Since first making contact with John Abbott (see item above) many years ago on the "Sondheim List," we have shared many enthusiasms, among them, prominently, for Stephen Sondheim and Tom Stoppard. So it's only right that he concluded our correspondence over the weekend about his blog with this news:
By the way, a new Stoppard radio play is broadcast Monday: Tom Stoppard: Darkside. Says the announcement: "A new drama from legendary playwright Sir Tom Stoppard, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. The album topped the charts on its release in 1973, and it remained in the charts for 741 weeks from 1973 to 1988. With an estimated 50 million copies sold it is the band's most commercially successful work and is frequently ranked as one of the greatest albums of all time."Stoppard was first approached with the suggestion of writing a play based on the album by a friend in 1973. Now, 40 years later, he's created a fantastical story about fear, philosophy, and madness, which is woven together with the original music."
In the cast: Rufus Sewell, Iwan Rheon, Amaka Okafor, and Bill Nighy. The broadcast was at Monday noon Pacific Time, but it is available on BBC-2 for a week.