The Cloistered Soul, Afternoon Drama for BBC Radio 4
- Submitting institution
-
Leeds Beckett University
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- Connor1
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- BBC Radio 4
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first performance
- May
- Year of first performance
- 2014
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The Cloistered Soul is responds to the absence of narratives exploring female monastic communities. The drama focuses on two specific questions: (a) how are the social and spiritual lives of nuns shaped by daily ritual; and (b) how do the strictures of this framework come under pressure from the opposing ideologies of individuals in the community? Rather than use the convent merely as backdrop or setting, I set out to represent it as a psychic, as well as physical, space — a crucible for the pressures of community and cloistered life.
A key reason for the play’s commission — according to the BBC’s commissioning editor — lay in its rendition of a world and way of life that remain inaccessible to the general public. My initial research involved a visit to a cloistered order of Benedictine nuns, attending services and interviewing representatives from that order. The clash of opposing ideologies is executed not just through the characterisation but also through my choices of form. For example, the contrasts between dialogue and monologue ‘voice over’ allowed me to examine the role of the individual in relation to community; it also provides a variation in sound texture as a focus for the conflict (internal and external consciousness; a clash of voices) that is fundamental to drama. The musical score is in part soundtrack and also functions as a structuring principle for the play and for the nuns’ daily religious and domestic ritual.
The Cloistered Soul was successful in the highly selective BBC commissioning round, which has an average audience for the Radio 4 Afternoon Drama of 130,000 listeners. In 2016 The Cloistered Soul was selected from an extensive longlist by the Arts and Science Museum at Harvard University for inclusion in their exhibition on the politics and culture of radio.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
