Drama on 3: Elizabeth and Essex

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

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Elizabeth and Essex

BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3, Elizabeth and Essex

Simon Russell Beale stars in Elizabeth and Essex, with the music of Korngold played live.

Elizabeth and Essex, by Robin Brooks, based on Lytton Strachey’s writings and starring Simon Russell Beale. Recorded at Alexandra Palace with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Elizabeth and Essex is a new play by Robin Brooks, based on the writings of Lytton Strachey, about Elizabeth I and her young favourite, the Earl of Essex. It was recorded live at the Alexandra Palace Theatre, with music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, drawn from his classic score which Korngold originally composed for the 1939 movie The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, starring Bette Davis as Elizabeth and Errol Flynn as Essex. 

Korngold’s music is played by the BBC Concert Orchestra and conducted by Robert Ziegler.

The play stars Simon Russell Beale as both Strachey, leading light of the Bloomsbury Group, and Elizabeth I. It explores the way in which Strachey gradually became absorbed in a rich fantasy life inspired by intrigue at the Tudor court, into which he drew the young man who was then the object of his affections. The two stories, of the Virgin Queen and the ageing writer, play out in parallel, with assistance from other Bloomsbury-group members, Lady Ottoline Morrell and John Maynard Keynes.

Lytton Strachey ..... Simon Russell Beale
Essex / Roger ..... Harry Lloyd
Bacon / Ottoline ..... Nancy Carroll
Cecil / Maynard ..... Julian Harries

With the BBC Concert Orchestra
Conducted by Robert Ziegler

Directed and Produced by Fiona McAlpine and Robin Brooks
An Allegra Production

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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