Berlin Alexanderplatz

Other

BBC Radio 4 LW

Drama

BBC Radio 4 FM

Drama: Berlin Alexanderplatz. Part 1

Berlin Alexanderplatz. Part 2

Berlin Alexanderplatz. Part 1

Drama on 4

BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, Berlin Alexanderplatz. Part 1

Alfred Döblin's modernist masterpiece set in the underworld of 1920s Berlin

Starring Claes Bang and Lee Ross a dramatization by Simon Scardifield of Alfred Döblin's modernist masterpiece set in the ruthless underworld of 1920s Berlin

A dramatisation by Simon Scardifield from Michael Hofmann's landmark translation of Alfred Döblin's modernist masterpiece - a novel that exploded into 1929 and changed urban writing forever.

Ex-convict, Franz Biberkopf, is back on the streets of Berlin determined to go straight. But Berlin has other ideas.

Narrator ..... Claes Bang
Franz ..... Lee Ross
Mack ..... Samuel James
Reinhold ..... David Hounslow
Eva ..... Clare Corbett
Herbert ..... Mark Edel-Hunt
Pums ..... Neil McCaul
Franzi ..... Ria Marshall
Lina ..... Jasmine Hyde
Henschke ..... Michael Begley
Eliser ..... Justice Ritchie
Cilly ..... Grace Cooper Milton
Speaker ..... Chris Jack
Alice ..... Christine Kavanagh

Produced by Emma Harding and Marc Beeby
Directed by David Hunter and Gemma Jenkins

Published in 1929, Germany is on the brink of fatal change.  Döblin throws everything at us, like a radio tuner going up and down the dial: weather reports, historical trivia, adverts, sporting results, this is a world where buildings come alive and beer and Schnapps conduct conversations with us.  Berlin itself is as much a character as Biberkopf, it’s like a vast pinball machine through which our protagonist ricochets. We're looking down on the city through God's eyes one moment and feeling the grittiness and grime of Franz's reality the next.

Germans still consider Berlin Alexanderplatz one of their most important - and most loved - literary works.  This is Germany's Ulysses, playful in its form and as alluring as the modern city it both invents and immortalizes.

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.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Drama

Berlin Alexanderplatz. Part 1

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4