A Single Act

Drama of the Week

BBC

Drama, Fiction

3.9 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

by A.L. Kennedy

Simon Pratt ..... Bill Nighy Joyce Zani ..... Amelia Bullmore Ben Vane ..... Sebastian Croft

Directed by Sally Avens

Celebrating 100 years of Radio Drama, A.L. Kennedy's play is an homage to the inventiveness of radio and the world of sounds.

Simon Pratt has always wanted to be part of a double act but he has ended up a single man. Now his damaged grandson needs Simon but he can't seem to connect with him nor his neighbour Joyce, with whom he has had an aborted affair. Could the magic of conjuring laughter out of sounds be the key to a happier life for all three of them?

Bill Nighy is an academy award nominee for the film Living, he appears regularly on Radio 4 in the titular role of Charles Paris. Amelia Bullmore is an actress and playwright. She has appeared in Coronation Street, I'm Alan Partridge and Scott and Bailey. Sebastian Croft has appeared in Game of Thrones, Horrible Histories - the Movie and Heartstopper

A.L. Kennedy is an award winning novelist,. She also writes for stage, screen and radio and performs occasionally as a stand up comic.

A BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Does talking to strangers make you happier?
0:04.5	Could aging disgracefully help you live longer?
0:08.0	I'm Dr Michael Mosley and in my Just One Long Thing podcast series, I'll be chatting to doctors and scientists
0:15.1	we'll be covering topics like sleep exercise happiness and staying young with each of
0:20.9	our experts choosing a health hack they claim is the single most effective way you can improve your life
0:27.0	Just one long thing listen first on BBC Sounds
0:34.0	BBC Sounds BBC Sounds. Music Radio Podcasts.
0:37.0	Radio has always been important in my life
0:40.0	ever since I was a child,
0:42.0	and my sister Anna and I would rush home from school in order to listen to
0:45.6	journey into space, which was an early highlight in my radio listening.
0:50.8	And when I became an actor, I was, as it were, apprentice to BBC Radio Drama.
0:56.0	And it's where anything that might be described as training took place, watching more experienced actors go to work without fuss and with maximum preparation.
1:06.0	Radio drama is a unique entertainment inasmuch as it requires from the audience,
1:11.0	apart from anything else, a degree of, which is exhilarating and satisfying.
1:16.0	And radio makes certain things possible
1:19.0	which are unachievable elsewhere,
1:21.0	a fact which I hope the play are're about to listen to, apart from entertaining
1:25.1	you, will make very clear. Thank you. I hope you enjoy it. I am recording this
1:32.1	top-plus. I am recording this Topless. The The Good evening gentle listeners round the world and ships at sea.
2:10.0	Welcome to Paradise Fines.
2:14.0	You will remember our hero.
	...

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