Drama on 3: The Farewell Glacier

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Series of drama performances, ranging from experimental works to the Classics

The Farewell Glacier

BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3, The Farewell Glacier

A poetic journey through time and the Arctic, looking at climate change.

A poetic journey through time and the Arctic, looking at climate change, written by Nick Drake and featuring Peter Mullan and Adjoa Andoh.

In 2012, writer Nick Drake visited the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard on a 19th-century ship. It was a voyage of discovery that revealed the beauty of the Arctic but also the damage wrought by climate change in this most beautiful - and essential - wonder of the Earth. On his return home, he wrote a collection of poems (The Farewell Glacier published by Bloodaxe) in the voices of the many Westerners who came to the Arctic over the centuries - explorers, whalers, mapmakers, scientists, financiers, the famous and the forgotten - as well as animal spirits, chemical shapeshifters, the powerful elements of ice, light and dark. and the future itself. It is a wake-up call to how the damage being done to the Artic by POPs is a pressing global issue.

Originally performed at COP 26 in Glasgow, the poems have been transformed into an audio drama for BBC Radio 3, intercut by interviews with Sheila Watt Cloutier, a human and indigenous rights activist, cultural preservation advocate, politician, writer and educator. Siila, as she is also known, has received international recognition and acclaim in the areas of rights activism environmental and climate change awareness and social justice, for her work, including a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. 

The Farewell Glacier’s characters range from Pytheas the Greek, the first known Western scientist to see the Arctic in 330 BC, through Nils Strindberg, who travelled to the Arctic by hot air balloon in the 19th century, to Black American explorer, Matthew Henson, the first person in Robert Peary’s party to set foot at the North Pole in 1909, affording powerful insight into their experiences. Alongside the explorers, the drama  features the Inuit peoples whose land this is, the heavy metals and chemicals that are slowly destroying their land and culture, and the future, the global generations who will inherit the challenges that previous generations have created for them.

Nick Drake is a poet, playwright, screenwriter and dramaturg. The Farewell Glacier for BBC Radio 3 is based on his poetry collection of the same name, published by Bloodaxe Books, 26th April 2012.   He co-wrote the film ONE LIFE (2024), starring Anthony Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter, and is currently writing a new play commission MY NAME IS CHELSEA MANNING, for London’s Young Vic and a new play for Bath Theatre Royal. He has published four poetry collections including THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT (Forward Prize for the Best First Collection) and most recently OUT OF RANGE (2018) about the confronting emergencies of the climate crisis. He wrote the librettos for BETWEEN WORLDS and CAVE - composer Tansy Davies - and wrote poem texts for Rachel Portman’s EARTH SONG (2019) and TIPPING POINTS (2022). Website: nickdrakewriter.com

‘...The Farewell Glacier makes your spine shiver…..The subject of climate change might not grab your attention, but with its footprints on the polar highs and two spoons of iceberg, The Farewell Glacier will melt the hardest heart’
Wales Arts Review

Cast:
The announcer ..... Adjoa Andoh
St Brendan ..... Paisley James
Pytheas and the Poet ..... Peter Mullan
Robert Peary ..... Kevin Harvey
The future ..... Jude Coward Nicoll,  Paisley James, Urmila Patel and Chloe Ragrag.
All other roles played by the cast.
Interviewee .... Sheila Watt Cloutier

Production team:
Original music, Emma Jean and Isbel Pendlebury.
Inuit throat singing, Sylvia Cloutier and Akinisie Sivuarapik
Inuit pronunciation advisor, Leslie Qammaniq
Producer, Polly Thomas 

Nature Sound Recordist, Thomas Rex Beverly
Sound Designer/Exec Producer, Eloise Whitmore 

The Farewell Glacier was written by Nick Drake. It is based on his poetry collection of the same name, published by Bloodaxe Books, 26th April 2012.

It was a Naked Production, in collaboration with Edel Rae, for BBC Radio 3.

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