John Yorke looks at The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov’s final play and a landmark in 20th century theatre.It’s 1903 and Liubov Andryeevna Ranyevskaya has returned to the family estate in southern Russia. As the head of this aristocratic household she faces a dilemma. The family is in serious financial difficulty and they have the choice of either selling the entire estate, or accepting the proposal of local businessman, Lopakhin, to cut down their beloved cherry orchard to make way for holiday homes and use the money to pay their debts. In the second of two episodes, John looks at how Chekhov’s use of ambiguity, his skilful combination of comic and tragic elements, and his rejection of naturalism represent a departure from his previous work and were to prove so influential in the development of 20th century theatre.John has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative, including many podcasts for Radio 4.Contributors:
Simon Russell Beale, whose long and distinguished acting career has seen him play many roles, including his performance as Lopakhin in a 2009 production of The Cherry Orchard at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He also won an Olivier Award for his performance as Uncle Vanya in 2003.
Rosamund Bartlett, a cultural historian with expertise in Russian literature, music, and art. Her books include Chekhov: Scenes from a Life and she has also translated and edited selections of his stories and letters.
Benedict Andrews, director of an acclaimed production of The Cherry Orchard at the Donmar Warehouse in London in 2024.Reader: Torquil MacLeod
Closing music: Torquil MacLeod
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Executive Producer: Sara DaviesA Pier production for BBC Radio 4
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14:09
The Cherry Orchard - Episode One
John Yorke looks at The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov’s final play and a landmark in 20th century theatre.It’s 1903 and Liubov Andryeevna Ranyevskaya is returning to the family estate in southern Russia. As the head of this aristocratic household, she faces a crisis. The family is in serious financial difficulty and it seems inevitable that the estate will have to be sold to pay their debts. A local businessman, Lopakhin, offers a solution, but it would mean the loss of their beloved cherry orchard. In this first of two episodes, the focus is on these two main protagonists, who embody the tensions between the old aristocracy and the emerging merchant class, and the student Trofimov whose revolutionary ideas point prophetically towards the path that Russia was soon to take.John has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative, including many podcasts for R4.Contributors:
Benedict Andrews, director of an acclaimed production of The Cherry Orchard at the Donmar Warehouse in London in 2024
Rosamund Bartlett, a cultural historian with expertise in Russian literature, music and art. Her books include Chekhov: Scenes from a Life and she has also translated and edited selections of his stories and letters.Excerpt taken from the BBC Radio 3/Palimpsest production of The Cherry Orchard, directed by Toby Swift, with Neil Dudgeon as Lopakhin and Saffron Coomber as Dunyasha. It was first broadcast on Radio 3 on 18th November 2018.Music: Torquil MacLeod
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Executive Producer: Sara DaviesA Pier production for BBC Radio 4
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14:42
On the Origin of Species
Charles Darwin’s ideas changed our understanding of the world perhaps more than those of any other British scholar. His famous voyage on HMS Beagle ended in 1836, and he had developed his findings into his theories on evolution and natural selection within six years. It was not, however, until 1859 that he shared these revolutionary ideas with the public in On The Origin of Species, a book far different to the one he had intended to write. In this episode of Opening Lines, John Yorke examines what finally led Darwin to write this pioneering work of popular science, and the impact it had upon his contemporaries. The programme features evolutionary biologist Dr Tori Herridge of the University of Sheffield. John has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative, including many podcasts for Radio 4.Clip of Andrew Marr from ‘Great Britons: Darwin’ BBC2 (2002)Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Geoff Bird
Reader: Paul Dodgson
Executive Producer: Caroline RaphaelA Pier production for BBC Radio 4
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14:38
Treasure Island
John Yorke looks at Treasure Island, the great swash-buckling adventure by Robert Louis Stevenson that inspired almost every pirate tale to follow. Stevenson wrote the story to amuse his stepson on a wet holiday in the Scottish Highlands, with the original title The Sea Cook. Looking back at his time as a boy, narrator Jim Hawkins recounts his thrilling adventures on land and at sea in the pursuit of buried treasure, and we discover that the sea cook is none other than archetypal pirate Long John Silver, one-legged and with a parrot on his shoulder, one of Stevenson’s great literary creations.John Yorke argues that Treasure Island has a profound and lasting impact even in the age of Minecraft, Reality TV and YouTube length dramas, and in this episode of Opening Lines he will explain why.John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for R4.Contributor:
Louise Welsh, author and Professor of Creative Writing, Glasgow UniversityExtracts from:
Michael Morpurgo, Twice Upon a Time podcast produced by Hat Trick Productions Ltd, 2022
Claire Harman, BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives, 2005Reader: Crawford Logan
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Mark Rickards
Executive Producer: Caroline RaphaelA Pier production for BBC Radio 4
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14:03
Hiroshima
In the months that followed the end of the Second World War, very few people in the West knew the true power of the atomic weaponry that had forced the Japanese surrender. John Hersey’s article Hiroshima would change that.Released a year after the bombs were dropped, the New Yorker piece was journalistic dynamite and sold out in hours. Published in one instalment - taking up the whole edition of the magazine - Hersey’s meticulous and unflinching account of what happened after the atom bomb detonated brought home the horror of atomic weaponry to the world and changed journalism in the process. John Yorke speaks to Janine di Giovanni, award winning war reporter and founder of The Reckoning Project (a war crimes unit that operates in Ukraine and the Middle East) about how pivotal the article was and how it impacts her work today.John has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and shares his experience with listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative, including many podcasts for R4.Contributors:
Janine di Giovanni, war reporter and founder of The Reckoning Project.
David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker
John Hersey, authorArchive:
The David Remnick audio, and the John Hersey interview (taken from the American Audio Prose Library interview conducted by Kay Bonetti Callison, 1988) were both originally broadcast as part of Hersey’s Hiroshima produced by Dora Productions Ltd, BBC Radio 4 2016.Reader: Riley Neldam
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Tolly Robinson
Executive Producer: Sara DaviesA Pier production for BBC Radio 4
Producer and writer John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact behind the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in Radio 4's weekend afternoon dramas.
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