The Hours

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Lia Williams

Fenella Woolgar

Teresa Gallagher

Jack Towbin

Rosamund Pike

Haley McGee

Corey Johnson

David Annen

Rachel Atkins

Michael Cunningham

Frances Byrnes

Judith Kampfner

Polly Thomas

Drama on 4: The Hours by Michael Cunningham: Episode 2

Episode 2

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, The Hours by Michael Cunningham, Episode 2

Dramatisation of the novel inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. With Rosamund Pike.

Virginia, Laura and Clarissa all experience conflict. A story inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Stars Rosamund Pike.

The Pulitzer winning book by Michael Cunningham inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. Starring Rosamund Pike, Fenella Woolgar and Teresa Gallagher. 

Three very separate women. They live in different locations and different eras but they are bound by their passion for Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. As they experience life on a Tuesday in June, their thoughts and experiences echo each other and become intertwined.

In Richmond in 1923, Virginia Woolf (Fenella Woolgar) sits down to write a novel calling her heroine Mrs Dalloway. In Los Angeles in 1949, Laura (Teresa Gallagher) sits in bed reading Mrs Dalloway. In New York in the 1990s, Clarissa (Rosamund Pike) goes out to buy flowers for a party mirroring the start of the day for the fictional Mrs Dalloway. The party is for her best friend Richard who long ago dubbed her Mrs Dalloway.

Weaving together themes of bisexuality, mental illness, middle age, the trials of creativity, parental guilt, marital discord, suburban isolation, infertility, friendship and loss - the three stories become one. 

In the second and concluding episode, Virginia, Laura and Clarissa all experience conflict between their need to be free and their domestic responsibilities and ties. Virginia Woolf creates a pivotal moment when Mrs Dalloway sees a book in a shop window open at a page with a song from Shakespeare's Cymbeline. It haunts her - and it haunts Laura and Clarissa too. As their stories become interwoven there more and more parallels.

Michael Cunningham's enormously popular and critically successful book won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and inspired the film starring Nicole Kidman. He called his story The Hours because that was a title that Virginia Woolf had considered. He says Mrs Dalloway was a huge influence on his life because he read the novel as a response to a dare when he was 15 and then decided to be a writer. 

Sony Award winning writer Frances Byrnes adapted the book for radio.

Cast: 
Vanessa/Sally .... Lia Williams 
Virginia .... Fenella Woolgar 
Laura ….Teresa Gallagher
Richie … Jack Towbin 
Clarissa …. Rosamund Pike 
Julia … Haley McGee
Walter/Dan ….Corey Johnson 
Leonard …. David Annen 
Nelly …. Rachel Atkins 

Composer: Gene Pritsker
Pianist: Carollyn Eden
Sound Design: Steve Bond

Adapted for radio by Frances Byrnes
Directed by Judith Kampfner and Polly Thomas
Produced by Judith Kampfner
Executive Producer Celia De Wolff

A Corporation For Independent Media production

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Drama on 4: The Hours by Michael Cunningham

BBC Radio 4

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

Adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway.

Adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel. Three very separate women living in different locations are bound by their passion for Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway.

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