Opening Lines

Episodes

• The Things They CarriedJohn Yorke explores The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, novelist and veteran of the Vietnam War. Published in 1990 it’s a collection of interlinked stories about a platoon of American soldiers fighting an invisible enemy in the booby-trapped jungles of Vietnam. But Tim O’Brien is not telling a straightforward factual war story, he’s also reflecting on the nature of experience and memory, and the power of storytelling. The title story describes not just the physical objects the soldiers carried but the profound emotional burden of guilt, trauma and grief. The narrator of the stories is called Tim O’Brien, just like the author, but he is a fictional character. One of the book’s main themes is the relationship between truth and fiction, and O'Brien frequently blurs the distinction between the two, suggesting that a fictional story may have more emotional truth than a strictly factual one. The Things They Carried is both a vividly portrayed collection of stories about the often surreal nature of the Vietnam war, and a meditation on the memories of those who fought in it. It reveals that the heaviest burdens soldiers carry are often the invisible ones, and that stories can be a way of coming to terms with those burdens after the fighting has ended. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters - now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for R4. The Things They Carried is published by 4th Estate. Recording of Tim O’Brien from an interview for The National Endowment for the Arts on 9 November, 2011. Contributor: Dr Alex Vernon, ME and Ima Graves Peace Distinguished Professor of English at Hendrix College, Arkansas. Author of Peace Is A Shy Thing, a literary biography of Tim O’Brien. Researcher: Henry Tydeman Production Coordinator: Dawn Williams Sound: Iain Hunter Producer: Kate McAll Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

  139|15min
• Midnight CowboyMidnight Cowboy, a 1965 novel by the American writer James Leo Herlihy, is best known to most for its film adaptation, starring Jon Voight as Joe Buck – a naïve dreamer from Texas - and Dustin Hoffman as Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, a New York street pickpocket. The novel tells the story of Joe Buck’s childhood in Texas, provides context for his naivety and emotional illiteracy, and explains what drives him to move to New York in his 20s, to seek his fortune providing sexual services to rich frustrated women. Directed by John Schlesinger, the 1969 movie version focuses less on Joe’s early life – and more on the relationship between Joe and Ratso in New York. The film won best picture at the Oscars the following year. The novel, which didn’t achieve mainstream success, fell out of print in the shadow of the film. But, as John Yorke explains, the story of Midnight Cowboy, however simple, was groundbreaking in the mid 1960s: bringing characters at the margins of society to the centre, and dealing with themes of sexuality and sexual frankness in a powerful new way. John also explores how Herlihy connects the story with the political uncertainty of 1960s America, and looks at what drove him to write the book. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain; from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters, now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for Radio 4. Contributors: James Leo Herlihy, from Studs Terkel WFMT radio archive, broadcast 1969. Howard Schuman, from Open Book, BBC Radio 4, 10 August 2003. Readings by William Hootkins for Open Book, BBC Radio 4, 10 August 2003. Excerpts from Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy, Simon & Schuster, Inc, 1965. Excerpts from John Schlesinger's 1969 film adaption of Midnight Cowboy. Researcher: Henry Tydeman Sound: Iain Hunter Producer: Jack Soper Executive Producer: Sara Davies Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

  138|15min
• Libra - Episode TwoFor the 100th title to be explored in Opening Lines, John Yorke picks up the 1988 novel Libra by the heavyweight American writer, Don DeLillo. In this second episode considering the book, he focuses in on the endless conspiracies that surround its central subject - the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Does the fact that DeLillo chooses to feed the conspiracy industry by inserting a second shooter taking aim at Kennedy from the mythic grassy knoll matter, given that this is a work of fiction? Or does DeLillo present a world governed as much by chance and co-incidence as it is by conspiracy? To help him answer those questions, John speaks with David Aaronovitch, author of Voodoo Histories: How Conspiracy Theory Has Shaped Modern History; Pullitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Jennifer Egan; and Professor Jesse Kavadlo, president of the Don DeLillo Society. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters - now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for R4. Libra by Don de Lillo is the 100th title covered by Opening Lines. The series began in January 2023 with Lady Chatterly’s Lover. Since then John Yorke has explored novels from Anna Karenina to Gone with the Wind, plays from Shakespeare to Eugene O’Neill and ground-breaking non-fiction like John Hersey’s Hiroshima. Each episode provides background, context and some expert discussion in advance of Radio 4’s Sunday afternoon drama, and all 100 titles can be heard on BBC Sounds. Contributors: Pullitzer Prize winning author Jennifer Egan, David Aaronovitch & Professor Jesse Kavadlo Sound: Sean Kerwin Readings: Eric Stroud Researcher: Henry Tydeman Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams Producer: Geoff Bird Executive Producer: Sara Davies A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

  137|14min
• Libra - Episode OneFor the 100th title to be explored in Opening Lines, John Yorke picks up the 1998 novel Libra by the heavyweight American writer, Don DeLillo. The book centres around the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the event DeLillo says marked ‘a turning point in consciousness’ for Americans. He presents a fragmented portrait of the country at the height of the Cold War, following the misfortunes of disaffected loner Lee Harvey Oswald - as well as the large cast of rogue operators planning to use him to bring the President down. In the first of two-parts, John looks to find what makes this widely acclaimed novel stand out from the hundreds of other books and films spawned by the world-shaking events in Dealey Plaza back in November 1963. He speaks with, among others, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Jennifer Egan, a self-proclaimed DeLillo acolyte, who says of Libra that the “sense of the chaos and the noise of contemporary life invading the narrative I was very drawn to, and, you know, have tried to emulate, frankly.” John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters - now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for R4. Libra by Don de Lillo is the 100th title covered by Opening Lines. The series began in January 2023 with Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Since then John Yorke has explored novels from Anna Karenina to Gone with the Wind, plays from Shakespeare to Eugene O’Neill and ground-breaking non-fiction like John Hersey’s Hiroshima. Each episode provides background, context and some expert discussion in advance of Radio 4’s Sunday afternoon drama, and all 100 titles can be heard on BBC Sounds. Contributors: Pullitzer Prize winning author Jennifer Egan & Professor Jesse Kavadlo. Sound: Researcher: Henry Tydeman Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams Producer: Geoff Bird Executive Producer: Sara Davies A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

  136|14min
• Trouble in MindAlice Childress’s first major work is set in a world that she knew very well both as a performer and a writer – the theatre. It’s 1957 and rehearsals are beginning for a new Broadway production – Chaos In Belleville – an anti-lynching play written by a white playwright. Veteran Black actor Wiletta Mayer is to star in the play, but after years of compromise she finally finds herself unable to go along with the patronising and insensitive portrayal of Black characters that she’s experienced throughout her career. Her consequent clash with the white director opens up deep faultlines throughout the cast and the result is chaos, not in Belleville, but on Broadway. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters - now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for R4. Valerie Curtis Newton is Head of Directing and Playwriting at the University of Washington School of Drama. She is also the Founding Artistic Director for The Hansberry Project, a professional African American theatre lab. Her many directing credits include two productions of Trouble In Mind. Alice Childress archive clip taken from American Theatre Wing’s documentary series ‘Working in the Theatre’ – April 1987 Reader: Samantha Dakin Music: Torquil MacLeod Researcher: Henry Tydeman Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams Sound: Sean Kerwin Producer: Torquil MacLeod Executive Producer: Sara Davies A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

  135|14min
• They Shoot Horses, Don't They?They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? takes us into the strange and brutal world of dance marathon competitions dating from the Great Depression in America. It follows Robert and Gloria, a couple who’ve washed up in Los Angeles and whose last hope is to get spotted by talent scouts or win the prize money by being the last dancers standing. The book’s author, Horace McCoy, had first hand experience of these competitions, which could last months, having worked as a bouncer at one himself. As John Yorke discovers, it’s a bleak tale from a difficult time, whose nihilistic underpinnings led Simone de Beauvoir to call it the first existentialist American novel. But McCoy shows just empathy for the doomed characters to make the story, in the words of contributor Denise Hamilton, hit home like a stiletto to the heart. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters - now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for R4. Contributors: Denise Hamilton, novelist and editor of ‘LA Noir’ Sound: Sean Kerwin Researcher: Henry Tydeman Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams Producer: Geoff Bird Reader: Eric Stroud Executive Producer: Sara Davies A Pier production for BBC Radio

  134|14min
• Anna Christie - Episode 2In this second episode, John Yorke digs deeper into Euguene O’Neill’s 1921 play “Anna Christie” – about an estranged daughter who is reunited with her sea captain father, and falls in love with a sailor. The play examines identity, family and sexual politics, and asks questions about love, faith, redemption, resilience and forgiveness. John asks how and why the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning dramatist introduced realist theatre to the US, looks at Eugene O’Neill’s influence and legacy, and asks what we should make of “Anna Christie” today. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain; from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters, now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for Radio 4. Contributor: Robert M. Dowling, professor of English at Central Connecticut State University, author of the biography Eugene O’Neill: A Life in Four Acts. From the BBC archives: Playwright Arthur Miller, from Changing Stages: America, 19 Nov 2000. Actor Natasha Richardson, from Woman’s Hour, 18 June 1990. Credits: Excerpts from “Anna Christie” by Eugene O’Neill, 1921, including Ruth Wilson in the 2011 Donmar Warehouse production. Excerpt from the 1930 film adaptation of “Anna Christie” starring Greta Garbo. Researcher: Henry Tydeman Sound: Sean Kerwin Producer: Jack Soper Executive Producer: Sara Davies Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4 & BBC Sounds

  133|13min
• Anna Christie - Episode 1In the first of two episodes, John Yorke looks at “Anna Christie” by Eugene O’Neill - one of American theatre’s founding fathers, and the only American dramatist to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The play is about a young woman who goes in search of her estranged father, a sea captain, and falls in love with a sailor. Debuting in 1921, “Anna Christie” is one of O’Neill’s early works – less well known and less successful than his later plays, like Long Day’s Journey into Night or The Iceman Cometh – but, as John Yorke explains, “Anna Christie” is significant both for what it tells us about one of American theatres key figures, and as a story that captures a nation at a moment of transition. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain; from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters, now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for Radio 4. Contributors: Robert M. Dowling, professor of English at Central Connecticut State University, author of the biography Eugene O’Neill: A Life in Four Acts. Thomas Kail, director of a 2026 production of “Anna Christie” at St Ann’s Warehouse, New York, speaking on the WNYC podcast All Of It with Alison Stewart. From the BBC archives: Jude Law, The Radio 2 Arts Show, 5 August 2011 Ruth Wilson, Front Row, 5 August 2011. Writer and critic Sarah Churchwell, Front Row 10 August 2011. Credits: Readings by Eric Stroud. Excerpts from “Anna Christie” by Eugene O’Neill, 1921, including Natasha Richardson in the 1990 Young Vic production and Ruth Wilson and Jude Law in the 2011 Donmar Warehouse production. Researcher: Henry Tydeman Sound: Sean Kerwin Producer: Jack Soper Executive Producer: Sara Davies Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4 & BBC Sounds

  132|13min
• Portrait of the Artist as a Young DogJohn Yorke examines Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, ten semi-autobiographical short stories in which Dylan Thomas looks back and observes himself growing into the artist – the writer – that he became in adult life. The stories highlight Thomas’s contradictory nature. At school he failed every other subject apart from English, in which he came top. He’s a town boy who loves the countryside. He’s a bookish child who devours his father’s library of 6,000 books ‘with his eyes out on stalks’ by day, and a bit of a lad who roams Swansea by night, observing the goings-on of the city. Dylan Thomas was called a wastrel and an alcoholic, yet was incredibly productive, writing 300 pages of poems, 500 pages of radio scripts, 600 pages of film scripts and 1000 pages of letters. He began the short stories in 1938, a year after he had married Caitlin MacNamara and they’d settled with their first child in Laugharne, a small town on the coat of Carmarthenshire. Ten years later he would move into the famous Boathouse where he would live for the remainder of his life. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters - now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for R4. Contributors: John Goodby, Professor of Arts and Culture at Sheffield Hallam University, author of Critical Lives: Dylan Thomas. Joe Dunthorne, novelist, poet and journalist. Researcher: Henry Tydeman Production Hub Co-ordinator: Dawn Williams Sound: Iain Hunter Producer: Kate McAll Executive Producer: Sara Davies A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

  131|14min
• Moon TigerWriter Penelope Lively’s enduring themes are the connections and interplay between memory, history and time. Nowhere is this more compelling than in Moon Tiger, published in 1987 and widely regarded as one of her best novels. It won the Booker Prize that same year and went on to gain The Golden Booker in 2018 as the stand-out winner of the 1980s. The novel’s protagonist Claudia Hampton is an historian and war correspondent, ambitious and independent and a 20th Century woman who has defied the conventions of domesticity and motherhood. In the opening lines of the novel she is reflecting back on her life as she lies on her death-bed. It will be ‘a history of the world and in the process my own,’ she promises. Through a series of scenes presented as a kaleidoscopic mosaic of memories Lively pieces together who and what has shaped Claudia during her life, such as the deeply competitive bond she had with her brother Gordon, her lacklustre approach to motherhood with her daughter Lisa and, central to her life, an early love affair with tank commander Tom Southern who she met in Egypt during WW2. In this episode of Opening Lines John Yorke explores the dazzling technique Penelope Lively employs to draw Claudia’s life together and asks what makes this classic such an extraordinarily compelling novel. The programme features writer, editor and critic Lucy Scholes and, from the Radio 4 archives, we hear from Penelope Lively herself in Bookclub recorded in 2001. John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters - now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for R4. Producer: Julian Wilkinson Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams Sound: Iain Hunter A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

  130|14min