Pride and Prejudice
Radio play, HR 2, Holy Saturday, 2:04 p.m
Mr. Bennet is calm itself – which often leaves his wife stunned. Josef Ostendorf and Dagmar Manzel are a delightful couple in Kai Grehn’s three-part radio drama production of Jane Austen’s romance and developmental novel. It’s all about the Bennets. Because the family estate will be inherited by a distant relative in the event of Mr. Bennet’s death, it is doubly important to get the five daughters married off well. Above all, the mother looks around for suitable men, the daughters, in turn, each have their own mind – and then you always need a plan to get what you want. So things are really happening in society around Longbourn (further parts: Easter Sunday and Monday, each at 2:04 p.m.; also DLF Kultur, Easter Sunday and Monday as well as April 24th, each at 6:30 p.m.).
The ride to Narnia
Children’s radio play, SWR 2, Easter Sunday, 2:05 p.m
Being mistaken for a prince doesn’t have to be the worst thing. But for Shasta, a poor fisher boy, this has fatal consequences. In the third part of the Chronicles of Narnia – the radio play version of the second part, The King of Narnia, can still be heard in the ARD audio library – the boy flees his homeland with the talking horse Bree, on the way he meets a girl, Aravis, who has a similar plan but a different background and who also rides one of the wondrous horses. They both want to go to Narnia. On a stopover in the city of Tashbaan, they discover the war plans of the ruling house there, directed against Archenland and Narnia. Suddenly, the two teenagers are no longer just about saving their own skin (Part 2: Easter Monday, 2:05 p.m.).
Wolfgang – A life on 20,000 tapes
Radio feature, WDR 3, Holy Saturday, 12:04 p.m
The author of this feature, Christian Collet, is a radio archivist at RBB. Some time ago he came across a remarkable acoustic treasure: Wolfgang Seelbinder, who died last year and was born in 1938, a Berlin bank employee, recorded his life in a manic way: conversations, telephone calls, cultural events, his vacation trips, also radio and TV Broadcasts. Collet’s primary task is to discover relevant programs among the recordings that the radio itself no longer has in its archives. A by-product is this show, which uses the recordings to get closer to Seelbinder, exploring his strange relationship with his daughter growing up in Norway, his joys and hardships, his standard of living.
My dear wolf – my dear distant girls
Radio play, MDR Kultur, Easter Monday, 6 p.m
Actress Ellen Hellwig plays herself in Anne Osterloh’s radio play – it’s a supporting role in her own family history. In 2010, she found letters her parents wrote to each other after World War II while they were separated for seven years, until 1952. Hellwig was born in Norway in 1946 and initially grew up without a father. He was a Wehrmacht officer, convinced of final victory for too long, even as a prisoner of war in Norway. There, in the Asen camp, he marries a Norwegian woman. When he is released, he returns to his homeland in Saxony. Meanwhile, his wife’s Norwegian citizenship is revoked as a traitor and she has to fight for her right of residence. The letters tell of a crude struggle for normalcy.