COMING UP
FULL MOON ON PROGRESS STREET
BBC RADIO 3 / BROADCAST 16 – 20 DECEMBER 2024, 2145
— produced by Polly Thomas
Dr Rommi Smith examines a turning point moment in the life of five Black female musicians, revealing lesser-known aspects of their life and work, going behind stereotypes. Full Moon on Progress Street takes a close look at a key moment and song to reveal the hidden lives and interests of some of the most important Black female artists of the 20th century – Ella Fitzgerald, Big Mama Thornton, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. Dr Rommi Smith, life long jazz and blues listener, considers a key moment in the creative life of each artist, reappraising what we think we know about them from popular culture. Each essay “flips-the-script”, to show a different hidden story. All of these iconic women are broadly misrepresented – history and popular perception airbrushing their interests, politics, sexualities, creative legacy and passions.
A three-time BBC Writer-in-Residence, Rommi is a guest curator of the BBC Radio 4 programme, Poetry Please and a contributor to programmes ranging from Front Row to The Verb, The Essay to Woman’s Hour. The inaugural British Parliamentary Writer-in-Residence and Poet-in-Residence for Keats’ House, Hampstead, Rommi was also the Poet-in-Residence for the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere. Rommi’s fifth collaboration, as librettist, with the baritone and composer Roderick Williams, responds to the oratory of Dr. Martin Luther King. It will be performed by the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral in December 2024.
www.rommi-smith.co.uk
@rommismith
Written and read by Dr Rommi Smith / produced by Polly Thomas / executive producer Eloise Whitmore
— a Naked Production for BBC Radio 3
Photo credit: Lizzie Coombes
MUSICIANS ON THE COUCH
BBC RADIO 3 / BROADCAST 3 – 7 FEBRUARY 2025, 2145
— produced by Polly Thomas
Writer Amanda Dalton’s childhood was dominated by her love of playing the piano and loathing of the intensive psychoanalytical psychotherapy she underwent for 5 years. Coupled with her long, personal interest in how the brain and the body work together, this series takes an unusual look at music, focusing on human stories exploring interactions between music and troubled minds. Musicians such as Gustav Mahler, Mozart, John Ogdon, Margaret Tilly, Rosemary Brown, Hildegarde von Bingen, Liszt and Taylor Swift all afford rich material to explore the themes.
Amanda Dalton is a playwright, poet and essayist. She has three poetry collections with Bloodaxe Books, most recently Fantastic Voyage (2024). She writes extensively for BBC Radio 3 and 4. Her theatre writing includes commissions from Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Sheffield Theatres and Keswick’s Theatre By The Lake. She regularly curates and co-delivers collaborative cross-artform projects, most recently with Wainsgate Dances, Manchester Camerata and Quarantine.
https://www.amandadalton.co.uk
Written and read by Amanda Dalton / produced by Polly Thomas / sound design by Alisdair McGregor / executive producer Chantal Herbert
— a Thomas Carter Projects Production for BBC Radio 3
Photo credit: Claire McNamee
BLEAK HOUSE
AUDIBLE / RELEASE 26 SEPTEMBER 2024
— directed by Polly Thomas and Jo Tyabji
Charles Dickens’ classic revisited. London. A city drowning in fog. A man with no name dies above a strange junkshop. Threads of mist and intrigue weave around a court case with no resolution, linking great country houses with the lowest slums in the city, mingling the high-born with a boy who sweeps the filthy streets (Lenny Rush), enshrouding devious plots and sudden murder, bringing together two extraordinary women – Lady Dedlock (Thandiwe Newton) and Esther Summerson (Ambika Mod) – who apparently have nothing whatsoever in common, yet find themselves inextricably linked.
The last of Audible’s trilogy of Dickens dramatisations concludes with a dramatic and atmospheric finale. Dramatised by Marty Ross, executive produced by Sam Mendes, original score by Dan Gillespie-Sells and sound design by Joe Richardson. Cast inlcudes Thandiwe Newton, Ambika Mod, Mackenzie Crook, Mark Strong, Lenny Rush, Mark Gatiss, Adeel Akhtar, Miriam Margolyes, Sophie Stone, Philip Glenister, Alex Austin, Sule Rimi, Jonathan Slinger, Saffron Coomber, Jonathan Case, Mat Fraser and more.
For full credits and to pre order, go to www.audible.co.uk
EXEMPLAR SERIES 2
BBC RADIO 4 / BROADCAST 31 JANUARY, 7, 14, 21 and 28 FEBRUARY 2025, 1415
— produced by Polly Thomas and Jade Lewis
Second series of Best Series BBC Audio Award 2023 by Ben and Max Ringham with Dan Rebellato starring Gina McKee, Clare Perkins and Shvorne Marks. Engrossing modern thriller set in North East of England with an immersive sound world.
An audio exemplar is constructed by an audio forensic analyst recreating the precise audio conditions for a piece of evidence, in order to test it’s provenance and allow a hypothesis to be advanced in a criminal or civil case.
Jess, the idiosyncratic audio forensic scientist, has a passion for sound that makes her the UK’s leading audio forensic examiner. Working with her new colleague Maya, Jess finds herself embroiled in a new sound mystery every episode, as the mysterious DCI Serena Grey makes her presence felt on an ongoing phone hacking investigation.
Produced by Polly Thomas and Jade Lewis / original music by Ben and Max Ringham / production manager Annie Keates Thorpe / executive producer Joby Waldman / sound design Ben and Max Ringham with Lucinda Mason Brown
— a Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4
