Song from Far Away

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Drama on 4: Song from Far Away

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BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, Song from Far Away

Will Young's solo tour de force about family, loss and the faces of love. Strong language.

Will Young stars in a moving drama about family, loss and the many different faces of love. By Olivier Award-winning Simon Stephens and Mark Eitzel. With some very strong language.

Will Young revives his witty and tender stage performance, written by Olivier Award-winning Simon Stephens and Mark Eitzel. Willem is a young Dutch man, who has deserted his conventional family to live in New York as a high-flying financier. When his younger brother dies unexpectedly, he reluctantly returns home. 

The drama includes a striking musical arc, integral to the performance. Throughout the drama, Willem is haunted by a song, which we eventually hear fully toward the end, as he finally acknowledges his grief. The music is composed by Mark Eitzel, of American Music Club.

Song From Far Away was first performed as an original commission for Ivo van Hove’s Toneelgroep Amsterdam in 2015 and then a short run at the Young Vic.
Its UK revival in early 2023 at HOME and then at Hampstead Theatre was its first production since then and was enthusiastically received by audience and critics alike.
The play came about through Simon and Mark’s fascination with Amsterdam, its liberal/capitalist roots and its links to its sister city New York. The ‘Far Away’ in the title is a reference to the Dutch imperial venture capital company Compagnie van Verre - 'Company of Far Lands’. 

“…the idea of writing about somebody whose sense of self was built on these cities and this contradiction: a character defined by a hunger for making money, the kind of unimaginable unquantifiable money that the two cities were built on, and at the same time punctured into humanity by grief...” Simon Stephens, January 2023

Willem returns home for the funeral of his younger brother, Pauli, who died unexpectedly, throwing the family into confusion. Willem is the hard-nosed businessman; Pauli was the softer-edged musician - this imbalance between the two underpins the story. The drama charts Willem’s return, his attempts to re-connect with his family and his conflicting feelings of loss and humanity, in the form of letters that Willem writes to his dead brother. He shares his feelings about being back in Amsterdam after 12 years' absence, the difficulties, griefs and absurdities when he meets up with his family, his painful encounter with the boyfriend he left to go to New York but still yearns for, and unexpectedly tender meditations on love and acceptance. The letters strip away Willem’s hard-shell exterior to reveal a movingly intimate portrait of a solitary life. 

“…if ever there was an actor born to sing, it is Will Young… He plays the part of the disconnected Willem…  with melodic grace… he glides between a pretty sing-song speaking voice and a brash Manhattan bass. At turns louche, comic and fragile, he has a musician’s sense of rhythm. When he actually sings, as he does in the cathartic pay-off, it is delicate and angelic.”
Mark Fisher, The Guardian 4 star review, February 2023

A BSL/subtitled film is available on the BBC Sounds website, coinciding with the broadcast on Radio 4, to increase access.


Cast:
Willem ..... Will Young

Writers: Simon Stephens and Mark Eitzel

Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls
Assistant Producer: Louis Blatherwick
Image: Michael Wharley
Additional Composer/Musical Supervisor original stage production: Paul Schofield
Additional musical content: Julian Starr
BSL and subtitled transcript: Marcel Hirshman, Weald BSL
Production Manager: Darren Spruce
Producer: Polly Thomas
Executive Producer: Eloise Whitmore

Recorded by John Merriman, at Crown Lane Studios.

Based on the original stage production directed by Kirk Jameson, from Thomas Hopkins, Guy Chapman and HOME.

A Thomas Carter Projects production for BBC Radio 4

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