BBC R4 - Leonid Borodin's 'The Year Of Miracle And Grief'

Adapted by Nick McCarty

Directed by Sean Mcloughlan

Broadcast December 10, 1989

[Later rebroadcast in the 'Monday Play' series. This

recording made from a 'Sunday Playhouse' broadcast.]

Coded from tape at 128/44.1



Leonid Borodin was a prisoner of conscience in 1960s' Russia.

He took part in the hunger strikes at Camp 17 with Yuli Daniel

and Aleksandr Ginzburg*. Released in 1973, he was arrested again

in 1982. This work dates from this second period of imprisonment.



Superficially this play is about a family's move to a town by

Lake Baikal where the parents have been contracted to teach,

their son's discovery of a magic cave, and his subsequent

involvement in a feud between supernatural beings living there.



It now seems to me that the feud is a simile for the intellectual

conflict in late period Soviet Russia, and Lake Baikal a metaphor

for the incorruptibility of the Russian soul. But what do I know?



Cast [Spellings' suspect]

Leonid - Steve Hodgeson

Leon - Tom Laurence

Sarma - Mary Wimbush

Bikolar - William Eadle

Ree - Caroline Backhouse

Father - Brett Usher

Mother - Joanna Myers

Asina - June Barrey

Grandad - Norman Jones

Teacher - Phillida Nash

Baikolla - Russ Wilkinson

Yerka - Luke Robertson

Schlepka - Lydia Robertson

Yelka - Laura Hawkridge

Yenka - Edward Jones

Messier - Neil Roberts



*See Roger McGough's poem 'The Russian Bear' Quote:

'The Russian bear must itself save

from its self inflicted plight.

Having hollowed out the darkest cave,

Complains there is no light.'

___________________

My parent recording is a spot slow. I've condensed the

file's duration to 65 minutes from 73, which is about

right. But electronic pitch changers are not uniform.

And so, in places, this change shows. Not badly - not

everyone will notice.