Helen McCrory and John Hurt up for BBC Audio Drama Awards

Nov 21, 2015

Posted by: Catherine

News

Two Harry Potter actors have been nominated for BBC Audio Drama Awards. Helen McCrory (Narissa Malfoy) and John Hurt (Ollivander), have both received acting nods.

McCrory has been nominated for best actress in an audio drama, for her role in The Pumpkin Eater. The radio drama was produced in 15-minute episodes, which can be listened to on the BBC Radio 4 website. BBC Radio 4 describes the show, saying:

Helen McCrory and Paul Ready star in Penelope Mortimer’s stark portrait of marriage and motherhood from 1962, dramatised by Georgia Fitch.

Mrs Armitage is encouraged by her successful screenwriter husband, Jake, to talk to a psychiatrist about her apparent compulsion to keep having children.

 

Hurt has received a nomination for best actor in an audio drama, for his role in Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell. BBC Radio 4 describes this much longer radio segment, saying:

 

Starring John Hurt. A dying Soho, seen through the eyes of the notorious columnist of The Spectator – plain-speaking drinker, gambler, wit and raconteur. With frequent, very strong language.

Keith Waterhouse’s biographical play of Jeffrey Bernard is a recreation of a time in London when poets, painters, artists and writers (Dylan Thomas, Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, and Elizabeth Smart) lived alongside the local Low Life of No Knickers Joyce and Sid the Swimmer, inhabiting the clubs and pubs of Dean Street. Jeffrey knew and wrote about all of them.

The play is set very early in the morning at the Coach and Horses pub in Soho, where Jeffrey spent most of his days, when not ‘at the Races’. The Coach and Horses was his ‘office’. Jeffrey has passed out in the Gents, missed closing time and wakes up to find himself alone in the pub with the door locked. He spends the night re-visiting incidents in Soho past and present, his childhood, gambling, women, racing and drink – fuelled by vodka.

Both of these shows sound amazing and deserve a listen when you get the chance! Judging and the Awards ceremony is to take place January 31, at Broadcasting House in London.





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