The Progress of the Soul of Lizzie Calvin
written by Michael Symmons Roberts
Sound producer Steve Brooke
Directed in Salford by Susan Roberts
BBC Radio 4, 26 April 2017 45 minutes
In poet John Donne's great unfinished work of the same name , he plays
with the ancient idea of the transmigration of souls, that a spirit
might be reincarnated in many different lives. For contemporary poet
Michael Symmons Roberts, the idea of making a new 'Progress of the
Soul' has long been an ambition. Both poets have serious fun with this
idea, imagining a soul passing, dissatisfied with each successive form
of life, through a fantastical range of insects, plants, fish, animals
and on, trying to reach its ultimate fulfilment as a human being.
The soul , played by Glenda Jackson is the driving voice of the drama -
key narrator and storyteller. Beginning in the body of Lizzie Calvin, a
minister in waiting , the soul journeys through different forms of
life, from a flea on a dogs back to a mandrake . This is a new radio
poem that is irreverent and serious, lyrical and disturbing, witty and
heart breaking . It ultimately questions the idea of the soul, what its
relevance is in contemporary society .
The Soul ..... Glenda Jackson
Lizzie ..... Deborah McAndrew
Flea/ Chef ..... Mark Heap
Dog/ Seagull ..... Louis Labovitch
Songbird/ Rat/ Girl ..... Angela Lonsdale
Mandrake/ Whale ..... Russell Dixon
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