Rare David Tennant audios: another Did He or Didn't He? in The Tragedy of Two....whatsits?
I've talked about David's rarer audio work before (referring to the magical Tuesdays & Sundays, which I've covered earlier) but today I thought I'd switch gears and talk about one of the very few audio works of his I don't have and would love to find. This particular one is special because I've never seen it listed on any forum as an audio David ever did. I popped over to see if it was listed at the venerable David Tennant fan site and nope, they don't have it listed. Neither does VK's usually stellar David Tennant Asylum.
Before continuing, I need to first mention dramatist and author Jane Rogers. Rogers wrote the book The Island and worked on its radio adaptation in 2002. She also adapted The Beach of Falesa and The Ebb Tide from Terror in the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Island was broadcast 22 Oct 2002 on BBC Radio 4 as the Radio 4 Friday Play, and the Stevenson duo was broadcast in Dec 2016 on BBC Radio 4. David has played roles in all of these audio plays.
Let’s keep Jane in mind for now, shall we? For here is where my journey began.
I first learned about this mystery audio's existence years ago from David's profile in the programme for his 1999 play Vassa. Listed among his radio credits was a play called The Tragedy Of Two Virtues.
Knowing for certain I'd never seen this play listed elsewhere in his credits, I began to hunt. During the few years of frustrating on again and off again searching which followed I saw the words "Two Ambitions" pop up now and again. I kept dismissing this as a 'close-but-no-cigar' kind of thing - until finally I didn't, and started taking an alternate possibility more seriously. Perhaps the programme had just mis-named the thing?
To that end I did some reading on Hardy's A Tragedy of Two Ambitions. The story is about two brothers, Joshua and Cornelius Halborough, who want to escape from their humble surroundings and get away from the alcoholic, irresponsible father who threatens to destroy everything they've worked for. If you're interested, you can read further details about the plot here.
I also needed to narrow down the date when David might've done this audio, so I went back to the programme it had been mentioned in - the Jan 1999 Vassa programme. It was there, but it wasn’t in any published programmes from David's previous play (Real Inspector Hound/Black Comedy, Apr to Oct 1998). That helped me place the audio's possible production date between Oct 1998 and Jan 1999.
But this possible late 1990s time frame worried me. After 2000, the BBC policy was to archive all "performance programmes" on CD, so (theoretically) plays after that date should exist in the BBC archive. But before then? Oh boy. Well over 90% of broadcast radio plays were not kept. Ughhhh!
But onwards, research-wise. I dove into the BBC Genome Project to see if an audio production called The Tragedy of Two Ambitions fell in that time frame, and lo and behold it had! But it wasn't the full court press "AH HA!" moment I'd hoped; while David's name wasn't listed in its entry, it did give me the dramatist's name. So I determined it was best to just go to the source and ask.
When I finally managed to contact her, my first question to her was, “Was a young David Tennant one of the cast members in the piece? I ask because he did an elusive audio in the same time frame that's been (possibly) mislabeled A Tragedy of Two Virtues, and I suspect your piece might be the correct title?”
Initially she told me she wasn't at all sure he was in it, because her first recollection of meeting David was for the audio adaptation of The Island. She told me, "As far as I remember, the first time I met David Tennant was when he played Callum in my radio drama The Island, adapted from my own novel. He was a young and relatively unknown actor at that point, and was absolutely brilliant. As, of course, he has continued to be!"
But later, after she found her script for the play, she was able to confirm for me that David was indeed a cast member in the audio - a fact which surprised and delighted her as much as it did me. Rogers said David played the lead part of Joshua, and the play had been recorded on 21 Nov 1998. And here's a cool story: she said the fact it was David had probably slipped her mind because the play was recorded in West Country accents, and she strongly associated David with his natural Scottish accent.
West Country, huh? Now that's an accent I'd like to hear him do!
A Tragedy of Two Ambitions was broadcast on 7 Dec 1998 as the fourth of four episodes of Life's Little Ironies, a BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play. It was 45 minutes in length. Other cast members were Alex Lowe, Abigail Docherty, Anthony Jackson, Susan Brown, and Charlie Simpson. Its producer was Clive Brill for Watchmaker Productions, and it was recorded at The Soundhouse in Shepherds Bush, London.
It's an audio play that I would dearly love to have in my collection. I've searched high and low. Unless someone recorded it back in 1998 and saved it, it's likely gone. But stranger things have happened. After all, old DW episodes are still being found, right?
Now - if you've stuck with me this long, I've got a goody to tell. But it's not about The Tragedy Of Two Ambitions - it's about The Island (and if you haven't listened to that play go forth and do it! It's a lovely piece). Rogers told me The Island was recorded on the Isle of Skye because with a small cast, it was often cheaper to record on location than rent a studio in London. The cast stayed at the Kinloch Lodge and recorded in the hotel and on a small private beach. But recording on location meant the cast couldn't access fancy sound effects, so sound effects were done on the fly. While on that private beach, Rogers said, the cast noticed a ruined rowing boat half-full of water. David splashed around in it when they needed watery effects. So when you listen to the play and you hear splashing water, that's our dear David!
And thus ends my story of the mystery of The Tragedy Of Two Ambitions (and the tiny treat of a behind-the-scenes story about The Island).
If anyone can find that audio, contact me. I beg of you!
