3.9 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 13 December 2024
⏱️ 45 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Inspired by true events, Orlando Wells' irreverent and anarchic comedy tells the story of two scientists tasked with embalming the body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin for public display.
It's 1924. Lenin is dead. Stalin has seized power and his shadow falls over the lives of millions of Russians. A group of senior Bolsheviks, the self-proclaimed Immortalisation Commission, request the services of two scientists to aide their cause: ensure the Revolution’s survival by building a shrine to their deceased messianic leader. The country's future hangs in the balance; the Communist regime is still in its infancy and a personality cult might be instrumental in legitimising Russia's new overlords. Although it has never been done before, the scientists are under no illusion of the consequence of failure.
Vladimir . . . . . Matthew Steer Boris . . . . . Ashley Margolis Faina . . . . . Rhiannon Neads Krasin . . . . . Kenneth Collard Dzerzhinsky . . . . . David Hounslow Lenin . . . . . Gyuri Sarossy Nadya . . . . . Ruth Everett
The guitarist is Ian Dunnet Jnr.
Studio managers: Peter Ringrose and Alison Craig. Sound design: Peter Ringrose. Production co-ordinator: Gaelan Davis-Connolly. Director: Sasha Yevtushenko.
Orlando Wells is a writer and an actor. Lenin Forever! is his first radio play. He has also written five original theatre plays: The Winter Room (RSC fringe festival), Cold Enough, The Tin Horizon (Theatre 503), Four Days in Hong Kong (The Orange Tree) about Edward Snowden’s exposure of the NSA’s spy programme, and The Woodcutter’s Tale. He adapted Patrick Hamilton’s The Duke in Darkness for the Chiswick Playhouse; and co-wrote the libretto for the experimental opera, Triptych, at the Print Rooms and Wilton’s Music Hall. He was a series-writer for the animated children programs Inspired by true events, Orlando Wells' irreverent and anarchic comedy tells the story of two scientists tasked with embalming the body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin for public display.
It's 1924. Lenin is dead. Stalin has seized power and his shadow falls over the lives of millions of Russians. A group of senior Bolsheviks, the self-proclaimed Immortalisation Commission, request the services of two scientists to aide their cause: ensure the Revolution’s survival by building a shrine to their deceased messianic leader. The country's future hangs in the balance; the Communist regime is still in its infancy and a personality cult might be instrumental in legitimising Russia's new overlords. Although it has never been done before, the scientists are under no illusion of the consequence of failure.
Vladimir . . . . . Matthew Steer Boris . . . . . Ashley Margolis Faina . . . . . Rhiannon Neads Krasin . . . . . Kenneth Collard Dzerzhinsky . . . . . David Hounslow Lenin . . . . . Gyuri Sarossy Nadya . . . . . Ruth Everett
The guitarist is Ian Dunnet Jnr.
Studio managers: Peter Ringrose and Alison Craig. Sound design: Peter Ringrose. Production co-ordinator: Gaelan Davis-Connolly. Director: Sasha Yevtushenko.
Orlando Wells is a writer and an actor. Lenin Forever! is his first radio play. He has also written five original theatre plays: The Winter Room (RSC fringe festival), Cold Enough, The Tin Horizon (Theatre 503), Four Days in Hong Kong (The Orange Tree) about Edward Snowden’s exposure of the NSA’s spy programme, and The Woodcutter’s Tale. He adapted Patrick Hamilton’s The Duke in Darkness for the Chiswick Playhouse; and co-wrote the libretto for the experimental opera, Triptych, at the Print Rooms and Wilton’s Music Hall. He was a series-writer for the animated children programs Xolight and Noksu.
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0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy. |
0:05.4 | My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds. |
0:10.8 | The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that. |
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0:35.0 | check out BBC Sounds. |
0:41.3 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
0:44.6 | Welcome to Drama of the Week. |
0:55.0 | Lennon Forever by Orlando Wells. |
1:02.0 | The death of our great leader, Comrade Lenin, was honoured across the country by the sounding of factory sirens. |
1:06.0 | Symbolic, the party said, of the collective wailing of the proletariat. |
1:13.4 | It more accurately reflected the party's nerves. |
1:17.1 | Some might even say panic as to what the future held. |
1:21.4 | We were, after all, only two years out of a brutal civil war and the question on everyone's lips was would the revolution survive? |
1:26.0 | But where there's panic, there's opportunity, |
1:29.5 | and Boris Sabarski sensed an opening. |
1:33.0 | Ah, it's ringing. |
1:35.4 | Boris did that, tell you what was happening while it was happening. |
1:39.6 | Still ringing. |
1:41.1 | Professor Robbie Orp speaking. |
1:43.3 | Vologia? It's Boris. |
... |
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