Kaleidoscope 3
By Tina Pepler. Set in February 2023, a new play to mark the BBC Centenary of radio drama which captures the buccaneering spirit of the early years of the wireless.
In 1928, radio pioneer and First World War pilot Lance Sieveking’s Kaleidoscope told the story of ‘the life of a man from the cradle to the grave’. Writing about the experience of using the Dramatic Control Panel/ the sound mixing panel for the first time, he said “I felt exactly as I felt on that cold bright morning when I had been told to take the aeroplane into the air alone for the first time. Exactly.”
A hundred years later, sound designer Iris finds herself following Sieveking’s path in the air, and on the air waves.
Cast:
Iris .…. Scarlett Brookes
Lance Sieveking .…. David Haig
Tom ….. David Kirkbride
David ….. Sam Troughton
Selin ….. Elif Knight
Cassie ….. Lucy Reynolds
Sound design by Alisdair McGregor and Calum Perrin
Production Assistant Annie Keates Thorpe
Directed and produced by Jeremy Mortimer
Executive Producer: Joby Waldman
Listen here.
Tina Pepler has written original plays, dramatisations, and drama-documentaries which have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3 and the BBC World Service. Her television work includes Say Hello to the Real Dr Snide, an original play for Channel 4; a two-hour historical drama-documentary, Princes in the Tower (Channel 4); and several episodes of the Victorian/Edwardian investigative drama-documentary series, A Most Mysterious Murder (BBC1), which she co-wrote with Julian Fellowes. She also co-authored an episode of his television series Downton Abbey (ITV). Her first podcast - a four-part drama - appeared on HistoryHit early in 2019. She is a Consultant Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, and a core tutor on the Oxford University Master of Studies in Creative Writing, and she has a PhD from Bristol University Drama Department. Her thesis, Discovering the Art of Wireless, focused on the personalities who pioneered broadcasting in the 1920s, and on radio drama as the magnet for the most creative talent working in the BBC in its first decade.
