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Dangerous Visions

Drama: SciFi & Fantasy

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias. You will be disturbed, as you see the present reflected in the glass of an uneasy future.

BBC Radio 4 LW

Matthew Marsh

Poppy Miller

Stephen Boxer

Samuel James

Simon Ludders

Tom Forrister

Charlie Clements

Philip Fox

David Sturzaker

Arthur Koestler

Simon Scardifield

Sasha Yevtushenko

Dangerous Visions: Darkness at Noon

Darkness at Noon

BBC Radio 4 - Dangerous Visions, Darkness at NoonSearch BBC

Adaptation of Arthur Koestler's nightmarish portrait of a totalitarian state.

Rubashov finds the tables turned on him when he is imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the totalitarian regime to which he has dedicated his life. With Matthew Marsh.

By Arthur Koestler
Adapted by Simon Scardifield

At the height of the media attention during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, US President Bill Clinton reportedly referred to Arthur Koestler's novel, telling an aide, "I feel like the character in the novel Darkness at Noon....I am surrounded by an oppressive force that is creating a lie about me and I can't get the truth out."

Clinton was referring to Nicholas Rubashov, the protagonist of Koestler's novel inspired by the Moscow Trials of Stalin's Russia. Rubashov, once a powerful player in the regime, finds the tables turned on him when he is imprisoned and psychologically tortured. His reflections on his previous life and experiences in prison are at the heart of this thought-provoking masterpiece.

Written after Koestler became disillusioned with Communism, Darkness at Noon is a moving and thought-provoking indictment of totalitarianism. Simon Scardifield's adaptation draws on Koestler's original manuscript - which had been thought lost for 75 years, after Koestler hurriedly fled Paris before the German occupation in 1940, only to be recently discovered in a Zurich library.

Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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