Output details

Life and Fate - all episodes (radio drama series adapted for BBC Radio 4, 7 plays of varying lengths (15-, 45- and 60-minutes))

This adaptation of Life and Fate was commissioned by BBC for broadcast in 2011. I worked to adapt it with one other dramatist, Mike Walker, on a 50-50 basis. The original novel is not written to a standard Dickensian or even Tolstoyan format. We therefore decided to break the narrative into what we called 'Chekhovian short stories'. So the script which follows features 'plays' which cumulatively tell the story by taking discrete groups of characters and relating the narrative only as it concerns them. Mike Walker and I then divided the plays between us – what follows is only the episodes which I wrote alone.

The critical research problem was that the novel was written (though never published) for a Russian readership in the 1960s which would have known considerably more about the Great Patriotic War than a Western audience in 2011. This necessitated considerable background research into the Battle of Stalingrad, the NKVD, the Lubyanka and daily life during wartime Russia. This research was a vital part of fleshing out the story and building the necessary depth into the scenes.

This prompted our decision to pepper the adaptation with 'mockumentary'-style interviews – as though to Grossman himself, for example. This explains the scenes in the script which are described only as 'Interview' and feature only bullet points of information: to give the actor enough information to sound spontaneous, unscripted and as real as possible. Above all, the aim of the adaptation was bring to life a novel which was virtually unknown to British readership at the time.

The adaptation was broadcast in September 2011, on BBC Radio 4, spread across a single week – thus making use of the range of different length drama slots –15, 45 and 60 minutes – that happen to exist in the schedule.