Three new BBC radio collections featuring Zoë

7 November 2021 23:54

The BBC has joined forces with publisher Penguin to release three collections of archive radio programmes featuring Zoë.

This is particularly exciting news because the recordings are rare (to the best of my knowledge, some were previously only available from the British Library) and encompass a diverse range of genres.

Plus, who doesn’t like listening to Zoë’s fantastic voice?!

Such Rotten Luck: Series 1 & 2

Such Rotten Luck: Series 1 & 2 includes all 12 episodes of Ronald Hayman’s witty, wonderfully bizarre Radio 4 comedy-drama, starring Zoë and Tim Pigott-Smith. The directors were Piers Plowright and Paul Schlesinger.

Originally broadcast in 1989 and 1991, Such Rotten Luck chronicles the ups and downs of a struggling, second-class writer, Woodhouse, who’s prone to flights of fancy, and his pragmatic, increasingly exasperated wife, Gila. (As a second-class writer myself, I have to admit that the programme rings painfully true!)

Woodhouse tries his hand at everything from penning the life story of an obscure German novelist to song-writing sessions with sidekick Seamus (played by Stephen Rea). By the second series, Woodhouse and his wife are preparing for parenthood, but his head is still in the clouds – and Gila’s patience is wearing thin...

Although Such Rotten Luck is occasionally repeated on Radio 4 Extra (it was most recently broadcast in 2020), this is the first time it’s been available to buy. The collection has a suggested price of £13. You can listen to a clip from the start of episode one via Audible.

David Hare: A BBC Radio Drama Collection

One of Britain’s leading playwrights is celebrated with David Hare: A BBC Radio Drama Collection, which features full-cast productions of eight of his plays.

Among them is Radio 3’s 1987 version of The Bay at Nice, directed by Richard Wortley. Zoë and Irene Worth play two Russian women: the unfulfilled wife of a bureaucrat, Sophia Yepileva, and her formidable mother, Valentina Nrovka, respectively.

Zoë and her co-star had first performed the play at London’s National Theatre the previous year. It takes place in 1956 at Leningrad Art Museum, where the assistant curator has asked Valentina to authenticate a painting with the same title as the play itself. Could the picture be the work of Matisse, the legendary artist Valentina met during her carefree days in Paris?

Valentina eventually exchanged her bohemian lifestyle for the communist regime. Now Sophia must decide whether to give up her material comforts for love.

David Hare: A BBC Radio Drama Collection will be released on 25 November. The suggested price is £13.

Patricia Highsmith: The BBC Radio Collection

Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) was an American author with a reputation for crafting taut psychological thrillers, including Strangers on a Train. Patricia Highsmith: The BBC Radio Collection is billed by Penguin as ‘[t]he definitive collection of dramatisations and readings of Patricia Highsmith’s finest fiction’.

It includes Zoë’s reading of an abridged, ten-part version of Carol, the author’s tender yet unsettling 1952 lesbian romance novel also known as The Price of Salt. The programme was first broadcast in 1991, shortly after the novel had been reissued, and aired as part of Radio 4’s popular A Book at Bedtime series.

‘Nineteen-year-old Therese is an aspiring stage designer. Carol is older, sophisticated, beautiful and married. When they meet by chance in a crowded store at Christmas, their passionate love affair begins,’ explained the Radio Times back in 1991.

Patricia Highsmith: The BBC Radio Collection will be released on 27 January. The suggested price is £16.

Where to buy these audio downloads

You can buy (or pre-order) the collections mentioned above from Hive, Kobo, Audible and Amazon. Please bear in mind they’re audio downloads rather than CDs.

Happy listening!

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