Someone at a Distance

Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

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Drama: Someone at a Distance (1/2)

Someone at a Distance (1/2)

Drama on 4

BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, Someone at a Distance (1/2)

The North family face a crisis - a young Frenchwoman comes to be their mother’s companion.

When the chic Louise Lanier arrives to work as companion to the aging Mrs North, she is welcomed as a good thing. That is until her true character begins to emerge.

Someone at a Distance is about how we are all connected, how our actions radiate out and touch others, strangers. 

It focuses on the North family, who live a life of post-war domestic bliss. Avery commutes from their village to his London office at a small publishing house, while Ellen devotes every moment of her life to making a happy home. But it's not long before a stranger disrupts the happy scene. 

Louise Lanier, a dangerous and determined young lady from a small town in France, moves in to be Old Mrs North's companion. Recovering from heartbreak, she is bored with her provincial life in France and can't bring herself to accept her fate to marry the local chemist. She has come to England to put this off for a little while, and - one suspects - to wreak havoc. 

The bliss enjoyed by Avery and Ellen is exposed as a thin sham as he falls hopelessly for the exotic and provocative young French woman. For her part, Louise is a glorious 1950s minx - bristling with unfulfilled sexuality and a quietly destructive self-determination. 

A wonderful mélange of Madame Bovary and All About Eve, this story speaks volumes about the push/pull of Anglo-French relations. The perceived stolidity of the English and the flighty sexiness of the French turn out to be equally misplaced myths - yet myths which we somehow love to perpetuate.

Dramatised by Shelagh Stephenson from the novel by Dorothy Whipple.

Cast:
ELLEN NORTH…..……………………………. ...........Nancy Carroll
AVERY NORTH…………………………………............Julian Wadham
LOUISE LANIER..………………………………...........Olivia Ross
JOHN BENNETT/Monsieur Lanier…………… Ron Cook
MRS DALEY/Madame Lanier…………………....Kate Duchêne
ANNE NORTH /Germaine Devoisey…………Macy Nyman
HUGH NORTH/Paul Devoisey………………….Tom Glenister
MRS NORTH/Mrs Beard....……………………....Pamela Miles
 
Directed by Eoin O’Callaghan
A Big Fish Radio production for BBC Radio 4

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Someone at a Distance (1/2)

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