by Neil Brand and Michael Eaton in two parts for BBC Radio 4
The new world of silent movies captures the imagination of two young men from very different worlds as the film the wave of imigration into the East End of London at the turn of the 20th century.
Drama | 27-28 May 2010 | 2 x 44 minutes
The audacity of Waves Breaking on a Shore is that it is a play about a medium without sound written specifically for a medium without images! A story about a new way of seeing offered by the cinema manages to be entirely appropriate as a subject for radio drama. Both Neil Brand and Michael Eaton are aficionados of a neglected period of early cinema history and the links between the gradually emerging form and the older pleasures of popular live entertainment.
At the turn of the twentieth century two vaudevillians, one Irish the other Jewish, are striving for success as a music hall double act: Cohen and Cohan, when they find themselves bitten by the bug of cinematography at the birth of film.
CAST
Manny Cohen – SIMON SCHATZBERGER
Danny Cohan – ANDREW SCOTT
Uncle Max – JONATHAN TAFLER
Nettie Truman – HAYLEY ATWELL
Eugene – JIM NORTON
Colonel Truman/Barraclough – SEAN CHAPMAN
Thief – JASON MAZA
Studio Manager & Editor – MARK SMITH
Music – NEIL BRAND
Director – JOHN BURGESS
Executive producer – EDWARD CROZIER
Producer – NICHOLAS NEWTON
A Promenade production for BBC Radio 4