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Saturday Play: One Chord Wonders

Saturday Drama: One Chord Wonders: Episode 2: Blitzkrieg Bop

Blitzkrieg Bop

Episode 2

Episode 2: Blitzkrieg Bop

One Chord Wonders

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Drama, One Chord Wonders, Blitzkrieg Bop

An attempt to relaunch Mo Motormouth's ailing career brings some unwelcome attention.

Series of plays by Frank Cottrell Boyce looking at the punk generation three decades on. An attempt to relaunch Mo Motormouth's ailing career brings some unwelcome attention.

One Chord Wonders: Blitzkrieg Bop
2/5
Frank Cottrell Boyce's series of plays about the punk generation 30 years on. In 1977 self-styled Mo Motormouth was writing a punk fanzine. Now she's doing the travel news for a radio station. An attempt to re-launch her ailing career brings unwelcome attention from some of her 'livelier' listeners.

Mo ... Pauline Quirke
Benny ... Adam Kotz
Shammi ... Manjinder Virk
Steve Reeves .... Ivan Kaye
George ... Ben Crowe
Arthur ... Harry Myers
Jack ... Sanjay Shelat
Teacher/Barney ... Stephen Critchlow
Benny's Daughter ... Amy Enticknap

Producer/Director ... Toby Swift

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ONE CHORD WONDERS is a series of 5 plays by top British screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce. The series looks at the 'punk generation' three decades on, with each play telling a different, but connected, story. Featured actors include Pauline Quirke, Doon Mackichan, Sian Reeves, Richard Ridings, Danny Webb, Manjinder Virk and Fenella Woolgar.

Frank Cottrell Boyce is probably best known for films like '24 Hour Party People', 'A Cock & Bull Story', 'Hilary & Jackie', 'Welcome to Sarajevo' and 'Butterfly Kiss'. He won the CILIP Carnegie Medal in 2004 for 'Millions', his first novel, which was subsequently filmed by British director Danny Boyle.

The series is based on the fictional premise that in March 1977 punk band the Adverts performed a gig in Camberley to an audience of 27 people. Over 30 years later, someone is trying to bring those 27 people back together again for a reunion.

In 'Blitzkrieg Bop' a struggling commercial radio presenter has been invited to the reunion. In fact, as the self-styled Mo Motormouth, she was the co-promoter of the original gig. Encouraged by her ambitious - or should that be desperate - producer Shammi, her career receives a belated boost when she gives her on-air persona an opinionated, in-yer-face punk makeover. Will her new-found success survive the attention of a dubious element amongst her audience...not least former co-promoter Benny Bondage who seems convinced there's a nasty skeleton rattling in Mo's cupboard?

The next 2 plays in the series - 'Damned, Damned, Damned' and 'This is the Modern World' - catch up with other, now middle-aged, members of that audience back in 1977.

The final play, 'Television's Over', takes us back 34 years to where it all begin; the day punk heroes the Adverts arrived at the Police Club in Camberley.

Saturday Drama: One Chord Wonders

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Series of plays by Frank Cottrell Boyce looking at the punk generation three decades on

Series of plays by British screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce looking at the punk generation three decades on. Each play tells a different, but connected, story. (Previously aired as Friday Play)

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Episode 2: Blitzkrieg Bop

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