Opening Lines 

Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Opening Lines

Documentaries

Podcasts

Learning: Secondary

Learning: Adults

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

John Yorke unpacks the themes behind the stories in Radio 4's weekend afternoon dramas.

Producer and writer John Yorke unpacks the themes and impact behind the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in Radio 4's weekend afternoon dramas.

Producer and writer John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact behind the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in Radio 4's weekend afternoon dramas.

BBC Radio 4 LW

Opening Lines: Siddhartha

Siddhartha

BBC Radio 4 - Opening Lines, Siddhartha

John Yorke explores the book that embodies the soul of the counterculture – Siddhartha.

John Yorke on the book embraced by the 60s counterculture but written by a man who would have hated that – Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse.

The series that takes a look at books, plays and stories and how they work. John Yorke examines Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.

Hermann Hesse was an established writer by the time he wrote Siddhartha and didn’t live to see its lionisation by the 60s counterculture. But even in his own time Hesse’s writing appealed to young people, particularly young men, in a way that he found irritating. John looks at why this book so appealed to younger generations, especially to the one that emerged in the 60s and at how Hesse’s own background actually had parallels to their experiences. 

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for nearly 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series.

From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy John has trained a generation of screenwriters - his students have had 17 green-lights in the last two years alone.

Contributors:
Nicolas Jackson, Director and Producer of Radio 4’s dramatisation of Siddhartha
Mick Brown,  Journalist, writer and author of The Nirvana Express 

Readings by Matthew Gravelle

Credits:
Siddhartha CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015. Translated by Hilda Rosner
Produced by Alison Vernon-Smith
Executive Producer:  Caroline Raphael
Sound by Sean Kerwin
Researcher:  Nina Semple
Production Manager: Sarah Wright

A Pier production for 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

Opening Lines

Siddhartha

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4