News Archive

Alone Together

Drama on Radio 3
Sunday 22 March 2009
8.00 pm - 9.30 pm
BBC Radio 3 (90-93 FM)

Poet, priest, birdwatcher, scourge of the English, the ogre of Wales … who was R.S Thomas?  And why did his accomplished artist-wife Elsi Eldridge settle for a life of obscurity in increasingly remote Welsh parishes? In this ambitious biographical drama, their son Gwydion (played by Ian Puleston-Davies) seeks answers to these questions and more, whilst R.S. (Jonathan Pryce) tells his own version of events through his curiously impersonal autobiography, NEB, meaning No One in Welsh. It is in the poems, in the beautifully spare, harsh, pure language of his verse, that his true feelings and concerns are revealed.
 
Inspired by Byron Roger’s acclaimed biography The Man Who Went into the West (Aurum, 2006), Alone Together is written by Bafta award winning television dramatist Neil McKay (See No Evil, Titanic, Planespotting, Dunkirk, Innocents, The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper) who specialises in dramatising stories about real lives. Jonathan Pryce (Comedians, Miss Saigon, Evita, Pirates of the Caribbean) plays R.S Thomas, his actress wife Kate Fahy is Elsi, and Gwydion is played by Ian Puleston-Davies (Conviction, Funland, Vincent). Music is by cellist Peter Gregson from his highly acclaimed album SPEM. Directed and produced by Melanie Harris.

Alone Together will be broadcast on Sunday 22 March 2009 at 8.00 pm - 9.30 on BBC Radio 3 (90-93 FM).

For information on how to listen visit:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/help/waysoflistening.shtml#fm