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Drama on 4: Bethan Roberts - My Own Private Gondolier

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My Own Private Gondolier

19/10/2010

Bethan Roberts - My Own Private Gondolier

BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, Bethan Roberts - My Own Private Gondolier

Tensions flare when Peggy Guggenheim and her daughter spend the summer together in Venice.

Tensions flare when art collector Peggy Guggenheim and her daughter spend the summer together in Venice. Stars Fiona Shaw and Hattie Morahan.

In Bethan Roberts' first play for radio, Peggy Guggenheim's troubled daughter, Pegeen, leaves her three children behind when she travels to Venice to spend the summer with her mother. Pegeen is in retreat from a marriage that has failed. She is determined to be an artist, and she shuts herself up in the dank basement, trying to paint. 

Meanwhile, her mother, Peggy, is much more concerned with the English sculptor who has come to visit; she wants a piece of his work to add to her collection and will use everything at her disposal to achieve her aim. She'll even try to inveigle her daughter into the plan if she thinks it will get her what she wants. Peggy is well known as a collector of men, as well as art. As the summer progresses, and the strains between mother and daughter grow, it's only Gianni, Peggy's personal Gondolier, who can provide a welcome diversion. 

The music is Vedro con mio diletto from Vivaldi's Giustino, sung by Philippe Jaroussky.

Producer: Kate McAll, BBC Cymru Wales.

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