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Press Releases
Radio 3 showcases new writing talent in winter series of The Wire
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91Èȱ¬ Radio 3 presents a brand new season of The Wire showcasing the best contemporary writing for radio.
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The winter series launches on 11 October 2008 with playwright Debbie Tucker Green's Random and includes plays from artist and poet Val Laws, actor and playwright Carl Grose and dramatist Louise Wallwein.
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The Wire is part of Radio 3's continued commitment to commissioning and developing new and bold voices on air.
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Written and directed by Debbie Tucker Green, Random explores how an ordinary day for a black family in London is changed forever by a seemingly random act of violence.
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A particularly timely play with more than 25 teenagers having died violently in the capital alone this year, the play explores how those left behind are forced to come to terms with their loss.
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Recorded on location in South London, acclaimed actress Nadine Marshall plays all four characters in the family.
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Debbie Tucker Green's first radio play Freefall was broadcast on Radio 3 just five years ago.
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Her stage plays include Dirty Butterfly (Soho Theatre, 2003) Born Bad (Hampstead Theatre, 2003), Stoning Mary (Royal Court 2005) and the premiere of Random earlier this year at London's Royal Court Theatre.
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Writer and artist Val Laws is always keen to break down the boundaries of science, art and literature.
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In her black comedy Nowt To Look At she explores attitudes towards disfigurement, mental illness and self-image.
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A recluse in her Newcastle flat for the best part of 20 years, Annie Benson finds what remains of herself in a pathology museum where her head floats in a specimen jar.
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As her great-nephew Jon and her shy young neighbour Roz are forced to come together to deal with the aftermath of her death, Annie recounts her own story.
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Poet and artist Val Laws is perhaps best known for her controversial Arts Council funding to spray-paint poetry on sheep.
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Nowt To Look At was partly inspired by Val's 2006 Northern Writers' Award for a project on forensic/pathology poetry hosted by King's College Medical School.
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Val has published four collections of poetry and won the Northern Promise Award for her first crime novel The Rotting Spot.
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Her play Let Yourself Go was runner up for the Alfred Bradley Award.
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Louise Wallwein's debut radio play Dirty White Girl is inspired by a young woman she met in a workshop, a teenage racist whose life was thrown into confusion by her attraction to a young Asian boy in the same workshop.
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In Dirty White Girl, life is not easy for Katie, a young white girl on a rough estate and, to make matters worse, her older sister's boyfriend, Ian, has started showing a keen interest in her.
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At a local community development project, Katie meets Farooq and his friend Naz but when Ian catches Farooq and Katie together, all hell breaks loose.
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Louise Wallwein is a dramatist, youth workshop leader and poet.
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One of the Royal Court 50 writersroom scheme, she recently returned from a British Council residency in Sydney.
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Louise is currently working on her latest collection of poetry, Muses And Bruises.
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Just over a decade ago, actor and playwright Carl Grose was performing with the Kneehigh Theatre Company in Soweto.
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Heading home toward Johannesburg he saw the headline in a local paper – "49 Donkeys Hanged".
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A local newspaper reported that a local farmer had hanged 49 donkeys from the branches of trees on his land. Why on earth would a man do such a thing?
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Ten years later, Carl has been inspired to write an inventive and very dark comedy about it.
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Set in Cornwall and centred around the lives of Stanley Bray, a Cornish farmer who hangs donkeys, and Joy, his wife, a wheelchair-user, 49 Donkeys Hanged also explores the relationship between writer and character.
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As the death toll rises, Stanley confronts Carl himself – what kind of a man would force his fictional character to do such a heinous thing and why?
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Carl Grose is a young Cornish writer. Previous work includes Tristan And Iseult for Kneehigh Theatre and the National Theatre.
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He is currently working on a version of Faust for Icelandic theatre company Vesturport with music by Nick Cave.
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The Wire is commissioned and edited by Kate Rowland for Radio 3.
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Kate is the 91Èȱ¬'s Creative Director of New Writing and heads the 91Èȱ¬ writersroom which champions talent and develops opportunities for writers across television, radio and film.
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Kate commissions two key new writing strands for radio and is Chair of the Diversity Action group for 91Èȱ¬ Vision.
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Kate is also a multi-award-winning director for theatre and radio.
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She has worked with many of the UK's leading writers including Lee Hall, Mark Ravenhill, Jeanette Winterson, Simon Armitage and David Hare. Ìý
Notes to Editors
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The Wire schedule:
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Saturday 11 October – Random by Debbie Tucker Green
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Saturday 18 October – Dirty White Girl by Louise Wallwein Ìý
Saturday 25 October – Nowt To Look At by Val Laws
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Saturday 1 November – 49 Donkeys Hanged by Carl Grose
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LH
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