Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Drama on 3

Drama

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Series of drama performances, ranging from experimental works to the Classics

Drama on 3: Glass Chair Chair Glass

Comedy

Glass Chair Chair Glass

18/09/2011

BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3, Glass Chair Chair GlassClose menu

A comedy about what might have happened if Tommy Cooper had met Eugene Ionesco.

Glass Chair Chair Glass, by Annie Caulfield: A play that imagines a day in Paris in 1975 when Tommy Cooper met absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco. Directed by Marilyn Imrie.

Russ Abbott, Harriet Walter, Emily Bruni, Hugh Ross and Allan Corduner star in a play that imagines a day when Tommy Cooper met absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco. It could have happened. 
It's a sunny morning in Paris, 1975, and in the throes of a paranoia laced drunken spree, Tommy Cooper may not be in the best place to enter Eugene Ionesco's world, where events have the logic of a dream, where people don't tell the truth or even know what it is and where mysterious and brutal threats are always close. Survivor of Nazis and Stalinists, in permanent exile from his native Romania, Ionesco was always drawn to anarchic comedy as the only way to express the world. His plays generate emotion rather than obvious meaning because he felt life was too unstable to mean very much. Ionesco and Tommy Cooper's world views collide with surprising results, concluding that laughter is often the only real revolution we have left.

A play that waltzes us through thoughts about the state of the world, how to make a salt pot disappear, and how to travel on imaginary motorbikes, as Cooper and Ionesco ask the question; Is comedy just business, escapism or is it for the soul? 

Tommy Cooper ..... Russ Abbott
Gwen Cooper/Concierge ..... Harriet Walter
Eugene Ionesco .... Allan Corduner
The Actress ..... Emily Bruni 
Miff Ferrie ..... Hugh Ross


Written by Annie Caulfield. 
Directed by Marilyn Imrie
Produced by Gordon Kennedy for Absolutely Productions.

BBC Radio 4 Extra

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Drama on 3

Glass Chair Chair Glass

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3