Fame and Fortune (new radio series)

[Clive]

Only just uncovered this from BBC Radio 4 publicity, about a new radio series that starts tomorrow. The way it reads to me though is that Miranda was in the original 1981 TV version of 'Glittering Prizes' (which I don't think she was, unless it was uncredited). However, Digiguide lists Miranda as appearing in this new radio sequel in episode 2. Its not really clearly written here, but definitely worth checking out just in case.

Fame And Fortune Ep 1/6
Saturday 27 October
2.30-3.30pm BBC RADIO 4


Fame And Fortune is Frederic Raphael's sequel to his much-loved television classic, The Glittering Prizes. It chronicles English social life and public and private values in the last quarter of the brutal 20th century, and reunites many of the original cast – including Tom Conti, Nigel Havers, Mark Wing-Davey, Angela Down, Malcolm Stoddard and Emily Richard, as well as introducing Miranda Richardson and Antony Sher.

The play returns to the group of friends who met at Cambridge University in the early Fifties, centring on the character of Adam Morris – now a successful writer, but still as ambivalent as ever about his "Jewishness".

Adam is played in the new series by Tom Conti, who created the role on TV. Following the original characters 20 years on, the play reveals whether the glitter has tarnished and if the group have fulfilled their promise, or sold out.

The cast also features Harriet Walters, Rupert Montgomery, Alex Jennings, Flora Montgomery and Julian Rhind-Tutt.

Producer/Jo Wheeler

[EarlyBird]

nope it say introducing meaning she is new to it:D I really wanna hear thie when it's ok. I wanna listen t the episode she is in:Dthanksxxx

[Lane of Magic]

That certainly is great news - good thing Miranda will be in it now!

Thank you for posting this, Clive ))

[avalon]

October 27, 2007
Across mediums
Chris Campling

Those who never saw the 1976 TV adaptation of Frederic Raphael’s rite-of-passage novel The Glittering Prizes, but caught the book, both won and lost by it. On the one hand they missed out on the fondue dinner-party conversations about Tom Conti’s portrayal of the central (or Raphael) character, Adam Morris. On the other, they were able to read, rather than watch, about the story’s central love story, between the book’s key figures and Cambridge University during the Fifties and Sixties. It was a bit like Salad Days, but without the magic piano.

I can’t say it left much of an impression on me, beyond a vague envy for the gilded heroes and heroines, and a less vague dislike of myself for being envious of them. In fact, the only detail I remember of the plot was that Morris had a hang-up about being Jewish.

So anyway, now Raphael has written the follow-up, about what happened to his characters in the decades that followed. It’s called Fame and Fortune, it was recently published as a novel, and it, too, has been adapted – but for radio this time, not TV. It seems odd. The TV series was a bit of a landmark, and surely enough of its fans remain to make it a natural for BBC Four. But no – radio it is, and with the potential for being great radio drama. For one thing, it has practically the same cast as before – Conti again, and Nigel Havers, Mark Wing-Davey, Angela Down, Malcolm Stoddard and Emily Richard. Even the new members of the cast come festooned with kudos – Miranda Richardson and Antony Sher, Harriet Walters and Julian Rhind-Tutt.

And it is in the quality of the cast that, perhaps, we find the reason for it being on radio and not TV – these days it would just cost so much more to film.

Fame and Fortune, Radio 4, today, 2.30pm