Silver Winner
UK Production Company of the Year
Audio Production Awards 2021
Drama from MIM
The Lie by Agatha Christie
Trapped in an unhappy marriage and provoked by her husband's obsession with her younger sister, Nan disappears from the family home for a night – with devastating consequences.
Agatha Christie's extraordinary early play, which predates her famous stage thrillers, lay unread in her family's archives until it was discovered by theatre producer Julius Green. The script was seemingly written in the mid-1920s, during the breakdown of Christie's first marriage.
Adapted and Directed by Julius Green (with Martin Lewton), and starring Sarah Mowat, Chloe Newsome, Ben Nealon, Alison Skilbeck, Tina Gray and Mike Evans. An MIM Production for BBC Radio 4
Rock by Tim Fountain
WARNING: Rock contains adult language and themes
In 1985, the world lost Rock Hudson to Aids. Hudson was a screen idol in 50s LA, but his career was perpetually under threat from Confidential Magazine.
Here Made in Manchester adapts the critically acclaimed stage play Rock.
Written and Directed by Tim Fountain and starring the incomparable Bette Bourne as Henry Willson and Michael Xavier as Rock Hudson, Rock brings the seamy world of Hollywood’s heyday vividly to life.
Rock was winner of the first BBC Online Only Audio Drama Award.
Dreaming of Foxes by Aelish Michael
Ted Hughes is reunited with a long-lost school friend nearly 50 years on. But what do they have in common? It stars Robert Garrett as Ted Hughes. The drama was written by Aelish Michael and directed by Joyce Branagh. A MIM production for BBC Radio 4Extra
Turing's Test by Phil Collinge and Andy Lord
MIM’s fictionalised account of the final moments in the life of Alan Turing. The drama features History Boys and Dirk Gently star Samuel Barnett as the Bletchley Park code breaker on his death in 1954 after eating an apple laced with cyanide following his conviction for gross indecency.
Turing’s Test examines the scientist’s legacy in the field of artificial intelligence and the personal tragedy of his suicide through a deathbed dialogue with a “machine” played by Paul Kendrick.
It’s directed by Mike Heath and Neil Gardner.
Missing You by Richard Vergette
June Brown MBE plays Margey, who against advice, refused to give her son up for adoption when she was told he had Down's syndrome. She has protected William fiercely throughout his life, even when William has preferred not to be protected. Despite the tensions that arose when William demanded his independence, both mother and son remain devoted to each other. Now they can’t see each-other due to the pandemic and the enforced separation causes each of them to reflect on their shared past.
William is played by Sam Barnard
The drama was produced by Ashley Byrne, Iain Mackness and James Brown
Death In Genoa by Thomas Wright
MIM’s critically acclaimed drama written by Thomas Wright, about the 19th Century writer, wit and raconteur Oscar Wilde. In 1895, he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. On his release, he settled on the continent under the name of Sebastian Melmoth. He wrote to his wife, Constance, but he saw neither her, nor his two young boys, again. She died in Genoa in 1898 and he visited her grave just a year before his own death in 1900.
Death in Genoa imagines what might have happened to Wilde during that visit....
Death in Genoa features veteran character actor Simon Callow as Oscar Wilde and History Boys and Dirk Gently star Samuel Barnett as Omero. It also stars Blake Ritson, Freddie Machin and Marcello Magni. It’s directed by Joyce Brannagh.
WARNING: Death In Genoa contains adult language and themes
Don't Cry For Me Maradona by Aelish Michael
Veteran British actor Tim Healy stars as Bobby Robson and his wife Denise Welch stars as Elsie Robson in a short and affectionate fictional drama set in the aftermath of Maradona's so-called 'Hand of God' goal 25 years ago this month.
With flashbacks to the match itself, Don't Cry For Me Maradona examines how one of the real gentlemen of football coped with the agonies and ecstacies of the beautiful game. Don't Cry For Me Maradona is written by Aelish Michael and is directed by Iain Mackness. A MIM Production for BBC Radio 5 live.
As We Forgive Them by Richard Vergette
America, November 2008: the new President is elected amidst an ‘audacity of hope’. For newly elected Democrat Congressman, John Daniels, this should be a time of celebration. Instead he must decide the fate of his daughter’s murderer: should he exact revenge or grant redemption... or both?
Joe Sims plays convict Lee Fenton. Joe Sims is a celebrated British actor probably best known for his role in British crime drama Broadchurch. Congressman John Daniels is played by Richard Vergette. Richard Vergette is an actor, playwright and freelance education consultant. His one man play 'An Englishman's Home' won critical acclaim at the 24.7 Theatre Festival and later transferred to The Library Theatre in Manchester.
Docudramas from MIM
Peterloo: The Massacre That Changed Britain
Guardian Editor-in-Chief Katharine Viner charts the story of a devastating event 200 years ago in Manchester, which would have a huge impact on how Britain was run.
On August 16th 1819, troops charged the crowds in St Peter's Field - 18 people lost their lives and around 700 were injured. Within days, the press were referring to it as The Peterloo Massacre, after the battle of Waterloo just four years earlier.
Katharine meets descendants of people who were there that day. She examines the background and build-up and hears graphic accounts of the slaughter, death and injury. There are contributions from leading historians as well as dramatic reconstructions of real testimony from the time.
Actors include Rowe David McClelland, Stephanie Turner, Erin Shanagher, Steve Murphy, and Royston Mayo
James Dean: The Last Ten Weeks
Everyone grapples for a fresh angle on the life and death of Hollywood actor James Dean, and here we have it in documents locked away for more than half a century. Essays and hundreds of pictures by critically acclaimed photographer Sanford Roth have come to light giving us a new insight into the life of an icon. Hollywood actor Robert Wagner tells the story of Roth's short but intense friendship with Dean over that hot summer of 1955.
Roth (his words brought to life here by actor Michael Xavier) paints a unique picture of a young man who, to many, has remained an enigma for decades. A MIM production for BBC Radio 2
Pandemic 1918
In this three part series, leading virologist Professor John Oxford tells the dramatic story of how the UK coped with the flu pandemic which swept the country 100 years ago.
John hears testimony from the people who experienced it at first hand - from soldiers on the front line and from those who remember whole families being wiped out within days of loved ones returning from the fighting.
People delve into their own history to try and understand what their ancestors went through - among them Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark. Her great uncle died from the flu just days after the Armistice was declared in November 1918.
The Tragic Life and Death of Timothy Evans
25 year old Timothy Evans from Merthyr Tydfil was hanged in March 1950 after being falsely convicted of the murder of his daughter at their flat in Rillington Place in London's Notting Hill district. Three years after his execution, his downstairs neighbour John Christie was found to be a serial killer who had killed six women in the same house.
The documentary includes the dramatic reconstruction of elements of the trial and hears from historians, crime writers and Harold Evans, the former Sunday Times editor who raised the Evans case and campaigned for his conviction to be overturned alongside broadcaster and human rights campaigner Ludovic Kennedy. This programme assesses the case's significance, its role in the abolition of the death penalty and Timothy Evans's place in history.
The actors are Dyfan Rees (Timothy Evans), Rowe David McClelland (John Christie), Stephanie Turner (Ethel Christie), Christopher Strauli (Mr Justice Lewis), Andy Hill (Clerk of the court) and Jonathan Kydd (Malcolm Morris KC and Christmas Humphreys). An MIM Production for BBC Radio Wales.
Hedd Wyn: The Poet and The Hero
Actor Huw Garmon goes on a journey across Wales to rediscover the young poet Ellis Evans, better known as Hedd Wyn who was killed in the First World War and posthumously awarded the National Eisteddfod Chair in 1917 - Wales' highest honour for poetry. As the winner was announced, and nobody stepped forward, it was eventually revealed that Ellis Humphrey Evans had fallen in battle six weeks earlier.
Actor Carwyn Jones (Rownd a Rownd, Judge John Deed, Pobol y Cwm) brings Hedd Wyn's poems and letters to life while fellow Welsh actor Dyfan Rees, best known for his role as Iolo White in Pobol y Cwm, once again portrays First World War Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who he played in Radio Wales' acclaimed three part series Lloyd George's War.
1916: A Letter from Ireland
Irish Times journalist Fintan O'Toole takes a look at some of the 2,000 letters crowdsourced by Maynooth University as part of a special project in Ireland, marking the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising. The correspondence paints a unique portrait of Irish people coming to terms with monumental events but, at the same time, getting on with everyday life. This isn't the Ireland of 1916 as seen through the history books - it's the Ireland of 1916 seen through the writings of the people as they lived it. There are love letters penned by a couple starting a romance amid the backdrop of the troubles in Dublin, there are letters from soldiers on the Western Front confused at the events back home, there are lost letters and there are last letters from people eventually condemned for their part in the Rising. A MIM production for BBC Radio 4
The Benjamin Broadcasts
Michael Rosen presents the first English recreation of Walter Benjamin's pre-war children's broadcasts, with Henry Goodman as Benjamin. A MIM production for BBC Radio 4