Drama of the Week

• The Wind in the Willows: A Weasel’s Tale

  A new re-imagining of The Wind in the Willows told from the margins. Set in a timeless, Kenneth Grahame-inspired England, the drama looks up from weasel-height at class, home and who gets to belong when the Wild Wood is being carved up by developers. Narrated by Penelope Wilton, it blends the familiar riverbank world with the pressures of eviction, empty grand houses and power concentrated in a few determined hands.Kit, a young weasel, is watching her family slide into precarity as the scrubland around their burrow is sold off and the criminal Chief Weasel tightens his grip. With her best friends - Portly the otter and Radar the bat - Kit’s world collides with Mole, Ratty, Badger and other classic characters, while a grand house standing empty becomes a magnet for grievance and opportunity. What follows is a fight not for glory but for a place to live: shifting alliances, contested territory and small acts of care that build a community where suspicion says it cannot exist. A story about who gets to stay, what makes a home, and how belonging is made on the riverbank.Dramatist Tom Morton-Smith is a playwright and screenwriter best known for the RSC’s Oppenheimer and the multi-award-winning stage adaptation of My Neighbour Totoro.Cast:Narrator . . . . . Penelope Wilton Kit . . . . . Claire Morgan Portly . . . . . Harriet Carmichael Radar . . . . . Kathryn Drysdale Magpie, Chief, Ratty, Badger, Toad . . . . . Ed Gaughan Ma-Weasel . . . . . Jasmine Hyde Mole . . . . . Django Bevan Otter . . . . . Clive HaywardWritten by Tom Morton-SmithProduction co-ordinator: Luke MacGregor Casting Manager: Alex Curran Technical producers: Keith Graham, Sam Dickinson Sound designer: Sharon Hughes Director: Sasha YevtushenkoA BBC Studios production

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• Murder on the Mars

  Mars, 2048. The first settlers, a mix of international workers and the super-rich. And the first unexplained death.When a body turns up in the corridor between a scrappy warehouse and a half-built luxury hotel, no-nonsense Harbourmaster Rita Siddiqui finds herself in charge. With Earth temporarily out of contact and no official law enforcement on Mars, she ropes in Vice Captain Jaz Hickson, a wide-eyed young pilot who’s only just landed.But murder's not their only problem. Atmospheric tests have triggered a dangerous storm. Paranoia grows as the power fails. Lights, gravity, oxygen: everything is at risk.Rita and Jaz must navigate a growing list of suspects, a dwindling supply of patience, and a killer who’s not finished yet.Because even 140 million miles from Earth, people still have secrets. And someone’s willing to kill to keep them.Written by Tim FoleyCAST RITA SIDDIQUI ..... NISHA NAYAR JAZ HICKSON ..... LUKE NEWBERRY KAYA ..... SASHA MCABE DAN ..... JOANA BORJA POWELL ..... JASON BARNETT DR LI ..... CRYSTAL YU WARD ..... STEFFAN RHODRI NILS ..... DAVID MENKIN MAX ..... SIDHANT ANANDSound: Sharon Hughes, Keith Graham and Neva Missirian Production Co-ordinator: Luke MacGregor Director: Anne Isger Casting Manager: Alex CurranA BBC Studios Production for BBC Radio 4

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• Tipping Point

  Written by Hannah KhalilIn 2040, a Middle Eastern nation is struggling to survive rising temperatures and rolling power cuts. Architect Noura Halim has devoted her life to designing a new kind of city, one that could protect people from the worsening climate and keep her country alive. But as construction begins, the project drains the nation’s fragile resources, workers are pushed to breaking point, and her teenage daughter Amal begins to question everything her mother believes in.As tensions rise at home and across the country, Noura must confront the cost of her own ambition and the possibility that her dream of salvation could destroy the very place she’s trying to save.Tipping Point was developed through OKRE Experimental Stories supported by Wellcome in consultation with Dr Robert Hughes of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Dr Candice Howarth of the London School of Economics.Cast:Noura . . . . . Nadia Albina Amal . . . . . Eleanor Nawal Steve . . . . . Clive Hayward Mr Felix . . . . . Angus Wright Jamila . . . . . Tanvi Virmani TV Presenter . . . . . Jasmine Hyde Noura's Assistant . . . . . Sasha McCabeProduction co-ordinators: Sara Benaim and Emma Donald Sound design: Sharon Hughes Director: Sasha Yevtushenko

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• The Dagenham Porkchop

  Ronny Moffat aka The Dagenham Porkchop, a once superstar wrestler is living on crumbs, working the holiday camp circuit. When his past body-slams back into his life, Ronny has to wrestle with more than just a 20 stone athlete in a leotard.CASTRonny 'The Dagenham Porkchop' Moffat - Robert GlenisterTerry 'The Pharaoh' - Ron CookVirginia 'Vampire' Dawson - Lisa PalfreyLorraine - Holli DempseyRay 'Elvis' Evans - Dean RehmanTom - Dean CoulsonDickie Davies, Kent Walton, The Holidaymaker - Dick BradnumProduction Coordinator: Lindsay ReesSound Design: Nigel LewisProducer: John NortonA BBC Audio Wales Production

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• Samhain

  By Ben Lewis.Soulful drama infused with storytelling and song, inspired by the myths and rituals surrounding the Pagan festival of Samhain.Claire and her husband David are staying in a isolated old house on the remote Scottish island of Jura. It’s the end of October. Of all the nights of the year, this is the one when the veil between this world and the next is said to be at its thinnest. Claire’s past is about to reach out into her present...Cast in Order of Appearance :Chloe Pirrie Emun Elliot Bryan DickMusic performed by Anna Massie Sound Design by Kris McConnachieProduction Co-ordinator: Rosalind Gibson Studio Production: Keith GrahamDirected by Kirsty Williams

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