From the 22nd to the 30th September, the BBC are broadcasting a number of adaptations based on works by Angela Carter as part of their Get Carter season. Starting on Saturday the 22nd September, BBC Radio 4 are broadcasting the world premiere of Angela Carter’s screenplay ‘The Christchurch Murder’, which is based on the real-life murder that took place in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1954. Carter wrote this screenplay in 1988 but it has never been made until now. This production is directed by Fiona McAlpine and adapted by Robin Brooks, and will air at 14:30 on BBC Radio 4.
The following day, Sunday 23rd September, BBC Radio 3 will broadcast An Evening with Angela Carter, which consists of new adaptations of two radio plays by Carter: Vampirella, directed by Fiona McAlpine, and Come Unto These Yellow Sands, directed by Robin Brooks. Both scripts were originally written and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 back in the 1970s and were then published after Carter’s death in the volume The Curious Room (‘The Christchurch Murder’ is also collected there). Fiona Shaw will play Carter in these new interpretations, explaining her love for radio drama as a medium.
On the same day, BBC Radio 4 will also broadcast the first part of their new adaptation of Carter’s Nights at the Circus, adapted by Lucy Catherine and directed by Sasha Yevtushenko. The second and final part of this adaptation will be aired the following Sunday.
Finally, between Monday 24th and Friday 28th September, BBC Radio 4 will broadcast five short productions of stories taken from Carter’s most popular collection The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. The stories adapted include the title story, ‘Wolf-Alice’ and ‘The Company of Wolves’. All stories have been dramatised for radio by noted screenwriter Olivia Hetreed, whose previous works includes The Girl with the Pearl Earring and the recent adaptation of Wuthering Heights by Andrea Arnold. Fiona McAlpine is director once again. To find out more about this series, click here.
After the recent success of the BBC documentary ‘Angela Carter: Of Wolves and Women’, it is exciting to see that Carter’s work is getting even more attention, in particular the previously unmade screenplay ‘The Christchurch Murder’. Here’s hoping that we see more adaptations of Carter’s screenplays and radio plays.
Angela Carter Online 