''The Dark Tower'' is a 1946

BBC Home Service The BBC Home Service was a national and regional radio station that broadcast from 1939 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 4. History 1922–1939: Interwar period Between the early 1920s and the outbreak of World War II, the BBC ...

radio play written, in verse, and produced by

Louis MacNeice Frederick Louis MacNeice (12 September 1907 – 3 September 1963) was an Irish poet and playwright, and a member of the Auden Group, which also included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. MacNeice's body of work was widely a ...

, with music composed for it by

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

. Dramatist and author

Robin Brooks Robin Brooks (born 1961 in Leeds) is a British radio dramatist, some-time actor and author. Selected credits Adaptations * 2000 – '' The Art of Love'', a comedy, emphasizing Ovid's role as lover, with Bill Nighy and Anne-Marie Duff * 2004 – ...

, writing in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' in 2017, called it "a landmark in radio drama". MacNeice wrote the play in the autumn of 1945. At the time, he was still badly shaken by the wartime death of a schoolfriend,

Graham Shepard Graham Howard Shepard (1907–20 September 1943) was an English illustrator and cartoonist. He was the son of Ernest H. Shepard, the illustrator of ''Winnie-the-Pooh'' and ''The Wind in the Willows''. He was educated at Marlborough College and L ...

, and had what might be termed

survivor guilt Survivor guilt (or survivor's guilt; also called survivor syndrome or survivor's syndrome and survivor disorder or survivor's disorder) is a mental condition that occurs when a person believes they have done something wrong by surviving a traumati ...

. Britten had previously written the music for MacNeice's ''The Agamemnon of Aeschylus'' (1936), and ''Out of the Picture'' (1937). MacNeice asked Britten to write music for ''The Dark Tower'' "with the greatest economy". The play was first broadcast on 21 January 1946, a Monday, at 9:15pm. It was introduced as "a parable play on the ancient theme of the Quest, suggested by

Robert Browning Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings ...

's poem

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is a narrative poem by English author Robert Browning, written on January 2, 1852, and first published in 1855 in the collection titled '' Men and Women''. The poem is often noted for its dark and atm ...

". The cast included

Cyril Cusack Cyril James Cusack (26 November 1910 – 7 October 1993) was an Irish stage and screen actor with a career that spanned more than 70 years. During his lifetime, he was considered one of Ireland’s finest thespians, and was renowned for his int ...

as Roland and

Olga Lindo Olga Lindo (13 July 1899 – 7 May 1968) was an English actress. She was the daughter of Frank Lindo, a well-known actor, manager and author. She made her stage debut at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 26 December 1913. She later joined her ...

as The Mother. The "ad hoc" orchestra was conducted by

Walter Goehr Walter Goehr (; 28 May 19034 December 1960) was a German composer and conductor. Biography Goehr was born in Berlin, where he studied with Arnold Schoenberg and embarked on a conducting career, before being forced as a Jew to seek employment outsi ...

, conductor of the BBC Theatre Orchestra. The play was published by

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel B ...

as ''The Dark Tower and Other Radio Scripts'' (1947). MacNeice dedicated the published script to Britten. As part of MacNeice's centenary year (2007), Roma Tomelty and Centre Stage Theatre Company, based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, presented the radio play with an original score composed and performed by Mark McGrath.

produced a recreation of the first broadcast performance, with the BBC Concert Orchestra, at Orford Church, Suffolk, as part of the 2017 Britten Weekend. The performance was itself broadcast on

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

. The audio recording of the original 1946 broadcast is available to

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

and is the oldest complete programme made available by the BBC, online. It has a running time of 1 hour, 13 minutes.

Notes

References

External links

Online recording
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dark Tower (radio play), The BBC Radio dramas 1946 plays 1946 in radio Benjamin Britten BBC Home Service programmes