The Strange Case of the Man in the Velvet Jacket by Robert Forrest

Available for 30 days

**** 4 Extra remembers Scottish actor Alexander Morton who died in April aged 81. Robert Forrest's powerful and intriguing original play based on the early life of writer Robert Louis Stevenson in Edinburgh. Set in 1873, Stevenson is invigorated by the intellectual maelstrom still challenging the way people saw and navigated the world of arts, science and politics following the Enlightment. He may have been unsure of what his role in all this could be, but it was the things he knew he had to reject - belief in God, a career in law or engineering - that creates turmoil in his own mind - and heartache in his relationship with his parents. Meanwhile his discovery of the female species was also pre-occupying his thoughts and emotions. Starring Tom Freeman. **** Robert Forrest writes, "Famously Stevenson created no convincing or complex women in his fiction until late in his life, with (to a degree) Catriona and (wonderfully) the two Kirsties in Weir of Hermiston. But the Stevenson who is revealed in his letters and essays is altogether different; his understanding of women, his liking, respect and admiration for them, are very striking. There was a story that he developed an intense love for an older Highland woman (he later was indeed drawn to women older than himself), but that youthful affair has been dismissed as mere legend. But what if this mysterious woman is his own invention, his inner muse, a dream figure he conjures up and is then haunted by? There are shades of Jekyll here - he creates this woman and then can't be rid of her. Is she the haunting figure of his muse?" Louis ..... Tom Freeman Thomas Stevenson ..... Alexander Morton Margaret Stevenson ..... Carol Ann Crawford Kate/Frances ..... Meg Fraser John Todd ..... Paul Young Mary Henderson/Henrietta/Ellen ..... Rosalind Sydney Bob ..... Keith Fleming Original music by Iain Johnstone Singer ..... Dominic Barberi Director: David Ian Neville First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in October 2011.