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Riot Girls

The Robber Bride

Episode 2

Duration: 58 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

by Margaret Atwood
dramatised for radio by Sarah Wooley

2/2

Zenia's reappearance from the dead has unsettled her 3 old university friends. As we go back to the 1980s and
successful businesswoman Roz's story, will there be anything to make her - or us - believe Zenia is who she says she is
or, more crucially, that she can be trusted?

Produced and directed by Marion Nancarrow

In "The Robber Bride" Margaret Atwood has brilliantly turned this Brothers Grimm fairy tale on its head, by re-casting all the roles as female. In the original tale, the Robber Bridegroom steals young maidens for his own ends, but Atwood casts the bridegroom as a predatory woman (described by Lorrie Moore in the New York Times as "Richard III with breast implants"). She looks at the effects Zenia's manipulation has on three female friends in Toronto, as they go through university and into their adult lives, between 1967 and 1990. Having heard how Zenia has lied to both Tony and Charis and stolen each of their men, it's now the turn of successful businesswoman, Roz. Surely Zenia can't pull the wool over her eyes? But we all have our Achilles' heel......
Canadian born British actress Tanya Moodie stars as Zenia. Show less

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