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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

Drama on 3

Drama

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

Harold Pinter

Toby Jones

Henry Goodman

Stephen Rea

Maggie Steed

Peter Wight

Jaime Winstone

Gary Brown

Drama on 3: The Birthday Party

The Birthday Party

BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3, The Birthday Party

Harold Pinter's iconic comedy of menace, The Birthday Party, starring Toby Jones.

For Radio 3's 70th anniversary season, Drama on 3 presents a new production of The Birthday Party, Harold Pinter's iconic comedy of menace, starring Toby Jones as Stanley.

The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter
Stanley, an erstwhile pianist lives in a dingy seaside boarding house run by Meg and Petey. He is comfortable there,  like a surrogate son. Two sinister strangers turn up - Goldberg and McCann. They claim to know him from the past. They turn Stanley's birthday party into a menacing and terrifying encounter. Franz Kafka meets Donald McGill in Pinter’s iconic comedy of menace. 

Stanley ..... Toby Jones
Goldberg ..... Henry Goodman
McCann ..... Stephen Rae
Meg ..... Maggie Steed
Petey ..... Peter Wight
Lulu ..... Jaime Winstone

Director/Producer Gary Brown


An Irishman and a Jew walk into a seaside boarding house. And what? A parable about power and persecution? Or maybe it's marginalised minorities taking their revenge against seedy Albion? Pinter's slippery and sly black comedy has a huge resonance for today.

Harold Pinter was one of the writers championed by the Third Programme – and in the late 1950s commissioned one of his early plays before he had his first stage hit. Pinter himself acknowledged the role the Third had had in his own cultural education. For the 70th anniversary, Drama on 3 presents a new production of The Birthday Party, now considered a Pinter classic, but which on its first London opening only lasted a week.

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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