The Venice Conundrum

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Drama on 4: The Venice Conundrum

BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, The Venice Conundrum

Venice is Jan Morris’s most famous travel book.  Conundrum is the story of her sex change.

Jan Morris tells of her transition from man to woman in her book Conundrum. Venice is her most famous travel book. Together they illuminate the extraordinary mind of their creator.

Jan Morris, who died in 2020, led an extraordinary life and was considered one of Britain's best loved travel writers. In Robin Brooks's dramatisation, two of her works are intertwined - 'Conundrum', the story of her transition from man to woman, and 'Venice', her most famous travel book.

Jan Morris’s Venice is widely regarded as one the finest travel books ever written, and what better way to take the listener on a longed-for escape into that magical city and its past. 

However, underneath the mysterious surface of the city conjured in Morris’s work lies a hidden theme. Morris wrote Venice as a married family man, but all the time she was grappling with the life-long knowledge that she had been born in the wrong body and, not long after publishing Venice, she embarked on her ten-year transition.

So we use Venice as a gilded literary barge on which to float Conundrum, Morris’s  beautifully written and very moving account of her transition.


Cast:
JAN MORRIS.....EDALIA DAY
THE TRAVELLER......THEO FRASER STEELE
THE VOICES.....JULIAN HARRIES, LEON BEDWELL,   MARY MALONE,    GILIAN CALLY,   PETER HAMILTON DYER, BUNNY COOK,   
NIGEL CAMPBELL, PATRICK BROWN


Written by Robin Brooks
Based on the works of Jan Morris

Directed and Produced by Fiona McAlpine

Sound Design by Alisdair McGregor
Associate Director,  Phoebe Brooks
Broadcast Assistant, Hermione Sylvester

An Allegra production for BBC Radio 4

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