BBC Radio 3 Unveils Winter Drama Season

The broadcast premiere of Lee Hall’s The Pitman Painters and Douglas Coupland’s Girlfriend In A Coma are among the mix of new writing and stage transfers on BBC Radio 3’s winter drama season.

The Pitman Painters is an inspirational and potent drama telling the story of a group of Thirties Northumbrian miners who, after starting an art appreciation society, begin to paint, gaining widespread acclaim for their work.

Also dramatised for radio for the first time is Douglas Coupland’s state-of-the-world novel, Girlfriend In A Coma, adapted by Dan Rebellato, and Baghdad Wedding, Hassan Adbulrazzak’s darkly comic play set in London and Baghdad between 1998 and 2005.

New plays on Drama On 3 this winter include The Picture Man by David Eldridge starring Martin Freeman and All The Colours Of Love by Pat McCabe, which is loosely drawn from his most recent novel, Winterwood.

Other new writing on Drama On 3 includes The Trial And Death Of Socrates, The Cool Bag Baby and Donation.

The latest RAJAR figures, for the third quarter of 2007, show that BBC Radio 3 had a weekly reach of 1.9 million listeners, following a year on year decline of 4.3%, and a share of listening of 1.2% after a year on year fall of 7.7 percentage points (see BBC Radio 2 Boosts Weekly Reach To Over 13 Million Listeners Nation-Wide).

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