As I type this you have just over three weeks to catch The Dad Who Fell To Earth on iPlayer. It is a play I wrote for Radio 4 about a man who discovers that his recently deceased father wasn’t a door-to-door salesman as he thought but in fact an alien from a distant world charged with preventing the destruction of mankind. It’s about grief and loss and a purple planet with clever cats.
The play stars Ronald Pickup as Russ, Cherylee Houston as Jan, Alexandra Mathie as Wendy, Lee Fenwick and Pete/Steve, and Zoe Iqbal and Chelsea. Oh, and me. The producer is the fabulous Charlotte Riches. Most of us are pictures below.
I can honestly say that is has been the most rewarding engagement of my professional life so far – the writing process was smooth, the cast are fabulous and Charlotte has done an amazing job with the edit (Sound by Sue Stonestreet, one of the unsung heroes of the radio department at the BBC in Salford). I’m delighted to say the the play received Pick Of The Week in The Independent, The Observer, The Telegraph and The Mail.
You can listen on it here (depending on what date you read this):
I’m delighted to listen to this again as I write a trail for the first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra in January 2020!
I’ve just had an horrendous trip down the M4 only made tolerable by your lovely play. I really enjoyed it, and your great performance. Radio 4 plays a re very hit and miss but this was a huge hit. Thank you.
Dear Julie,
How very kind of you to take the time and trouble to say such nice things. I’m glad to have been the sort of diversion that is welcome in a motorway journey.
I really appreciate your kind comments, thank you.
Absolutely excellent work, this — anybody who missed it has really missed out. Very well presented, entertaining and engaging, with exactly the right proportion of in-jokes and sly references for those of us ‘in the know’. (I particularly liked the way Steve’s surname passed without comment.) And the ending — which must include the credits — left the interpretation pleasingly open, so we can be safe in the knowledge that we know what *really* happened.
Although it’s too late to hear the play itself, the ‘behind the scenes’ interviews on the iPlayer page are well worth a listen too.