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Drama on 4: Rose Tremain - The Darkness of Wallis Simpson

The Darkness of Wallis Simpson

28/12/2010

Rose Tremain - The Darkness of Wallis Simpson

BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, Rose Tremain - The Darkness of Wallis Simpson

Imagining the last days of Wallis Simpson, for whom King Edward VIII gave up the throne.

By Rose Tremain. An imagining of the last days of the Duchess of Windsor for whom King Edward VIII abdicated his throne. With Elizabeth McGovern.

A play imagining the last days of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, the woman for whom King Edward VIII gave up the throne of England in 1936. Wallis is now 79 years old. Edward has been dead for fourteen years. 

The play pivots upon a single dramatic conceit: that Wallis, now entering the darkness of approaching death, has forgotten every single thing about Edward. Her entire part in what an American journalist once called "the greatest story since the Resurrection" has completely gone from her mind. Other moments in her life she can vividly recall, but the world-shaking events at the heart of it are lost to her - apparently forever.

She lies bedridden in her house in Paris. A lawyer friend, Maitre Suzanne Blum has taken charge of her care. But, believing that Wallis has deliberately chosen to forget her "role in history", Blum is determined to force her to remember this vital bit of the past, before she dies.


Original Music by David Chilton


Producer: Gordon House
A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4.

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