... Just taste the full flavour of the classics By MOIRA PETTY THERE hasn't been such a sense of people interned in a place to which they are drawn with the instinct of migrating birds since the ill-fated Eldorado. The claustrophobia of the country house by the lake was palpable in The Monday Play's production of The Seagull (R4 Monday November 1); you could almost hear the cast breathing down ...

... 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 ...

... A husky irreverence By MOIRA PETTY Fictional detectives tend to go for the sympathy vote, appearing on the scene of a crime modelling a little rumpled number, dragging the long shadow of an equally chaotic private life behind them. The point is that they are imperfect but lovable-you care about them and their focus of interest becomes yours. This was true of Sharon Gless' riveting depiction ...

... A model of the classic serial By Moira Petty Sally Aven's pin-sharp direction of perfectly-modulated performances made A Handful of Dust (R4, from Sunday, May 19) the very model of a Classic Serial. Evelyn Waugh's tale of vacuous society folk at play was compelling on the superficial tive level, but the sub-text was one of despair at how even tragedy could not really break the rhythm of ...

... Magic of Shange's spell Playwrights have always been interested in the even greater drama of what goes on behind the scenes, when the greasepaint is wiped off and the curtain comes down. Ntozake Shange's Spell Number 7 (R4, Monday, August 12) snaps on the harsh wattage of reality once the spotlight has been dimmed on a troupe of black American actors. Decamping from the theatre where ...

... 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. ...

... Impatience with the patients BY MOIRA PETTY I am worried about the pusillanimous patients of the health clinic in Westway (BBC World Service, every Tuesday and Thursday). The long-suffering souls of the Westway waiting room never raise a peep of protest as they are bludgeoned aside by the staff, whose personal lives are almost universally in tatters. Even senior partner Dr Sampson (Jillie ...

... March flair creates a disturbing affair By MOIRA PETTY The best kind of monologue is a schizophrenic beast: at once, rooted in the subjective, solitary experience of the speaker, and yet seeming to team with other lives touched upon. Such was Char March's disturbing and vivid depiction of a life in turmoil. People Come Here to Cry (R4, Tuesday, March 2), with music by Art composer Gary Yershon ...

... Turgid dramas banished from the air BY MOIRA PETTY The gulf in the kind of drama offered by Radios 3 and 4 seems to be widening. James Boyle believes many Archers fans are staying tuned for the afternoon play, where the emphasis is strictly on entertainment. The listener-friendly approach has been adopted tnrougnout K4 s drama strands long tracts of turgid navel-gazing are a thing of the ...

... Brenton's chilling observations The formal good manners of international diplomacy are no more than a fragile carapace, to be blown away in an instant. And the gulf between nations can be exploited and then patched up according to pragmatic needs. These are some of the grim conclusions to be drawn from Howard Brenton's first radio play, Nasser's Eden (R4. Friday, October 30). Brenton made ...

... Dramatic pictures that touch the heart to its very depth BY MOIRA PETTY Radio is the most intimate of mediums but it is only rarely that a broadcast play can touch the heart to its very depths while gripping the intellect. Such a drama is Martin Lynch 's Pictures of Tomorrow (BBC Northern Ireland for R3. Sunday, April 9) which, under the direction of Michael Quinn, has made a triumphant ...

... Merely flirting with infidelity By MOIRA PETTY Jane Austen's most successful heroines are flawed, although not fatally, but in a little known text. Lady Susan (R4, from Monday, January 11), dramatised by Lavinia Murray in 15-minute chunks, the central character seems without any saving graces. leasing or rone. Harriet waiter played the merry widow whose habit was to enrapture men and enrage ...