First of all – I'm back. My summer job has ended and now I have some time to work on the Audio Drama Wiki, brew some wild apple cider, and delve deeper into the intriguing world of audio drama.
Cries from Casement as His Bones Are Brought to Dublin is one of the landmarks of British radio drama. An experimental, biographical play by David Rudkin, it tells the story of the controversial British diplomat and irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement. The play is a mixture of voices, taking the tones and guises of nonfiction and documentary, while at the same time dramatizing Casement's voice directly. It is a work of collage and amalgamation, of power and complexity.
I do not have a copy of this broadcast. It has never been released by the BBC, and I do not know if they even retain it in their archives. I know there are people out there who have copies of it. It is one of the most sought-after plays for a variety of reasons. I care about it because Elissa Guralnick devotes an entire chapter in Sight Unseen to the play, which makes the lack of availability more frustrating. Fortunately, I have two rudimentary ways to help.
First:
the Cries from Casement script, in pdf format
and second:
an mp3 of Rudkin's other masterpiece, The Lovesong of Alfred J. Hitchcock.
Like Cries from Casement, The Lovesong of Alfred J. Hitchcock explores similar formal territory, applying Rudkin's unique, sound collage approach to the complex psychology of the famous film director. While it is not Cries from Casement, I think that reading the Casement script and then listening to Lovesong will give you a good idea of what Rudkin is trying to do. And it will probably make the related chapter of Sight Unseen much more accessible.
