodity: the smartphone. From the cobalt mines of Africa to the tech firms of the UK, the story carries us from political concept to everyday object, forming our behaviours, economies, and our planet in a way perhaps only Marx foresaw. This captivating adaptation was nominated for both an Audio Drama Award and the Prix Europa 2018. Starring David Threlfall and Kimberley Nixon. 
 
The Limits to Growth is based on the work of Donella Meadows, lead author of the seminal 1972 report on Earth's capacity to support human unchecked economic expansion. Still incredibly relevant today, the drama it inspired follows the experiences of Donella and Dennis Meadows as they write their ground-breaking report and come to fundamentally reassess the way they live, steering towards a hopeful, sustainable future. Starring Samantha Dakin and Ben Cura. 
 
News from Nowhere was originally published in 1890 by artist, designer and socialist William Morris, and is movingly updated here for the 21st century. Using Morris's central idea that society needs to re-discover the value of work and thrive on beauty over consumerism, the story is given a new perspective when modern-day man Will Guest travels into a future utopia and discovers love for both a woman and society at large. Starring Ron Cook. 
 
Democracy is one of the most influential political texts ever written, asking whether democracy can offer us the world, and the leaders, that we need. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville travelled to the USA on a nine-month trip that led him to conclude that democracy was unstoppable and would spread across Europe. His concerns about democracy - the dangers of self-interest and materialism; the tendencies towards mediocrity; the risk of populist, despotic leaders and the silencing of minorities - echo clearly into the present day. In this drama, set in the present day UK, an elderly man turns up at a Preston hospital who doesn’t seem to be registered with a GP and won’t give his address. He says his name’s Alexis de Tocqueville and that he needs to find out what has happened to democracy. Starring Philippe Spall and Catherine Ayers. 
 
Sarah Woods is an award-winning playwright and systems thinker who communicates current issues through innovative drama. She has written over 30 plays, series, adaptations and drama-documentaries for BBC Radio, including Borderland, which won the Tinniswood Award for Best Audio Drama at the 2018 BBC Audio Drama Awards. 
 
©2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

A Better World: Stories of Democracy and Consumerism Retold

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