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

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Words and Music

Drama

Music: Classical

A journey of discovery, weaving music with poetry and prose read by leading actors.

A weekly journey of discovery, weaving together a range of music with poetry and prose read by leading actors.

Words and Music: Pastiche and Parody

Pastiche, Parody and Passing Off

Pastiche and Parody

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, Pastiche and ParodyClose menu

Debra Stephenson and the late John Sessions with a range of impersonations.

Nothing is quite as it seems. Extracts are read by actors including Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman. Or is it Debra Stephenson and John Sessions? Music from Dudley Moore to Grainger.

In tribute to the actor John Sessions (11 January 1953 – 2 November 2020) another chance to hear him and Debra Stephenson displaying their vocal talents with an impression of Alan Rickman reading from Craig Brown’s Lost Diaries which satirises the writing style of various literary diarists, Shaw’s Pygmalion in the style of Rex Harrison, an imitation of a Greek epigram read in the voice of Helena Bonham Carter and Judi Dench giving a speech from Twelfth Night.  Music includes a version of Thespis by Arthur Sullivan, Percy Grainger's Mock Morris and a piano performance by Dudley Moore as Little Miss Britten followed by Benjamin Britten's music for the wall scene in A Midsummer Night's Dream as the programme presents examples of pastiche and parody from characters in novels or operas pretending to be something, or someone, they are not to examples of out-and-out fakery.

Producer - Ellie Mant

Readings:
Poems of Ossian by James McPherson read by John Sessions 
Twelfth Night by Shakespeare read by Debra Stephenson as Judi Dench
The Lost Diaries by Craig Brown read by John Sessions as Alan Rickman
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray read by Debra Stephenson
Ode 1.22 (In the Style of Edgar Allen Poe) read by John Sessions as Ian McKellen
The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith read by Debra Stephenson
Selling Hitler by Robert Harris read by John Sessions
The Embarrassing Episode of Little Miss Muffet by Caryl Wetmore read by Debra Stephenson as Maggie Smith
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald read by John Sessions
Fragment in Imitation of Wordsworth by Catherine Maria Fanshawe read by Debra Stephenson as Penelope Wilton
The Darkening Ecliptic by Ern Malley read by John Sessions 
Small World by David Lodge read by Debra Stephenson
A Guidebook to Intellectual Property, Patents, Trade Marks, Copyright and Designs by The Rt. Hon. Sir Robin Jacob, Daniel Alexander, Lindsay Lane read by John Sessions
To Mr. Pope. An Imitation of a Greek Epigram in Homer by Elijah Fenton read by Debra Stephenson as Helena Bonham Carter 
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw read by John Sessions as Rex Harrison
The Ballad of Imitation by Henry Austin Dobson read by Debra Stephenson as Imelda Staunton.

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.

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