#davidtennantaudios

[consanguinitatum]

David as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing (the first time he did it, that is!)

David Tennant fans are aware of 2011's brilliant Much Ado About Nothing, in which DT starred as Benedick, alongside Catherine Tate as Beatrice. Filmed at the Wyndham's Theatre in London and directed by Josie Rourke, the production was recorded and offered on Digital Theatre.

But did you know David had played Benedick before?

Yep - he sure has!

It was in 2001, a full decade before his production with Catherine.

Beginning in 1999, BBC Radio 3 launched Shakespeare For The Millennium, an ambitious project to dramatize seventeen Shakespeare productions in four years.

The project was done in collaboration with BBC Worldwide, which emphasized it wanted to take a contemporary, innovative approach to the Bard. It launched on 12 September 1999 with a Shakespeare discussion panel, and a new production of Hamlet -- starring none other than Michael Sheen as the Dane!

On 23 September 2001, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a new production of Much Ado About Nothing as the Sunday Play, with David in the lead role as Benedick and Samantha Spiro as Beatrice. Adapted by Sally Avens, it featured an introduction (as had all the previous productions in the Shakespeare For The Millennium series) by Richard Eyre, the former Director of the Royal National Theatre.

The production also starred a few other recognizable names. There was Chiwetel Ejiofor as Claudio, Emilia Fox as Hero, David Swift as Leonato, Julian Rhind-Tutt as Don John, and David Haig as Dogberry.

All original music was composed and performed by Simon Oakes and Adam Wolters.

Radio listings and announcements, and promo photos of David and Samantha Spiro

Here's a review of the prodcuction!

Much Ado About Nothing was commercially released by BBC Worldwide as part of the BBC Radio collection series in 2001.

The sleeve notes of cassettes and CDs of the production include a scene-by-scene synopsis, a full character analysis, and an essay on interpretation from the director Sally Avens.

Almost four years later, in November 2005, BBC One broadcast a television series called ShakespeaRe-Told, a set of four adaptations of Shakespeare's plays. Each play was adapted by a different writer, and all were relocated to the present day.

The first to be broadcast - on 7 November 2005 - was a modern-day version of Much Ado About Nothing starring Sarah Parrish and Damien Lewis...and Billie Piper and Nina Sosanya and Olivia Colman!

You can watch it here:

Six days after this television broadcast - on 13 November 2005 at 7:15 pm - BBC Radio 3 re-broadcast the audio version starring David and Samantha in its 'Drama On 3' slot.

Fast forward to August 2020.

The BBC released a set of four BBC Radio Shakespeare collections: Histories, Comedies, Tragedies, and Roman Plays. Much Ado About Nothing was included in the collection of Comedies, and became available as an Audible digital download.

If you want to listen, you can find this collection a lot of places. It might be at your local library or on Overdrive, on Google Play, or as an Amazon Audible book.

Or, ya know, just go here:

[consanguinitatum]

David Tennant Audios: Classic FM One Hundred Favorite Humorous Poems (1998)

You know David as a multi-faceted performer: theatre, film, television...and audio. And it's audio we'll talk about today. In the summer of 1998, David was quite busy. He was on the back end of his run of double-billed plays, The Real Inspector Hound and Black Comedy (click this link to read my in-depth look at the two plays!) at the Comedy (now the Harold Pinter) Theatre in London. The two plays ran through 8 August 1998.

But he certainly had time to contribute a set of fourteen poem readings to the audio book Classic FM One Hundred Favourite Humorous Poems. So, are you wondering what the rest of the story is behind this obscure set of readings? Want to know what happened after they were published, and - most importantly - if you can listen to them? For the answers to all these questions, pop on over to this post on my Substack, which is called A Tennantcy To Act. Over there you'll find a ton of all things Tennant: rare, obscure, trivia-based....you name it!

Subscribing is free, but if you don't want to, you don't have to (just click on the "Nope, take me to the posts" below the subscribe button!)

[consanguinitatum]

David Tennant audios: a plethora of Macbeths (but this one's just MacB)!

It's been a while since I've delved into a lesser-known David Tennant project, so let's see if we can't fix that, shall we? And especially since he's currently at the Donmar Warehouse doing Macbeth, I've got just the thing to showcase! (And no, it isn't his 2005 role as the Porter in Arkangel Shakespeare's audio version of Macbeth, though that IS cool! And it's not the more recent April 2022 version of Macbeth he did for Radio 4 with Daniela Nardini as Lady Macbeth and Stuart McQuarrie as Banquo - two actors he's worked with in the past; Nardini in Antigone for the 7:84 back in early 1993, and McQuarrie in a 1994 production of John Byrne's The Slab Boys Trilogy at the Young Vic in London.)

No, this is yet another Macbeth-adjacent project. It was something David did in September of 2009 for a BBC Radio 7 programme called Big Toe Books. I'll say up front that I wish I knew a LOT more about this project than I do...but I just don't. So I'll tell you what I do know.

But first, a bit of history:

The Big Toe Radio Show - a children's programme aimed at children aged 9 to 11 and which featured games, music, and stories read from well-known books - ran on BBC Radio 7 from 2002 to 2007. When it ended in 2007, the BBC created another show with an adapted format to replace it called Big Toe Books.

Big Toe Books was an hour long show of book readings for older children 8+, which transmitted at 4pm. It featured presenters Kirsten O'Brien (2007-2009) and Chris Pizzey (2010-2011) and lasted until 2011, when it was axed. At the same time, Radio 7 was rebranded as a BBC Radio 4 spin-off station, Radio 4 Extra. At the time, Big Toe Books' listenership was about 136K, but only 21K were children.

Now you're probably wondering how all my ramblings about children's programmes ties in with Macbeth, right? Well as I said previously, David was a guest reader on Big Toe Books, and at 4pm on 14 Sep 2009, he read a book by Neil Arksey called MacB!

And there's the tie-in!

Here are a few blurbs from various newspapers featuring the listing for the show - and oh, incidentally, if you look at the 6pm slot, you'll see a show called Seventh Dimension. That show was a speculative fiction show of various kinds - and in early 2007, it featured a series of original Doctor Who audio dramas starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor!

But back to David and MacB. Now Arksey's book wasn't the Macbeth we're familiar with…not really. Firstly, his book was written for young adults. Secondly, it was based on Macbeth the play, but Arksey set it on the football field rather than the Royal Court. Here's a summary of the plot: "It tells the tale of two best friends, Banksie and MacB. The two train together at football all summer in the hopes of getting onto the football team. When a fortune Teller tells them both that each would be captain, it seems unlikely, especially as they are up against star striker Duncan King, the most likely man for the job. When Duncan has a terrible accident that means he can't play, Banksie has suspicions about whether it really was an accident after all. Was it fate, or did MacB have a hand in it?"

And that's pretty much all I know about David's stint as a guest reader for BBC Radio 7 programme Big Toe Books, reading Neil Arksey's book MacB (which was originally published by Puffin in 1999). Like I said, I wish I had more information about this audio drama. But this little bit is all I've been able to find. And oh, if you want to hear it, go here! I won't tell if you won't!

[consanguinitatum]

David Tennant audios: Tuesdays & Sundays is an audio gem

As you all know by now, surely, I'm a David Tennant theatre buff, but right now I want to explore my other major passion with regards to his work: his audios. He's done a bewildering amount of audio work and a lot of it is really, really good. With that in mind, I'm going to concentrate on one of my absolute favorite David Tennant audio works: a 2003 audio entitled Tuesdays & Sundays.

Based on a true story of an 1887 series of events between a young woman named Mary Tuplin and her lover William Millman in Margate on Canada’s Prince Edward Island, Tuesdays & Sundays begins with the young couple's spirits as they "awaken into a void. As they question where they are, they recall and begin to relive the story which got them there: their giddy courtship and the overwhelming passions of first love, the pangs of a six-month absence, an unplanned pregnancy, and a guilty and shameful young man amidst a community in which respectability is of utmost importance. As they try to cope, to keep love amongst the fear and confusions of youth, these two spirits ultimately stumble upon their own tragic ending."

Sounds intriguing, yes?

Tuesdays & Sundays was originally a 45-minute play written by Canadians Daniel Arnold and Medina Hahn. It was first performed in June 2000 in Edmonton, Canada, with the authors as the two principal characters William and Mary. Arnold and Hahn took the play on tours throughout Canada, Europe and the US and won many awards, including the Sterling Haynes Award for Outstanding Fringe Performance.

In 2003, Arnold and Hahn were asked to adapt the play for radio; one for Canada's CBC Radio (which starred themselves) and once for the BBC. I spoke to Arnold about how the play got adapted, and he told me, “CBC Radio was the first to approach us about a radio version, and we performed it on CBC Radio with minimal adaptation. The Edinburgh Festival is where Sara Benaim of the BBC saw it, and asked about a radio adaptation for BBC Radio 4. We adapted the play accordingly, and…re-set it to [Tusket in] Nova Scotia, where there was much more Scottish settlement. Margate on Prince Edward Island was much more English. We made…the characters both immigrants from Scotland, which actually worked quite well.”

The BBC adaptation was broadcast on 16 June 2003 as the BBC Radio 4 Afternoon play and starred David as William and Claire Yuille (who later appeared in the first episode of 2010’s Single Father, credited only as a “Doting Mum") as Mary. And on top of all that, David and Claire also voiced all of the play's other minor characters!

Of David’s turn as the young William Millman, Arnold told me, “We were quite taken with his performance in it.” He added, “We were thrilled when we learned David Tennant would play (my role) William…and when we heard the recording on the BBC, it sounded fantastic.”

And it DOES! In my opinion, there are so many reasons why this play is stupendous. David and Claire are top-drawer. The dialogue is back and forth, breathless and imbued with teenaged giddiness, bullet-paced and conversational - both with each other and in asides to themselves - and it must've taken some doing for the two actors to get this pace down just right without running over the top of each other and blurring it into chaos. But instead, it creates a perfect tension-filled atmosphere that draws an audience in and makes this play a must-hear.

By this time I imagine you're wondering where you can hear or read this play. Well, here's a partial script. Here's the original Canadian radio broadcast at the Internet Archive (which is a great listen in and of itself) but, sadly, hearing David's version had become a bit more difficult. The Internet Archive had a copy once but it's been removed, and Arnold and Hahn's DualMinds website has almost 5 minutes of the play, but as it's based in Flash Player good luck getting it to work. But I won't tell if you won't tell - so go get it here while it's still available. ;)

Here's a cute little David in advertising for the play - and below, some other historical information about the events the play is based on. If you don't want to know anything about the play before listening to it (spoilers!) then don't look beyond this photo!

-----

The real Mary Pickering Tuplin was 17 years old when she was murdered, and her lover William Millman was convicted of the crime. Tuplin’s body was pulled from the Southwest River on July 4, 1887, just a short distance from where she lived with her parents in Margate. She had been shot twice in the head. Her body was weighed down with a heavy stone, and it was discovered she had been six months pregnant. Authorities separated her head from her body for forensic examination, and - bizarrely - it was never reunited with her body. It remained in the coroner's office, which eventually became a pharmacy. And there it remained until 2016, when it was finally reburied with the rest of her remains.

If true crime is your thing, you can access the entire report of the Tuplin-Millman murder trial, right here!

William Millman was convicted of Mary Tuplin's murder and was sentenced to hang. Despite the jury’s recommendation for mercy, he was hanged on 10 April 1888.

Many believe him innocent of the crime. Was he? It's highly unlikely we will never know.

[consanguinitatum]

Rare David Tennant audios: another Did He or Didn't He? in The Tragedy of Two....whatsits?

I've talked about David's rarer audio work before (referring to the magical Tuesdays & Sundays, which I've covered earlier) but today I thought I'd switch gears and talk about one of the very few audio works of his I don't have and would love to find. This particular one is special because I've never seen it listed on any forum as an audio David ever did. I popped over to see if it was listed at the venerable David Tennant fan site and nope, they don't have it listed. Neither does VK's usually stellar David Tennant Asylum.

But he did it.

Before continuing, I need to first mention dramatist and author Jane Rogers. Rogers wrote the book The Island and worked on its radio adaptation in 2002. She also adapted The Beach of Falesa and The Ebb Tide from Terror in the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Island was broadcast 22 Oct 2002 on BBC Radio 4 as the Radio 4 Friday Play, and the Stevenson duo was broadcast in Dec 2016 on BBC Radio 4. David has played roles in all of these audio plays.

Let’s keep Jane in mind for now, shall we? For here is where my journey began.

I first learned about this mystery audio's existence years ago from David's profile in the programme for his 1999 play Vassa. Listed among his radio credits was a play called The Tragedy Of Two Virtues.

WELL.

Knowing for certain I'd never seen this play listed elsewhere in his credits, I began to hunt. During the few years of frustrating on again and off again searching which followed I saw the words "Two Ambitions" pop up now and again. I kept dismissing this as a 'close-but-no-cigar' kind of thing - until finally I didn't, and started taking an alternate possibility more seriously. Perhaps the programme had just mis-named the thing?

To that end I did some reading on Hardy's A Tragedy of Two Ambitions. The story is about two brothers, Joshua and Cornelius Halborough, who want to escape from their humble surroundings and get away from the alcoholic, irresponsible father who threatens to destroy everything they've worked for. If you're interested, you can read further details about the plot here.

I also needed to narrow down the date when David might've done this audio, so I went back to the programme it had been mentioned in - the Jan 1999 Vassa programme. It was there, but it wasn’t in any published programmes from David's previous play (Real Inspector Hound/Black Comedy, Apr to Oct 1998). That helped me place the audio's possible production date between Oct 1998 and Jan 1999.

But this possible late 1990s time frame worried me. After 2000, the BBC policy was to archive all "performance programmes" on CD, so (theoretically) plays after that date should exist in the BBC archive. But before then? Oh boy. Well over 90% of broadcast radio plays were not kept. Ughhhh!

But onwards, research-wise. I dove into the BBC Genome Project to see if an audio production called The Tragedy of Two Ambitions fell in that time frame, and lo and behold it had! But it wasn't the full court press "AH HA!" moment I'd hoped; while David's name wasn't listed in its entry, it did give me the dramatist's name. So I determined it was best to just go to the source and ask.

(Re)enter Jane Rogers.

When I finally managed to contact her, my first question to her was, “Was a young David Tennant one of the cast members in the piece? I ask because he did an elusive audio in the same time frame that's been (possibly) mislabeled A Tragedy of Two Virtues, and I suspect your piece might be the correct title?”

Initially she told me she wasn't at all sure he was in it, because her first recollection of meeting David was for the audio adaptation of The Island. She told me, "As far as I remember, the first time I met David Tennant was when he played Callum in my radio drama The Island, adapted from my own novel. He was a young and relatively unknown actor at that point, and was absolutely brilliant. As, of course, he has continued to be!"

But later, after she found her script for the play, she was able to confirm for me that David was indeed a cast member in the audio - a fact which surprised and delighted her as much as it did me. Rogers said David played the lead part of Joshua, and the play had been recorded on 21 Nov 1998. And here's a cool story: she said the fact it was David had probably slipped her mind because the play was recorded in West Country accents, and she strongly associated David with his natural Scottish accent. West Country, huh? Now that's an accent I'd like to hear him do!

A Tragedy of Two Ambitions was broadcast on 7 Dec 1998 as the fourth of four episodes of Life's Little Ironies, a BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play. It was 45 minutes in length. Other cast members were Alex Lowe, Abigail Docherty, Anthony Jackson, Susan Brown, and Charlie Simpson. Its producer was Clive Brill for Watchmaker Productions, and it was recorded at The Soundhouse in Shepherds Bush, London.

It's an audio play that I would dearly love to have in my collection. I've searched high and low. Unless someone recorded it back in 1998 and saved it, it's likely gone. But stranger things have happened. After all, old DW episodes are still being found, right?

Now - if you've stuck with me this long, I've got a goody to tell. But it's not about The Tragedy Of Two Ambitions - it's about The Island (and if you haven't listened to that play go forth and do it! It's a lovely piece). Rogers told me The Island was recorded on the Isle of Skye because with a small cast, it was often cheaper to record on location than rent a studio in London. The cast stayed at the Kinloch Lodge and recorded in the hotel and on a small private beach. But recording on location meant the cast couldn't access fancy sound effects, so sound effects were done on the fly. While on that private beach, Rogers said, the cast noticed a ruined rowing boat half-full of water. David splashed around in it when they needed watery effects. So when you listen to the play and you hear splashing water, that's our dear David!

And thus ends my story of the mystery of The Tragedy Of Two Ambitions (and the tiny treat of a behind-the-scenes story about The Island).

If anyone can find that audio, contact me. I beg of you!

[consanguinitatum]

Sunburst Finish - my (other) favorite David Tennant audio drama

Hello again, everyone! Today we'll be discussing David's 2002 audio drama, Sunburst Finish!

A bit ago I did a long discussion thing about one of my favorites of DT's audio projects, the 2003 audio drama Tuesdays & Sundays by Daniel Arnold & Medina Hahn. Today's deep dive is into my other favorite audio drama - 2002's Sunburst Finish by Andrea Gibb, with Paddy Cunneen.

I say "other favorite" because boy, do I do a lot of flip-flopping between these two audio dramas. One day one will be my all-time favorite, but then if you ask me the same question the next week, you'll probably get a different answer. They're both just SO stellar, and David is sublime in both. So don't ask me which one I prefer!

Speaking of Gibb and Cunneen - Sunburst Finish isn't the first (or last) time David's worked with them. In this earlier thread I discussed 1997's Bite, a fantastic short also written by Gibb, with music composed by Cunneen.

Here's a little bit about the author(s): Andrea Gibb is an award-winning Scottish screenwriter/actor. As an actor she's best known as Deirdre in All Creatures Great And Small, and as a screenwriter? You name it! Dear Frankie, Call The Midwife, AfterLife, Mayflies...I could go on and on! Her ex-husband Paddy Cunneen is an award-winning Scottish theatre director, playwright and composer for radio, TV and film. Some of his best-known works include scores for Boy A, King Lear and Twelfth Night, and for his plays Fleeto and Wee Andy. He's also an Associate Music Director of the Cheek by Jowl Theatre.

Throughout David's career, he and Cunneen have worked on many of the same projects. Other than Bite and Sunburst Finish, Cunneen's composed the music scores for three more plays starring David: 1995's An Experienced Woman Gives Advice, 1999's Vassa, and 2003's The Pillowman.

But back to Sunburst Finish! I don't know half as much about this play - what was its inspiration (was it based in real life events?), was it written specifically for audio, was the lead character called 'Davey' by coincidence or specifically for David, what if anything was the significance behind the title Sunburst Finish, etc? - as I'd like to know. But I'll tell you what I do know: Sunburst Finish was produced by BBC Radio, and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as the Friday Play. It went out at 9-10pm on 24 May 2002. David played Davey, the lead role. It was directed by Gaynor Macfarlane. Other cast members were Julie Austin as Amy, Ewan Stewart as Uncle Gus, and Helen Lomax as Georgie.

It's hard to talk in-depth about the plot of this audio without giving the thing away, but here's a little something from The Guardian (trigger warning - references to self-harm). It describes the play as follows: "Davey is a gifted music undergraduate with plenty of friends, who appears to have everything going for him - except that he doesn't want to live."

And also, here's the play's BBC Genome entry:

It appears the play was received very well, for in 2004, Gibb and Cunneen adapted 'Sunburst Finish' for the stage. Some 2nd year acting students from David's alma mater, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (the RSAMD, now the Royal Conservatoire) put on a production. On 23 February 2004, it was performed at the Dundee Repertory Theatre (in association with the Rep).

The production was also performed at the Tron as part of the RSAMD student Play:ground season, and ran for one night only on 3 March 2004. Emun Elliott (Black Watch, Star Wars, Guilt and Game of Thrones) played Davey, and Paul Blair played Uncle Gus. The Scotsman had this to say about the play: "...Here, though, the subject is the confusion and despair of a final-year music student who - despite the concern of his parents, sister and girlfriend, and the gruffly affectionate care of his uncle Gus, an aging rocker turned sheep-farmer - finds the darkness in his mind too much to bear. There’s a conventional hint of untold family secrets and lies at the root of the boy’s despair..."

Announcement of the play's performance at Glasgow's Tron Theatre

But back to David's version! For a brief and glorious period in 2018, Sunburst Finish was uploaded to the Internet Archive. It was swiftly removed because REASONS, but many (me-me-me-me!) got to enjoy it, including this iconic moment when Davey sings Nirvana's 'All Apologies' with his uncle Gus, and this adorable little singy-song to Semisonic's 'Secret Smile'!

If you're interested in the play and want to read it, you can...sort of? If you can find the stage screenplay adaptation, that is. One was published in 2004 by Capercaillie Books Limited, but it's sold out everywhere I looked - and as I really wanted one, believe me, I've looked!

There's also a printed version available at the University of Glasgow, though! It's a 103 pg 4th draft script of the audio play - not the stage adaptation - and it's held in the Scottish Theatre Archive collection. Wish I'd read it when I was doing my postgrad work at the University in 2018-2019, but I had so many other things on my research plate, it (sadly) slipped through the cracks.

And that's it for 'Sunburst Finish' - and this edition of Obscure DT!

[consanguinitatum]

David Tennant Audios I'm Trying To Find: Supermarket Zoo

I've been posting a lot about the rare and obscure David Tennant works I've been able to find, or ones he did early in his career, or....you know, pretty much anything weird and wonderful this incredible Scottish thespian ever did, no matter how niche! I spend a lot of time hunting that stuff down and oftentimes - as this story about my journey trying to find his short film, Bite, explains - I manage to score and find what I'm looking for in a big way. But not always. So tonight, dear readers, I'll switch gears and have a rant about talk about something I'm actually trying to FIND. I'll preface all this by saying I believe I'm only missing a few of David's audio works (well, at least the audio works which I know he did.) Sadly, there's no IMDb-like comprehensive source for the entirety of his audio work like there is with his film and television career: the closest thing to this is the BBC Genome Project, which - while remarkable! - is primarily a source which catalogues audio broadcast over the BBC, not a repository for the names of the actors involved in each audio. The Genome Project has some gems - for example, you can listen to David's remarkably in-depth 45-min 2009 interview for Desert Island Discs, where he talks about his family life as a child, dealing with his fame, and what music he'd take on a desert island - but it doesn't do as well for old audio broadcasts, mostly because prior to 2000 or so, the BBC didn't really keep copies of audio broadcasts! The Project does have copies of the Radio Times, though, so often it is these which provide some clue as to David's audio projects. But they're not comprehensive, either.

All this to say, I think I have the majority of David's audio work. I've found a few more over the years which weren't attributed to him in any other place but his biography blurb in the programmes of his theatre work - and I've found those, too (a few very recently!) But David's done a lot! He's as prodigious with his audio as he is the rest of his career, and I would not be surprised in the least to learn that the list I have isn't as complete as I think it is. He's more than likely done more audios than I currently know about, because....he's David, that's why. The Energizer Worker Bunny! Regardless....I do have a lot of his audios. Put it this way - I have over 120 audios he's done since 1993, and if my list is accurate, I only lack five (!!) audios to make the list complete. Three out of the five I need are early 2000s (when the BBC didn't always archive their recordings), one is from 1989 when he was in drama school, and the last, weirdly, comes from 2010 and isn't even from radio!

This last one is his narration of a children's book called Supermarket Zoo by Caryl Hart, and illustrated by Ed Eaves.

Here are a few of Eaves' illustrations for the book:

from https://edeavesillustrator.com/supermarket-zoo-2

I would LOVE to find this audiobook...somewhere. Damn it!

Supermarket Zoo was published by Simon and Schuster and copyrighted 2010. The ebook was published in 2011, and I believe David recorded the narration for the audiobook sometime before May 2011. The audiobook music was written and composed by Iain Carnegie, and he lists it here on his website.

You can find copies of the book all over the internet. But try finding a copy of the audiobook! Arghhhh!

[consanguinitatum]

Rare David Tennant audios: The Return Of Chorb

So a little bit ago I posted about an obscure David Tennant audio project I'm trying to FIND, since I'm only missing a few of all the audio works DT's done. Today I post another of these few. Sad to say I don't know much about this one, but I'll share what I do know!

The subject of tonight's feature is another of his audio dramas that isn't listed at http://david-tennant.com or at VK's David Tennant Asylum. This one was broadcast twice - 19 Mar 2004 and 17 Nov 2004 - and was based on a short story by Vladimir Nabokov: The Return Of Chorb.

Both broadcasts of the The Return of Chorb began at 8:20p. It was the featured play on Twenty Minutes, dramatic pieces used as interval programming for the BBC Radio 3 series entitled Performance On 3. BBC Radio 3 concentrates on live & classical music as well as the arts.

From the Evening Standard, 17 Nov 2004

On 19 Mar 2004, the broadcast of The Return Of Chorb was used as the interval piece between the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and a performance of Schumann Operettas 92 and 52.

On 17 Nov 2004, the broadcast of The Return Of Chorb was used as the interval piece between The Musicians Benevolent Fund's annual Royal Concert from Birmingham, and the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique.

And the plot? "A municipal German opera house is the backdrop for a sublimely awkward evening in this atmospheric tale of love and loss. Aging German couple the Kellers are forced to confront some unexpected news when their son-in-law Chorb returns home early from his honeymoon."

The Guardian gave DT a good review! "Today's Twenty Minutes is a masterpiece of melancholy: Nabokov's story, The Return of Chorb. Chorb's wife has died during their honeymoon, and now he must break the news to his in-laws. Don't miss David Tennant's beautifully understated reading."

If these little teasers have made you curious, you can go read an in-depth analysis of the story here!

Sadly, that's the extent of my knowledge about The Return Of Chorb. I wish I knew more about it! I'm in active search mode for an audio recording - as I am for all DT audios I've yet to locate - and I hope to find it soon. I may have stumbled across a promising lead, but time will tell.

I'll be back soon with more interesting Tennant tidbits!

[blogdeepbelieverbouquetworld]

Celebrating 60 years of 'Look Back in Anger' with an incredible cast!

'Look Back in Anger' Richard Wilson directs this dramatisation, starring David Tennant as Jimmy Porter. Premiering in 1956, John Osborne's classic play that launched the Angry Young Man movement has lost none of its bite and still disturbs and questions in equal measure. Jimmy Porter……………David Tennant Alison……………………..Nancy Carroll Cliff………………………..Daniel Evans Helena…………………….Claire Price Colonel……………………Sir Ian McKellen Director: Richard Wilson Producer: Clive Brill A Brill production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in April 2016.

The Soundhouse Ltd х

[blogdeepbelieverbouquetworld]

Between Jan 1 - 7 actor David Tennant will be presenting our Theirworld appeal on BBC Radio 4

[blogdeepbelieverbouquetworld]

Dirk Maggs    х

The Sandman Act II BTS: Season of Mists.  

David Tennant as Loki.  

[blogdeepbelieverbouquetworld]

Photos from the recording of Doctor Who: Sympathy for the Devil (20 years ago).

Big Finish Insider    х     х

[blogdeepbelieverbouquetworld]

Apple Podcasts Preview

David Tennant and Paapa Essiedu discuss the perils of taking on Hamlet, Bond rumours, shit-humbling, the weirdness of Doctor Who-level stardom, and being gripped by the fear. The episode was recorded in March 2022 over Zoom.  

Photo: Doreene Blackstock (August 7, 2016)

[blogdeepbelieverbouquetworld]

The Legend of the Cast of The Legend of Vox Machina

[blogdeepbelieverbouquetworld]

David Tennant To Guest Star In The Legend Of Vox Machina.

David Tennant will take on the role of General Krieg.

The Legend of the Cast of The Legend of Vox Machina

[blogdeepbelieverbouquetworld]

undefined

The Legend of the Cast of The Legend of Vox Machina