The Well of Loneliness

Original version

BBC Radio 4 Extra

Radclyffe Hall - The Well of Loneliness: 2. What Future?

Radclyffe Hall - The Well of Loneliness

2. What Future?

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Radclyffe Hall - The Well of Loneliness, 2. What Future?

After the war, Stephen struggles to find a way of life in Paris with her lover Mary.

Stephen and Mary are lovers - but as two women what kind of life can they build together? Stars Valerie Edmond and Amanda Root.

"You shun your own kind like they were the devil and there's no point in trying to force the straights to be friendly".  

Stephen takes her friend Brockett's advice and decides to live a little instead of just hiding away to write.  

She heads for Paris and a freer society set and also becomes part of the ambulance corps in the First World War.  Here, she meets Mary and they eventually become lovers.  But Stephen never takes Mary to England to meet Puddle nor to see Morton the family seat.  

When an old flame turns up, Stephen takes a fatal step in deciding her and Mary's future.

Starring Valerie Edmond and Amanda Root.

Radclyffe Hall's pioneering novel is sympathetic towards love and attraction between women.

Not sexually explicit, it was still the subject of an obscenity trial soon after it was published in 1928.

Conclusion dramatised by Sarah Woods

Stephen    ......    Valerie Edmond
Mary    ......    Amanda Root
Anna/Valerie    ......    Roberta Kerr
Puddle    ......    Sarah Parks
Martin    ......    Paul Warriner
Jamie    ......    Katy Cavanagh
Brockett    ......    Malcolm Hebden

Music composed and performed by Odaline de la Martinez

Director: Melanie Harris

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 1999

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Drama: Relationships & Romance

Ground-breaking lesbian novel about a woman's desperate attempt to love and be loved.

Radclyffe Hall's classic ground-breaking lesbian novel about a woman's desperate attempt to love and be loved.

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