Opening Lines

BBC Radio 4
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Opening Lines

Producer and writer John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact behind the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in Radio 4's weekend afternoon dramas.

  1. 6 DAYS AGO

    Our Mutual Friend - Episode 2

    “I have made up my mind that I must have money,” says the character Bella Wilfer in Charles Dickens’ last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend – and she is one of many characters in the book for whom “money, money, money, and what money can make of life” is an overriding concern. Dickens was deeply concerned with the increasing levels of inequality he saw around him in 1860s London, a city at the heart of the largest and richest empire in the world. In Our Mutual Friend he presents characters trapped by their pursuit of money, and who reveal just what they are prepared to give up of their better selves in order to achieve financial gain. John Yorke is joined by Dickens’ own great-great-great grand-daughter Lucinda Hawksley, novelist and critic Philip Hensher, and Dr Emily Bell from the University of Leeds. John has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for R4. Contributors: Philip Hensher, novelist and critic Dr Emily Bell, from the University of Leeds Lucinda Hawksley, author Reader: Paul Dodgson Researcher/Broadcast Assistant: Nina Semple
 Sound: Sean Kerwin
 Producer: Geoff Bird
 Executive Producer: Sara Davies A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

    14 min

  2. NOV 3

    Our Mutual Friend - Episode 1

    Our Mutual Friend was the last novel that Charles Dickens completed, and was written at a point of significant turmoil in the author’s personal life. It's a hugely ambitious and sophisticated novel, drawing the wild complexities of 1860s London life into its purview and marrying realism with mythic symbolism to great effect. Identities shift, deception battles unceasingly with the truth, while the great River Thames continues to flow. John Yorke attempts to bring shape and light to this disparate, dark and enormously powerful piece of work, with the help of Dickens’ own great-great-great grand-daughter Lucinda Hawksley, novelist and critic Philip Hensher and Professor Phil Davis from the University of Liverpool. John has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for R4. Contributors: Philip Hensher, novelist and critic Professor Phil Davis, from the University of Liverpool Lucinda Hawksley, author Reader: Paul Dodgson Researcher/Broadcast Assistant: Nina Semple Sound: Sean Kerwin
 Producer: Geoff Bird
 Executive Producer: Sara Davies A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

    15 min

  3. OCT 13

    Little Dorrit - Episode 1

    Little Dorrit, written by Charles Dickens in the 1850s, is among the author’s most ambitious novels containing a massive sweep of themes, characters and locations. At its heart though is the confined space of the Marshalsea Debtors Prison, where the blameless Amy Dorrit chooses to live with her incarcerated father William, who takes pride in being the longest serving prisoner in the place. In the first of two episodes focusing on the novel, John Yorke describes how the deeply personal events from Dickens’ own childhood, relating to his own father’s time at the Marshalsea, made the book such an important and personal project for him. Helping John in his analysis of one of Dickens’ truly great books is writer and producer Armando Iannucci, Professor Phil Davis from the University of Liverpool, and Dickens’ own great-great-great-granddaughter Lucinda Hawksley. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe, and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy, John has trained a generation of screenwriters. Contributors: Armando Iannucci, writer and producer Professor Phil Davis, University of Liverpool Lucinda Hawksley, author Reader: Chipo Chung Researcher/Broadcast Assistant: Nina Semple Sound: Sean Kerwin
 Producer: Geoff Bird
 Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

    15 min

  4. OCT 13

    Little Dorrit - Episode 2

    Little Dorrit, written by Charles Dickens in the 1850s, is among the author’s most ambitious novels containing a massive sweep of themes, characters and locations. It may be set 30 years before its creation, but the book feels in many ways ahead of its time, exploring themes of freedom and entrapment – both physical and psychological – in ways that would appeal enormously to later figures including Kafka and Tchaikovsky, who regarded it as such a work of genius that he forgave Dickens for being an Englishman. Little Dorrit is, too, a savage critique of mid-19th Century Britain, more seditious than Marx’s Capital according to George Bernard Shaw, with its brilliant embodiment of overarching bureaucracy in the shape of the Circumlocution Office. In the second of two episodes concerning the novel, John Yorke is joined by writer and producer Armando Iannucci, Professor Phil Davis from the University of Liverpool, and Dr Emily Bell, who is currently writing a biography of Dickens. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe, and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy, John has trained a generation of screenwriters. Contributors: Armando Iannucci, writer and producer Professor Phil Davis, University of Liverpool Dr Emily Bell, University of Leeds Reader: Chipo Chung Researcher/Broadcast Assistant: Nina Semple Sound: Sean Kerwin
 Producer: Geoff Bird
 Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

    15 min

  5. OCT 2

    Hard Times - Episode 2

    Charles Dickens’ novel Hard Times is perhaps best known for its portrayal of school inspector Thomas Gradgrind, who states clearly and repeatedly at the outset that it’s facts that matter, and education should be all about filling children up with these facts as if they were vessels rather than human beings. In this, the second of two episodes introducing Hard Times, John Yorke looks at how Dickens demonstrates the damage that Gradgrind’s utilitarian approach can have on real people, and offers in opposition to it the colourful spectacle of the circus and the sense of wonder it represents. Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce points out the ways in which traces of Gradgrind’s approach are still evident in the school room, and how counter-productive that might prove in the modern moment. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe, and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy, John has trained a generation of screenwriters. Contributors: Frank Cottrell-Boyce, screenwriter and current Children’s Laureate Dr Emily Bell, University of Leeds Deborah McAndrew, writer, director and actor Researcher/Broadcast Assistant: Nina Semple Sound: Sean Kerwin Producer: Geoff Bird Executive Producer: Sara Davies A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

    15 min

  6. OCT 2

    Hard Times - Episode 1

    Charles Dickens’ novel Hard Times is set in a northern factory town at the height of the industrial revolution, far away from the writer’s normal stamping ground of London - but it certainly doesn’t lack the overlapping plots, the wide array of characters and the incorporation of melodrama, humour and tragedy that we associate so closely with the author. Dickens had travelled north himself as a journalist to cover a cotton strike in Preston and seen first hand the various ways in which the factory system was oppressing the people living and working within it. In the first of two episodes looking at the book, John Yorke considers how Dickens transformed that eye-witness experience into the fictional world of Coketown, with its soot-blackened bricks and serpents of smoke. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe, and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy, John has trained a generation of screenwriters. Contributors: Frank Cottrell-Boyce, screenwriter and current Children’s Laureate Dr Emily Bell, University of Leeds Deborah McAndrew, writer, director and actor Researcher/Broadcast Assistant: Nina Semple Sound: Sean Kerwin Producer: Geoff Bird Executive Producer: Sara Davies A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

    14 min

  7. SEP 22

    Robinson Crusoe

    Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, is one of the most well-known and influential pieces of writing in Western literature. Initially presented as a true account, this tale of adventure, desert island shipwrecking and survival has been re-told and re-packaged for different audiences, different generations and different times - rom The Swiss Family Robinson to Lost In Space, and Lord of the Flies to Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway. The term ‘Robinsonade’ was even coined to identify the many books that followed the desert island template. John Yorke examines what makes the story work, unpacks Daniel Defoe’s skill as literary pioneer, and asks how we should view the book today. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatized in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy John has trained a generation of screenwriters. Contributor: Bill Bell, Professor of Bibliography at Cardiff University and author of Crusoe's Books: Readers in the Empire of Print, 1800-1918 (2022) Readings by Stephen Bent Excerpts from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, 1719 Archive clip from The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, TV adaptation, 1964 Researcher: Nina Semple Sound: Sean Kerwin Producer: Jack Soper Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael Production Manager: Sarah Wright A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

    15 min

  8. AUG 25

    Clear Light of Day - Episode 2

    Set in the turbulent years of 20th century India, Anita Desai’s novel Clear Light of Day brings us a story of family and political upheaval in the blistering heat of Old Delhi. John Yorke unpicks the threads that hold both family and community together until they fray and fall apart. From an opening in the 1980s we are taken backwards and forwards in time to find loyalties and tensions amongst siblings set against the backdrop of India’s turbulent history. The most significant event for India was Partition, when India became an independent country and Pakistan was created as a homeland for the Muslim communities. The divisions and ethnic violence unleashed run through the country and the Das family. In the second of two episodes, John Yorke reveals the importance of the historical and political background to the novel. He introduces us to a significant character, Aunt Mira, who symbolises all that has gone wrong as we see the contrast between her strength and resilience in youth to a state of alcohol-induced confusion and despair. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatized in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy John has trained a generation of screenwriters. Includes archive clips of Anita Desai from The View from Here, BBC Radio 4 - 18.02.95 Contributor : Kamila Shamsie, author Researcher: Nina Semple Production Manager: Sarah Wright Sound: Sean Kerwin Reader: Aarushi Ganju Producer: Mark Rickards Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

    14 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

Producer and writer John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact behind the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in Radio 4's weekend afternoon dramas.

Information

  • Creator
    BBC Radio 4
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2024
  • Episodes
    75
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © (C) BBC 2024
  • Show Website
    Opening Lines

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