Up Against It by Joe Orton

**** This programme was suggested by Derek Parsons as part of BBC Radio 4 Extra’s All Request Weekend ****

Adrift in a world run by monstrous tweed-suited women shod in thick leather brogues, three men decide to start a worldwide revolution to overthrow the matriarchy.

Joe Orton's unfinished film screenplay, written for the Beatles in 1967.

Adapted for radio by John Fletcher.

Starring Damon Albarn, Leo McKern, Sylvia Sims, Joseph Fiennes and Prunella Scales.

Orton was found dead on the very day he was due to meet director Richard Lester about the making of the film.

In this first production of the play, Blur's Damon Albarn provides a musical link to the original Beatles casting.

By turns funny, moving, sexual and surreal, the play celebrates the ferocity of Orton's farce, the music of the Beatles and the 1960s Summer of Love.

Narrator .... Leo McKern
Ian McTurk .... Douglas Hodge
Jack Ramsay .... Damon Albarn
Prime Minister .... Prunella Scales
Connie Boon .... Sylvia Syms
Christopher Low .... Joesph Fiennes
Rowena Torrence .... Louise Lombard
Patricia Dromgoole .... Jacinta Mulcahy
Mayor .... Kenneth Cranham
Bernard Coates .... David Calder
Father Brodie .... Mark Lambert

With Allan Mitchell, Edward Halstead and Mark Webb.

With thanks to Sir John Gielgud and Joe Dowling.

Music: Damon Albarn

Producer: Hilary Norrish

Director: John Adams

An Armada Production for BBC Radio 3, first broadcast in September 1997.

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