Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

This Autumn, Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3 presents a season of plays based on the theme of Conviction. For the first time, Radio 3's The Wire and Drama On 3 come together to broadcast exciting new plays and classic works centred around people with unwavering and uncompromising beliefs – and the consequences for those around them.

Featuring plays by George Bernard Shaw, Henrik Ibsen, Kwame Kwei Armah, Kate Clanchy, DC Moore, Nicola Baldwin, Peter-Jakob Kelting and Christopher Reason, the season features a stellar line-up of actors including Lyndsey Marshal, Anton Lesser, Lorraine Ashbourne, Roger Allam and Reece Dinsdale.

The Wire is dedicated to showcasing new plays and innovative new writing talent. This season brings together first time writers and playwrights, filmmakers, novelists and poets, all with ambitious ideas and stories that reflect the modern world.

Matthew Dodd, Head of Speech programming, Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3, says: "This is a first for Radio 3 – we've joined The Wire and Drama On 3 together in the Conviction series to demonstrate the range and diversity of the station's drama. Powerful and passionate new writing sits alongside inventive new productions of the classics. For the writers here, conviction means portraying people with unwavering and uncompromising beliefs, having faith in an idea, person or system, battling against forces that present unimaginable challenges. And yet these writers have created characters that emotionally engage us. This is radio drama that lifts the spirits."

The season begins in The Wire on Saturday 8 October with Nicola Baldwin's Seven Scenes. Seven Scenes follows mother Emma (Lorraine Ashbourne), seven seconds, seven minutes, seven hours, seven days, seven weeks, seven months, seven years after her daughter goes missing. Emma becomes determined that the loss of her daughter should make a difference and that out of her pain something positive must come.

Lyndsey Marshal takes the title role in a new production of George Bernard Shaw's classic Saint Joan (Drama On 3, Sunday 9 October). Shaw's Saint Joan is the embodiment of absolute conviction. Her only weapon is her belief, and the courage it puts into those around her. In Joan, Shaw presents a character of remarkable talent and unshakeable faith and reveals her fate at the hands of normal men and women who do what they find they must do, in spite of their best intentions.

Peter Jakob-Kelting delves into the dark side of the human psyche in The Last Executioner (The Wire, Saturday 15 October). It's Switzerland, 1938, and triple murderer Paul Irniger has been sentenced to death. Over 120 men have spontaneously applied to be his executioner. Based on research by a psychiatrist at the time, Kelting's play imagines five of the applicants competing for the job.

Gerard Murphy and Morven Christie star in this Drama On 3 adaptation of Ibsen's compelling drama Brand (Sunday 16 October). A religious zealot who refuses to compromise, has to face a catastrophe that involves himself and his family. Faced with the possible death of his loved ones, will he persist with his absolutism?

Kate Clanchy's Iced battles with censorship around climate science (The Wire, Saturday 22 October). Offering a provocative exploration of the current state of censorship and defensiveness in climate sciences, her play looks at the way in which instant worldwide online comment can lead (otherwise) normal people into the kind of aggressive posturing which damages truth, science and peoples lives.

The Empire, by DC Moore (The Wire, Saturday 29 October) is an examination of the conflicts of race, class, nationality and fundamental values. The Empire takes listeners to the Helmand Province with a sideways take on the conflicts of occupation during wartime. It follows soldiers Gary and Phippy on patrol as a routine procedure goes awry.

Sony Gold winning writer Christopher Reason's The Thank You Present examines the politics of the past (The Wire, Saturday 12 November). Simon (Reece Dinsdale) blames himself for Griff's (Roger Allam) suicide and spirals into depression. But the appearance at Griff's inquest of the mysterious Rachel (Tracy Whitwell) forces Simon to re-examine the past and the roots of the "blunder" that ended Griff's journalistic career.

Playwright and director Kwame Kwei Armah concludes the season with Jesus Hustler (The Wire, Saturday 19 November). Pastor T is a radical young Pentecostal minister of an urban church, famous for taking no prisoners. When a youth is found dead and the police are accused of causing his unlawful death, the community asks T to use his influence and represent his family. But can T fight his cause, believing the deceased to have been rotten to the core.

Notes to Editors

The Wire is dedicated to showcasing new plays and new writing talent, broadcasting thought provoking, challenging, entertaining and engaging drama.

The Conviction Season: The Wire

Saturday 8 October – Seven Scenes by Nicola Baldwin
Saturday 15 October – The Last Executioner by Peter-Jakob Kelting
Saturday 22 October – Iced by Kate Clanchy
Saturday 29 October – The Empire by DC Moore
Saturday 12 November – The Thank You Present by Christopher Reason
Saturday 19 November – Jesus Hustler by Kwame Kwei Armah

The Conviction Season: Drama On 3

Sunday 9 October – Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw
Sunday 16 October – Brand by Henrik Ibsen

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