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Drama on 4: Roy Apps - Life Begins at Crawley

Life Begins at Crawley

07/07/2011

Roy Apps - Life Begins at Crawley

BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, Roy Apps - Life Begins at Crawley

Posh MP's wife Eleanor Prendergast gets up to dodgy scams when her husband is imprisoned.

4 Extra Debut. Posh MP's wife Eleanor Prendergast gets up to some dodgy scams when her husband is imprisoned for fraud. Stars Penelope Keith.

In Roy Apps's comedy, Penelope Keith plays Eleanor Prendergast - the wife of a newly imprisoned Tory MP who's been fiddling his expenses big time! She's driven to crime to make ends meet (she's got her Porsche to run after all, and the mortgage on Sunnybrook Farm to pay) and soon finds herself at the wheel of a stolen articulated lorry full of vodka, facing down an armed Russian mobster and - perhaps most scary of all - eating chips out of a polystyrene tray on Brighton Pier! 

The trouble begins when she meets young Kerry (Kelly Adams) in the prison car park after her first visiting session. Eleanor's at her wits' end, but Kerry advises her to get a grip and 'take up crime, like the rest of us.' 'But that's just the point, I'm not like the rest of you!' snobby Eleanor complains. However, she decides to pick Kerry's brains and invites her down to her house in deepest Sussex. 

While Kerry is at Eleanor's discussing the relative merits of armed robbery over demanding money with menaces, an articulated lorry packed with Russian vodka gets stuck outside in the lane, due to sat nav error. The lorry driver trips and cracks his head open on Eleanor's mannequin pis. Eleanor, with years of experience driving horse-boxes for her daughter behind her, moves the lorry so the ambulance can get through. 

If she is serious about a life of crime, this is an opportunity not to be missed. Kerry gets a text offering a lucrative deal on the vodka and soon, any doubts Eleanor may have had about the venture quickly disappear. With Kerry at her side, and with a crash of gears, Eleanor sets off in the articulated lorry for a 'meet' at a warehouse in Crawley.... 

Written by Roy Apps

Cast:
Eleanor ...... Penelope Keith
Kerry ...... Kelly Adams
Charles ...... David Collings
Malky ..... Russell Floyd
Andronnikov ..... Richard Attlee
Sasha ......Rob Heaps
Agency Man ..... Nicholas Boulton
Agency Girl ..... Jessica Carroll
Kelvin ..... Sam Taylor


Producer/Director: David Blount
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4.

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