Henrik Ibsen: Nine full-cast BBC radio dramatisations

Powerful BBC radio productions of nine of Henrik Ibsen’s finest plays

Often described as 'the father of realism', Henrik Ibsen was a pioneer of modernist drama. He influenced playwrights as diverse as George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, and is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare. 
 
 Included in this collection are adaptations of his tragicomic masterpiece The Wild Duck, his complex and compelling play Rosmersholm, the epic drama Brand and the tragedy John Gabriel Borkman. Ibsen's A Doll's House is relocated to 1879 India in Tanika Gupta's Audio Drama Award-winning dramatisation, while the provocative and scandalous Ghosts is adapted by Richard Eyre, with the cast of his Olivier Award-winning Almeida Theatre production. 
 
Also featured are vibrant dramatisations of Hedda Gabler, whose desperate heroine is trapped in a suffocating marriage; The Lady from the Sea, about a woman torn between security and passion; and An Enemy of the People, in which a whistleblower reveals an inconvenient truth and is vilified for it. 
 
The casts of these stunning dramas include David Threlfall, Nicholas Farrell, Helen Baxendale, Indira Varma, Lesley Manville and Harriet Walter. 
 
Track listing: 
The Wild Duck 
Rosmersholm 
Brand 
John Gabriel Borkman 
A Doll's House 
Ghosts 
Hedda Gabler 
The Lady from the Sea 
An Enemy of the People

Henrik Ibsen

David Schofield

Laura Aikman

Siobhan Redmond

Paul Bradley

Jonathan Tafler

Joseph Ayre

Shannon Hayes

Full Cast

A BBC Radio 4 full cast dramatisation

The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen, in a new version by David Hare 
 
Master builder Halvard Solness is a self-made man. With no professional qualifications, he has built himself up through ruthless ambition, and achieved a position of power and domination in his home town. But his success has come at a cost. His marriage is empty, destroyed by a personal tragedy that has left him wracked with guilt and pain, and he is increasingly frightened of failure and being displaced by the next generation. 
 
Then a mysterious young woman, Hilde Wangel, appears from the mountains, claiming to have met Solness ten years earlier, when she was only 13. She asserts that he kissed her and promised her a kingdom: and now she has returned to claim it. Halvard becomes besotted with Hilde, seeing her as a breath of fresh air, revitalising his life with her youthful energy. And Hilde flatters and praises him, rebuilding his ego. But has she come to seduce him - or to destroy him? 
 
With mystical undertones and resonances for the #MeToo movement, this searing tragedy of middle-aged male hubris explores the troubled psyche of a successful, abusive man who has risen to the greatest heights, only to be toppled from his peak. David Schofield stars as Solness, with Siobhan Redmond as his wife Aline and Laura Aikman as Hilde. 
 
Also included is a bonus programme, In Our Time: Henrik Ibsen, in which Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Norwegian playwright and poet. 
 
Cast and credits 
Solness - David Schofield 
Aline - Siobhan Redmond 
Hilde - Laura Aikman 
Brovik - Paul Bradley 
Dr Herdal - Jonathan Tafler 
Kaja - Shannon Hayes 
Ragnar - Joseph Ayre 
 
The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen 
In a new version by David Hare 
Based on a literal translation by Torkil Heggstad 
Directed and produced by Gary Brown 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 15-22 August 2021 
 
In Our Time: Henrik Ibsen 
Presented by Melvyn Bragg 
With Tore Rem, Kirsten Shepherd-Barr and Dinah Birch 
Produced by Simon Tillotson 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 31 May 2018 
 
 
©2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Henrik Ibsen

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