Editions

The Divine Comedy

  • Imprint: BBC Digital Audio

  • ISBN: 9781910281437

  • Length: 171  Minutes

  • RRP: £6.00

The Divine Comedy

  • Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso

Blake Ritson, David Warner, Hattie Morahan and John Hurt star in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Dante's epic poem.

Inferno: Thirty-five year old Dante finds himself in the middle of a dark wood, in extreme personal and spiritual crisis. Hope of rescue appears in the form of the venerable poet Virgil, now a shade himself, who offers to lead Dante on an odyssey through the afterlife, beginning in the terrifying depths of Hell.

Purgatorio: Dante is led up Mount Purgatory by his guide. They encounter numerous souls who have embarked on the same difficult journey - one that will eventually lead to their spiritual salvation.

Paradiso: Dante's journey comes to a glorious conclusion as he is led by Beatrice, through the spheres of Paradise and into the presence of God himself. As they ascend, they encounter a number of souls who have also achieved blessedness.

Many years later, the older Dante reflects on the episodes from his life that have inspired his great poem.

  • Imprint: BBC Digital Audio

  • ISBN: 9781910281437

  • Length: 171  Minutes

  • RRP: £6.00

Reviews

  • "In a glorious adaptation of The Divine Comedy, Stephen Wyatt takes a potshot at bankers, forced to sit forever on hot sands under fiery rain."

    Moira Petty, The Stage

  • "He’s done a remarkable job. Out go the cantos and rigid rhyming structures. In comes a flowing narrative that loses none of the evocative imagery of the original. And it does Wyatt’s case no harm that the three central characters — Dante the younger, Dante the elder and Virgil, his ghostly omnipresent guide through hell, purgatory and paradise — are played by Blake Ritson, John Hurt and David Warner."

    Jane Anderson, Radio Times

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About the Author

Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri (Author) Dante, or Durante deli Alighieri, was born in Florence, Italy, circa 1265. His family was connected with the Guelph political alliance, supporters of the Papacy. His mother died before Dante’s tenth birthday. Dante himself was betrothed to Gemma di Manetto Donati when he was aged only 12. The pair went on to marry, but Dante’s true love was for Beatrice Portinari, who would inspire much of his poetry. Dante and Gemma had several children. Dante was a member of Florence’s Apothecaries’ Guild, though he did not practice as a pharmacist. Allied to the White Guelphs, with whom he fought against the vanquishing Black Guelphs, he was eventually condemned to perpetual exile from Florence. He went first to Verona and then to Liguria. There is speculation that he travelled more widely, including to Paris and Oxford, although this has not been verified. During his time of exile Dante conceived and wrote the three poems which form The Divine Comedy. He died in 1321, aged 56, of suspected malaria. He was buried in Ravenna, Italy, where a tomb was later erected in his name. Stephen Wyatt is a playwright and dramatist with extensive experience in stage, radio and television. Steve Ellis (Translator) Steve Ellis, a Professor in English at the University of Birmingham, was born and brought up in York, and studied in Florence as part of his doctorate for London University. His frustration as a student with existing translations of Dante spurred a long-lasting desire to translate it himself.His critical works include Dante and English Poetry: Shelley to T.S. Eliot and a study of Eliot's Four Quartets. A major Gregory Award winner, he has also published two books of poetry, Home and Away and West Pathway

Dante Alighieri

Stephen Wyatt

Ian Marter (Author) Ian Marter (1944 – 1986) was an English actor and writer, known for his role as Harry Sullivan in the BBC science-fiction television series Doctor Who. David Fisher (Author) David Fisher was approached by script editor Anthony Read to write for Doctor Who and the result was the 100th story, The Stones of Blood, transmitted in 1978. Fisher first met Read when the latter was setting up a series called The Troubleshooters in 1965. Fisher went on to write for Orlando (1967), Dixon of Dock Green (1969), Sutherland's Law (1973) and General Hospital (1977). As well as The Stones of Blood, Fisher also contributed The Androids of Tara, The Creature from the Pit and The Leisure Hive to Doctor Who. The first two stories were novelised by Terrance Dicks, but Fisher decided to pen the latter two himself for the Target range. Following his work on Doctor Who, Fisher wrote for Hammer House of Horror (1980), Hammer Mystery and Suspense (1984) and collaborated with Read on a number of historical books with subjects including World War Two espionage, the Nazi persecution of Jews and the Nazi/Soviet pact of the early 1940s. Eric Saward (Author) Eric Saward has written for both radio and television, script edited Doctor Who for five years and also written four original stories for the show. During this time he also novelised four scripts and wrote the first ever Doctor Who radio serial. Recently he has completed a graphic novel based around the adventures of Lytton. Stephen Wyatt (Author) Stephen Wyatt was born in Beckenham, Kent and brought up in Ealing in West London. He was educated at Latymer Upper School and then went on to Clare College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, he directed the 1973 Footlights Revue, Every Packet Carries a Government Health Warning, as well as productions of The Mikado, Handel’s Semele and Verdi’s I Due Foscari. His first full-length comedy, Exit, Pursued by a Bear, was produced at the Edinburgh Festival in 1973. After a brief spell as Lecturer in Drama at Glasgow University, he began his career as a playwright in 1975 as writer/researcher with the Belgrade Coventry Theatre in Education team. In 1982 and 1983 he was Resident Writer with the London Bubble Theatre. Stephen has worked widely as a freelance playwright in theatre, radio and television ever since. He also has considerable experience as a teacher, workshop leader and script reader and in the creation of audio guides. The first piece he wrote for television was a play called Claws which led to his being commissioned to write Paradise Towers and then The Greatest Show in the Galaxy for Doctor Who. In 2008, his play, Memorials to the Missing, won the Tinniswood Award for best original radio script of 2007 as well as Silver in the Best Drama category of the 2008 Sony Radio Awards. He spent two years as Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of Sussex and in the autumn of 2011 he took up a post as RLF Writing Fellow on Greenwich University’s Maritime campus. Author biography by David J. Howe, author of The Target Book, the complete illustrated guide to the Target Doctor Who novelisations. Graeme Curry (Author) After leaving university, Graeme Curry worked as a journalist and a professional singer. In 1982 he won both the Cosmopolitan Young Journalist of the Year award and a screenplay competition with Over the Moon, which he later adapted as a radio play for BBC Radio 4. It was on the strength of this that he was put in touch with Andrew Cartmel to discuss working on Doctor Who. The Happiness Patrol was his first television commission. Since then, Curry has contributed to ITV’s The Bill, BBC1’s EastEnders and the Radio 4 soap opera Citizens. He has also written the plays PS I Love You and The Mantle of the Earth for Radio 4. Curry has penned numerous books of poems for children, mostly with Jennifer Curry, and has also worked as a stage manager and an editor. Author biography by David J. Howe, author of The Target Book, the complete illustrated guide to the Target Doctor Who novelisations.

Stephen Wyatt

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