Flora Robson

Which is such a brilliant casting choice, by the way.

Right? And then commanding this whole sonic stage enters one of Britain's absolute greatest character actresses, Flora Robson, just completely stepping into the formidable shoes of Betsey Trotwood.

Well, welcome to the Deep Dive.

This is a Listen with Gilbert presentation broadcasting in spirit from the Little Station on Commercial Street in Atchison, Kansas.

And our mission today is really to pull back the curtain on the lost art of radio acting.

Yeah, and there is honestly no better guide for this journey than Dame Flora Robson.

So today we are looking at three specific surviving performances.

We've got that monumental nineteen fifty production of David Copperfield, and then we are going to jump forward and look at two BBC Radio productions from nineteen eighty-one, which are The Soft September Air and A Voice in My Hand.

There's something lurking upstairs that no one will comment on, and there are hints of Straw Dogs about the whole film, which isn't a bad thing.

Flora Robson plays Aunt Agatha superbly and adds an air of authenticity to the whole thing.

It could so easily have been overplayed, but director David Greene keeps a lid on things.

He directed Godspell later on.