Coming Home

Essay for BBC Radio 3

I wrote about clubbing, Shakespeare, Henry Green, Augustus Egg and Birmingham for BBC Radio 3’s The Essay. It is broadcast on 19 September 2022 at 22.45 and afterwards on BBC Sounds.

ENGLISH ROSE

• Podcast Drama Series for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. 

My  new 5-part podcast drama, English Rose, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Friday 15 July 2022 and for the next 5 Fridays at 2.15pm . It is now available as a podcast on BBC Sounds. The Daily Telegraph called it ‘Fang-tastically entertaining’ and ‘A full on feminist show-down.’ 

You can watch a recording of an event that Mary Ward Lowery, the show’s producer, and I did for the Society of Authors in September 2022 where were share  the process of developing and making English Rose. The talk is an hour long and there is 30 minutes of questions.  You can watch the video, pictured below,  here.

 

THE RETURN OF ROWENA THE WONDERFUL

.    Afternoon Play on BBC Radio 4

 

My latest 45 minute Afternoon Drama for BBC Radio 4, was broadcast on Friday 12 June 2020.  It is now available to listen to on BBC Sounds.

The countdown has begun.   Rowena is getting ready to launch herself into adult life, approaching the age when she must leave her special school in Birmingham. On a planet that often seems hostile to disabled people, how should she live, as an adult?

ALL SHOOK UP

• Fact to Fiction on BBC Radio 4. 

The FIFA Women’s World Cup begins and Sepp Blatter resigns and accusations of corruption in the world governing body rumble on.

The England players and their coach are in Canada, psyching up for the opening festivities and the media circus: waving and smiling for the photo-shoot and fielding questions about the shortness of their shorts. How do they feel about being guinea-pigs for artificial playing surfaces and who should take over from Blatter?

This surreal comedy was written over a couple of days in response to the week’s news, and produced by Mary Ward-Lowery. It stars Endy McKay, Helen Longworth, Alex Tregear, David Acton and Andrew Dunn.

ROWENA THE WONDERFUL

• Afternoon Play on BBC Radio 4
• Finalist in  ‘Best  Drama’  at the  2014 BBC Radio and Music Awards

 

Real-life magician’s assistant, Rowena is eleven years old. She was born with a rare chromosome disorder which means she can’t speak. But she can understand the language of looks and the power of stories, of music and the love of her family

This drama documentary ,  directed by Mary Ward-Lowery, and starring Dominique Moore as Rowena,  was broadcast on Friday 26 July 2013.

Rowena The Wonderful will be broadcast at a Lights Down, Listen event at the Arnolfini in Bristol as part of the BBC’s Character Invasion day.

TOLKIEN IN LOVE

• Feature on BBC Radio 4

Tolkien in Love is about The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien, and particularly his dramatic early love life in Birmingham.

It’s a little known and touching story of young love torn apart, set in and around South Birmingham, where Tolkien lived as a young man (and where I live today).  The programme, which I presented, was created and produced by Sara Conkey.

 

JAYA AND THE STAR

• Radio drama, Louder Than Words, India.

Movie addict, Jaya, a clever schoolgirl  wants nothing other than to be a superstar….that is until the day a Bollywood beauty steps down from the cinema screen to greet her….and refuses to go away.    This radio drama was produced by Shilpa Nainani for Louder Than Words, a ground breaking women’s radio station in Delhi, India. The station aims to explore issues of Indian female identity and particularly, ‘urban Indian women and everything surrounding them.’

BLUE-EYED BOY

• Afternoon Play on BBC Radio 4
• Shortlisted for the Innovation Award in the 2012 BBC Audio Drama Awards

This documentary-drama tells the true story of my father, Lawrence Cross, the evacuee who never went home. Told through improvised interviews and re-created actuality, the play is constructed as a documentary, as if it were happening now.

Directed by Mary Ward-Lowery and staring Lindsey Coulson as Violet and Jane Godber as Lilian, with John Godber as Dick.

You can read a blog article written for  BBC Writersroom about the process of creating Blue-Eyed Boy here

 

ONE DAY

•  Afternoon Play on BBC Radio 4

On Shakespeare’s birthday in 1932 two young women set off from Birmingham to see the opening of the new theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. One dreams of meeting the Prince of Wales, the other would be happier going to the local pictures. Meanwhile the architect and the producer are worrying about the building and the play.

Directed by Peter Wild with Catherine Skinner as Annie and Gillian Goodman as Joan, and Rachel Atkins as Elisabeth Scott.

Pick of the Day in The Guardian, The Times and The Daily Telegraph.

THE TYPIST WHO FLEW TO AUSTRALIA

• Afternoon Play on BBC Radio 4

‘In her first radio drama, Helen Cross reconstructs the inner life of The Typist Who Flew to Australia (2.15pm, Radio 4). Such trips happen umpteen times a week now, but this one was in May 1930. Amy Johnson spent 19 days solo, piloting a small biplane from Croydon to Darwin – the first woman to complete the flight. It brought the Hull fish merchant’s daughter a £10,000 prize and worldwide fame. Having broken further aviation records, she enlisted as a wartime transport pilot. At the age of 41, she drowned after parachuting from a mysterious incident over the Thames estuary.’  Pick of the Day The Guardian

Amy Johnson became a national heroine when she flew unaccompanied to Australia in 1928. But what dark forces drove her to make such a treacherous journey claim her place in the history books?

You can listen to it here.

Directed by Peter Leslie Wild, with Cathryn Bradshaw as Amy Johnson.

THE RESTLESS HOME

•  Afternoon Reading BBC Radio 4

The Restless Home is an eerie monologue narrated by a glamorous magician’s assistant  who, in her Forties heyday, toured the country performing to packed houses.  Now with the help of technologically savvy grandson, she’s found freedom and a new platform for her performances: delivering secret podcasts to an appreciative global audience, from the depths of her roll-in wardrobe.

Directed by Kirsteen Cameron, with Eileen McCallum as the magician’s assistant.