If Only
Three politicians, one from each party, are stranded by the volcanic ash cloud of 2010. David Edgar's tongue-in-cheek drama imagines the rise, and possible fall, of the Coalition.
The volcanic ash cloud of April 2010 strands a Labour spin doctor, a Tory MP and a Lib Dem party worker in Malaga airport. As they struggle to get back to the UK, they speculate about the outcome of the forthcoming election and a pact is formed. Four years later they meet again, on 4 August 2014, and the pact begins to unravel.
Originally produced for Chichester Festival in 2013, David Edgar's provocative and witty play is a fiction rooted in fact that projects ahead to imagine what might be the final consequences of the Coalition government - which in itself seemed so unimaginable only four years ago.
David Edgar is long-established as a political playwright whose credits include Destiny, Pentecost, Playing With Fire and The Shape of the Table, as well as the multi-award-winning adaptation of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby for the Royal Shakespeare Company. As he was writing If Only, he found that events in the real world, such as the rise of UKIP, were running ahead of what he had imagined so had to keep rewriting: the radio version has been updated since the Chichester production last year and will be recorded only just before broadcast.
Director Alison Hindell
±«Óãtv Cymru Wales production.
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Credits
| Role | Contributor |
|---|---|
| Peter | Raymond Coulthard |
| Ro | Hattie Morahan |
| Sam | Bryan Dick |
| Hannah | Amaka Okafor |
| Director | Alison Hindell |
| Writer | David Edgar |
Broadcast
- Sat 7 Jun 2014 14:30±«Óãtv Radio 4
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