... Domestic drama well judged BY MOIRA PETTY Few playwrights have caught the stultifying nature of family relationships better than Tennessee Williams. Gordon House's supremely well-judged production of The Glass Menagerie (BBC World Service in conjunction with LA Theatre Works, from Saturday, Apnl 19) and boast ing the Broadway cast perfectly evoked what Williams called the slow and ...

... Friel makes good sense BY MOIRA PETTY Brian Friel knows that the greatest acts of heroism are contained in the smallest lives. The great Irish playwright never extends erudition into pretentiousness or self-insight into ennui. His penchant tor aeiivenng a series of neatly-interlocking set- pieces on apparently ordinary lives is seen again in Molly Sweeney (BBC Belfast for R3, Sunday, April 27) ...

... There's nothing better than a Tinniswood treat Peter Tinniswood has become the master of love in trie afternoon, of passion for the non- pulchritudinous, of shrieks and gasps at once comical and mournful. The women in a Tinniswood play are like a Beryl Cook painting come to life; the men are Lowiy matchsticks. So it was a treat to find two new Tinniswoods in as many days. Next Time We Might ...

... What the hell, it's insignificant anyway A quartet of characters, led by Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein, meet in a New York hotel bedroom in 1953 and debate the meaning of life. The Theory of Relativity, TV dinners in suburbia, the philosophy of fame and the paucity of their ships are on the agenda. The result, in Terry Johnson's stage play Insignificance (R3, Sunday, June 15), was an ...

... Plenty captured on the run BY MOIRA PETTY During the past fortnight, the sensation of being plunged into an alien environment has been pursued on radio. There has been a parallel enquiry into the perils of life among your own, none more terrifying that Tanika Gupta's The Bounty Hunter (BBC Birmingham for R4, Thursday, June 26). It was based on true stories of the Asian runaway women who are ...

... Terror submerged deep down The awful theme of the murder of one child by another was the springboard for a gripping investigation into childhood innocence and culpability in Killing Susan (R4, Thursday, July 3). Writer Vivienne Allen and director Peter Kavanagh handled their delicate subject matter with verve and without squeamishness. Davina (Poppy Keeling) recalled that far off day in ...

... Searching for that pithy mode By MOIRA PETTY Radio drama would be improved if the length of much of its output was limited. An idea that might be pithily expounded in 30 or 45 minutes becomes turgidly repetitive at 90 minutes. Thus, at an hour. Needles and Pinsa (BBC Belfast for R4, Saturday July 19), was twice as long as the material merited. Martin Lynch's story of Patsy (Walter McMonagle ...

... Sugary confection is a feast for the ears BY MOIRA PETTY When Bollywood came to radio, it was with a swirt of sequinned saris, a surfeit of sentiment. Who Am I to You? (BBC Birmingham for R4, Saturday, August 9) was all melodramatic gestures, accentuated by the exhilarating Hindi soundtrack of the hit 1995 Bombay film, from which the play was adapted by Rehan Sheikh and John Fletcher. ...

... Wrestling with Demons Harry Younger Hall The location of this play is at first obscure. Slowly we glean that it is a dormitory in a kind of quasi-reli gious hostel for young men who are trying to deny their homosexuality a kind of AA for gays. With confes sional workshops in a dormitory pul sating with sexual tension, it seems not the best environment for kicking the homosexual habit. Jez, one ...

... Let's not limit Indian drama By Moira Petty Twenty years since the death of Elvis, 50 years since Indian independence. Events marking the two anniversaries have, this hot and steamy month, sometimes seemed to merge into a psychedelic blur. IIUl Ull FdUlU, IIUWCVCI, WHCIC the cultural and economic import of Elvis has been elbowed aside by a tidal wave of documentaries and plays examining India. ...

... There's a dry eye in the house By Moira Petty The ultimate weepie came to radio but left me dry-eyed. This was less an indictment of my stony-heartedness than the deliberately non-sentimental direction by Ned Chaillet of Love Story (R4, Saturday, August 30). Erich Segal's novel became a film which launched a trillion Kleenexes, but this radio adapta tion by Juliet Ace honed in on the couple's ...

... Scabrous, cruel wit Joe Orton would have been 64 this year had he lived. Two radio productions marked the 30th anniversary of his death. A powerful rendition of Loot (Catherine Bailey Us for R3, Sunday, September 14) emphasised its claim to be probably his best play with its scabrous, cruel wit. This black comedy, with its themes of skewed Roman Catholic values, corrupt authoritar ianism, ...