The Saturday Play on Radio 4 this week was The Great Monkey Trial of Tennessee (available until this coming Saturday on the iPlayer), which tells the story of the Scopes Trial.
It’s a good listen and well worth catching. What I can’t quite work out is the play’s all-star provenance. The credit is BBC Wales, but with a cast including Neil Patrick Harris and Ed Asner, this probably wasn’t recorded in a studio in Cardiff.
I think it must be a special commission of an LA Theatre Works production. Ed Asner has appeared in one of their productions of this work previously, although it was a longer version of the play. But looking at the date on Audible, that production seems to date from 2006. Go back a bit, and there seems to be yet another 1994 production of this play, also featuring Ed Asner!
In the end, none of this matters. It’s a terrifc listen, and quite as relevant today in a world of Creationists and scientific illiteracy.
[Sorry – wrote this a couple of days ago and neglected to put it live. So now it’s no longer on the iPlayer]
The Great Monkey Trial of Tennessee
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2 responses to “The Great Monkey Trial of Tennessee”
Hi! Thanks for the post. This is indeed a brand-new recording of THE GREAT TENNESSEE MONKEY TRIAL, which (you are correct) we have recorded in several prior versions on various tours over the years. This is the first studio recording we’ve done and is indeed a joint production with the BBC.
Thanks for the confirmation. A great listen!
And I enjoyed the version of Moving Bodies made by LA Theatre Works broadcast on the BBC World Service. Again, I know it was a cut-down version of the full play.