Fiona McAlpine

Fiona McAlpine is a radio drama producer and director. She also abridges books and stories for radio.

Fiona McAlpine directed Duce's Bonce about her great-aunt the Irish aristocrat Hon. Violet Gibson who tried to assassinate Benito Mussolini in 1926,^[1] and Jon Canter's I Love Stephen Fry in which Stephen Fry played a cameo role.^[2]

Fiona McAlpine has abridged for radio:

• In Cold Blood' ' by Truman Capote^[3]
• Seeds of Greatness by Jon Canter^[4]
• The Rapture by Liz Jensen^[5]
• Enoch's Two Letters by Alan Sillitoe^[6]
• No Name in the Street by Alan Sillitoe^[7]
• The Caller by Alan Sillitoe^[8]
• The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer^[9]

Radio Plays

Radio Plays Directed or Produced by Fiona McAlpine
Date first broadcast	Play	Author	Cast	Synopsis Awards	Station Series
26 December 2003	The Smallest Man in Christendom	Robin Brooks	Lucy Robinson, David Holt, Desmond Barrit, Alan Cox, Charlie Simpson, Julie Cox, John McAndrew, Terry Smith, Felix Still and Tom Raphael Eaves	This Christmas entertainment tells the true story of Jeffrey Hudson whose extraordinary adventures are celebrated in a masque. His presentation in a pie to King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, his daring exploits in the Civil War, and his astonishing fate, are acted out by a motley cast in Radio Drama's virtual theatre.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play[10]
23 May 2005	The Last Days of Gordon Springer	Richard Stevens	Alicya Eyo, Regina Freedman, Lara Haworth, David Horovitch, Jasmine Hyde, Stephen Mangan, Catherine Shepherd and Karl Theobald	Gordon Springer has an almost God-like power over the office network. He can tap into any of his colleagues' personal secrets whenever he likes – because he is the IT manager.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
30 May 2006	Duce's Bonce[1][11]	Robin Brooks	Catherine McCormack, Maureen Beattie, Adrian Rawlins, Nicholas Woodeson and Sarah Eedle	By 1956, the Hon Violet Gibson has been in an asylum for over 20 years – and she seems finally to have lost touch with reality. Half the time she doesn't know who the Prime Minister is, and she has this mad idea that she shot Benito Mussolini. Based on a true story.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
28 December 2007	A Warning to the Furious[12]	Robin Brooks	Lucy Robinson, Catherine Shepherd, Carl Prekopp, Gerard McDermott and Andrew Wincott	A feminist film-maker and her crew visit the Suffolk coast to make a documentary about ghost story writer MR James. They hope to discover how an outwardly respectable bachelor could produce such disturbing horrors.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
3 July 2008	I Love Stephen Fry[13]	Jon Canter	Stephen Fry, Lesley Sharp, Phil Davis, Carolyn Pickles, Ron Cook, Sinead Matthews and Karl Theobald	Jackie, a woman with a midlife crisis and a snoring husband, starts to fantasise about other men. In her dreams, Jackie is in love with Stephen Fry – who is everything her husband is not: eloquent, metropolitan, learned and gay. But what does Stephen think and should she tell him she loves him?	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
7 August 2008	Left at Marrakech[14]	Richard Stevens	Will Keen, Jonathan Cullen, Clare Corbett, Alan Cox, Nicholas Rowe and Ben Lewis	In 1943, a B-17 takes off from Florida on its way to active service in England, embarking on a flight via Puerto Rico, Dakar and Marrakech. Joining the American crew are two British hitchhikers, who need a lift home. One of them, an attractive WAAF, seems to be a good omen – she looks like the painted figure on their fuselage. But each leg of the journey is beset with increasing difficulty and danger. Is someone on board not what they seem to be?	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
11 June 2009	Taken[Note 1][15][16]	Suzanne Heathcote	Will Keen, Brigit Forsyth, Joseph Kloska, Wendy Nottingham, Jasmine Hyde, Alex Woodhall, Crispin Clover, Leighton Martin, Nicola Fox and Amelia Rubra	The disappearance of a little girl in Simon's town brings home the fact that, since his divorce, his own daughter has no idea who he is. Fuelled by alcohol and nightmares, Simon's obsession with finding the missing girl and his failure to be a good father pushes him to the edge.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
30 March 2013	Jill[Note 2][17]	Philip Larkin, Robin Brooks	Samuel Barnett, Jessica Raine, Richard Goulding, Frank Dillane, and Grace Englert	John Kemp, a Northern Grammar boy arrives at Oxford for his first term. Socially awkward and inexperienced, he finds he is sharing rooms with the upper class Christopher Warner, whose brash loutish behaviour both intimidates and attracts him. Jill is a subtle and moving account of a young man facing the big issues of life - sex and class - and retreating into the world of the imagination.	BBC Radio 4 Classic Serial
7 April 2013	A Girl in Winter[Note 3][18]	Philip Larkin, Richard Stevens	Carolyn Genzkow, Jolyon Coy, and Sinead Matthews	In wintery wartime Britain, Katherine Lind, exiled and alone, endures her job as an assistant in an obscure provincial library with an unpleasant boss and unfriendly colleagues. Frozen in time and tragedy, her past is gone - and with it her family, her friends, her old life. She is living moment by moment. But on this cold, bleak Saturday, news from an English family she once knew forces her to relive the idyllic summer she spent with them six years before.	BBC Radio 4 Classic Serial

Notes:

1. Producer: Fiona McAlpine, Director: Carl Prekopp
2. Producer: Fiona McAlpine, Adapted by: Robin Brooks
3. Producer: Fiona McAlpine, Adapted by: Richard Stevens

References

1. Radio: Pick of the day, Phil Daoust, The Guardian, 30 May 2006
2. BBC – Arts and Drama – Jon Canter on I Love Stephen Fry
3. BBC – Book at Bedtime – In Cold Blood
4. BBC – Book at Bedtime – Seeds of Greatness
5. BBC – Book at Bedtime – The Rapture
6. BBC – Afternoon Reading – Alan Sillitoe Short Stories: Enoch's Two Letters
7. BBC – Afternoon Reading – Alan Sillitoe Short Stories: No Name in the Street
8. BBC – Afternoon Reading – Alan Sillitoe Short Stories: The Caller
9. BBC – Book at Bedtime – The Story of a Marriage
10. BBC – Afternoon Play
11. Radio – Martin Hoyle, Financial Times, 30 May 2006
12. BBC – Afternoon Play – A Warning to the Furious
13. BBC – Afternoon Play – I Love Stephen Fry
14. BBC – Afternoon Play – Left at Marrakech
15. BBC – Afternoon Play – Taken
16. BBC – Press Office – Afternoon Play – Taken
17. "Jill Classic Serial, A Larkin Double".
18. "A Girl in Winter Classic Serial, A Larkin Double".