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Paul Scofield on BBC7

May 12th, 2008 by James Bridle

I was very excited to hear - on Radio 4 -that the weekend past was going to be a Paul Scofield tribute weekend over on Radio 7. BBC Radio 7, graveyard of the forgotten sitcom and the deservedly banished panel game, might actually be worth listening to.

Paul Scofield was one of our greatest Shakespearean actors until his death in March, noted for his distinctive voice and delivery, and most famous for his generation-defining Lear, and his Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons. Personally, my favourite role of his is the droll, slightly camp narrator of Patrick Keillor's peerless London, and its follow-up Robinson In Space.

Unfortunately, this tribute turned out to be simple rebroadcasts of just three plays, which are all a bit long for Speechification, but if you have an hour and a half to spare, this is a heads-up that they're all available on Listen Again for the next week:

  • Anton in Eastbourne, Peter Tinniswood's last play, written as a tribute to Scofield and his great love of Chekhov (Listen Again).
  • Macbeth, with Peggy Ashcroft (Listen Again).
  • Dionysus, with Diana Rigg and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Listen Again).
Listen:

This entry was posted by by James Bridle on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 10:24 am . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Paul Scofield on BBC7”

  1. riffle Says:
    May 13th, 2008 at 2:41 am

    as an american who leeches off your license fees, I have to stand up for BBC 7. I’ve heard many great things that I missed before the BBC was so readily accessible to me, so I’m really in debt to 7.

    Beyond that, the Paul Scofield material sounds great and I’m glad BBC 7 is running that.

  2. Alan Prichard Says:
    March 2nd, 2009 at 10:16 pm

    I didn’t know of this broadcast till long after it was past. If either of you have the first and third items to share with me, let me know. There are no download links for these that I have found on the internet that actually supply the correct program. I have the Macbeth, which has many links on the web. Funny, the O’Conner biography mentions that Macbeth was the only role that Paul performed that was a failure. Except for Macbeth, I’m not sure Paul ever played a truly evil character. Even the Nazi General in the movie “The Train” is not purely evil, more obsessed I would say.

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