Daphne du Maurier – the fortnight of special programmes on BBC 4 and BBC 4 Extra continues from Saturday 9th to Friday 15th March
After a super week of special programmes about Daphne du Maurier and her writing, BBC Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra continue with a few more treats during the coming week.
On Saturday 9th March, Radio 4 Extra brings us another opportunity to listed to The Happy Valley at 1.45am.
Also on Radio 4 Extra is an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s excellent 1945 play The Years Between. If you are not familiar with this play, you need to know that it takes place during WW2. The leading character is Diana Wentworth, played by Diana Quick. When Diana’s husband is reported killed in action, she rebuilds her life and takes over his parliamentary seat. Then, all sorts of unexpected things happen. This programme is scheduled for 6am, repeated at 11am and again at 5pm.
Radio 4 Extra presents The Years Between one more time at 1am on Sunday 10th March.
On Sunday 10th March, Radio 4 brings us some super brand new programmes. At 2.45pm, the programme Open Lines, hosted by John Yorke, takes a look at Daphne du Maurier’s two short stories, The Blue Lenses and The Little Photographer. These are probably two of Daphne’s less well-known stories, although The Blue Lenses, in particular, is one of those stories that, once you have read it, will lodge in your memory and never really leave you!
At 3pm, Daphne du Maurier: Double Exposure – The Blue Lenses and The Little Photographer brings you two unnerving dramas, both of which look at the dark side of human nature. At 3pm, in The Blue Lenses, Marda West undergoes an eye operation that changes how she sees the world and the people in it. Then, at 3.30pm, in The Little Photographer, the beautiful but bored Madame la Marquise is on holiday in the South of France. One day, she meets the local photographer, Monsieur Paul. As he studies her, she feels a thrill from being looked at and wants something momentous to happen!
Then, at 4pm, BBC Radio 4’s popular programme, Open Book, presented by Octavia Bright, discusses Daphne du Maurier, the novelist and the themes of her work with a panel of three distinguished writers.
Also, most importantly, don’t forget that episodes 6 to 10 of Book at Bedtime take place from Monday to Friday on Radio 4 at 10.45pm and is Daphne’s beautiful classic novel Frenchman’s Creek.
We are enjoying this special fortnight of Daphne du Maurier programmes, and we hope you are, too. If you have any comments about this fortnight of Daphne du Maurier programmes, please get in touch with us at our email address, info@dumaurier.org.
March 2024.