Radio review: So funny it hurts

Radio review: The Friday Play - My MS and Me | Drama on 3 - Festen | Today Programme

At first during The Friday Play - My MS and Me (Radio 4), I thought the live audience a mistake. Jim Sweeney's dramatic monologue about life with slow onset multiple sclerosis sat uneasily with the ripples of nervous laughter, just as the very funny jokes were at odds with the scary details of his disease. But then, as this bittersweet essay on life with an unpredictable, life-changing illness developed, I realised that the audience was key. They represented the very barriers that Sweeney took on as a challenge.

He did so as a stand-up comic, with a routine that was largely about falling down. His tone was sarcastic and sad, and his material bitingly comic. He spoke of the ailments others often confuse with MS ("Like David Puttnam and that bloke from Bros", he quoted a fictional friend as a saying. "No, that's ME") and the side effects of drugs. Cataracts are a potential problem with steroids, and this is especially ironic given that MS already weakens sight. "Cataracts," Sweeney said sardonically, "the ideal side-effect for the visually impaired."

What I especially liked about this performance was that it avoided sentimentality and yet tugged hard at the emotions. At one point, Sweeney is stuck on the ground floor of his house, glancing up to the giddy heights of the first floor. "What," he ponders, "if I can never walk up those stairs again?" A brave and inspiring piece of radio.

Drama on 3 - Festen (Radio 3, Sunday) was altogether darker. Creepy and claustrophobic from the start, David Eldridge's superb adaptation of his stage play for radio was like early Pinter meets Chekhov at his bleakest, rewritten by Gordon Ramsay ("why don't you pack your own fucking shit in your own fucking suitcase?" is a typical line). Jane Asher, obviously still keen to get away from her saintly cake-baking image, starred as the mother ("I'm sorry you're so deceitful and rotten and I hope you die from it", her son says).

The relentlessly menacing mood and spare style worked well on radio. After the eldest son of the family has raised an unusual birthday toast to his father ("he lay us down on the green sofa, he raped us, he raped us, he took advantage of us sexually, he had sex with his precious children"), we hear the shocked silence in the room, punctured by one short, shallow intake of breath. You would only hear that on radio.

The writer A L Kennedy has a memorable turn of phrase. Asked by John Humphrys on the Today Programme (Radio 4, Friday) how she feels about the election, she replied that it makes her "bleed from the eyes". A startled Humphrys repeated the phrase, sounding momentarily floored by its strange, unexpected violence.

Contributor

Elisabeth Mahoney

The GuardianTramp

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