BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Saturday Drama

Drama

Thrillers, mysteries, love stories and detective fiction.

Thrillers, mysteries, love stories and detective fiction, as well as an occasional special series

Saturday Play

Saturday Drama: The White Chameleon

The White Chameleon

24/07/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Drama, The White Chameleon

Christopher Hampton's play about his childhood in Alexandria in the 1950s.

Christopher Hampton narrates his witty and sad memory play about his family's life in Alexandria in the 1950s.

A witty and sad memory play by Christopher Hampton, set in Alexandria in the years up to and during the Suez invasion.

It is about his father, in Egypt working for Cable and Wireless, his mother, also from a Cable and Wireless family, and Ibrahim, the Egyptian servant who has been running the house for 20 years and who helps 10-year-old Chris, the future playwright, make up dramas for homework.

As it turned out, his first play was on in the West End when he was 20. His best-known plays include Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Total Eclipse, The Philanthropist and Tales From Hollywood. His films include Carrington, which he wrote and directed and which won the Jury Prize at Cannes, and Dangerous Liaisons for which he won an Oscar. 

This autobiographical play is about the sense he has of his roots in this particular place, his early realisation that he was born to be a writer and also of the experience in his own life, as a child in Egypt, of the sudden dislocations that marked the end of Empire.

Alex Jennings plays Chris's father, Amanda Root his mother and Mido Hamada the redoubtable Ibrahim. The play is narrated by Christopher Hampton himself.

Narrator ... Christopher Hampton
Father ... Alex Jennings
Ibrahim ... Mido Hamada
Mother ... Amanda Root
Chris ... Harvey O'Neil
Guard/Fouad/Basso/Stockman/Shoes-shine man/Egyptian boy ... Ayman Hamdouchi
Albert ... David Annen 
Edward ... Harrison Charles
Paul ... Harry Manton
Schoolboy ... Josef Lindsay

Egyptian singers:
Tony Kandel 
Yazid Eid 
Robert Hannouch

Pianist: Michael Webborn

Director: Polly Thomas
Producer: Ann Scott
A Greenpoint production for BBC Radio 4.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Saturday Drama

The White Chameleon

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4