RTDA: The Entertainer by John Osbourne presented by the BBC.

So this week my new mp3 player arrived and after spending a good few hours organising my music collection, the shows and soundtrack folder is jam packed, I started looking at my spoken word resources. Here in the UK we may have the best broadcasting organisation in the world with the BBC as they put on so many great productions and programmes both on the television and their various radio stations. Over the years I have recorded and collected a wide range of plays and programmes on the theatre always with it in mind to listen to them, much like my issues with my book collection, but now I have actually put a selection onto my mp3 with the idea of listening while I work. This week I put on a couple of programmes and plays but the big one that I had was a BBC Worldwide production of 'The Entertainer' by John Osbourne featuring Bill Nighy as Archie Rice the main character. I once tried to read 'The Entertainer' because of having read 'Look Back in Anger' and loving the characters and I found it slightly hard to follow and not very compelling. I should probably add that this was when I was 17 and really had only just been introduced to work the likes of Pinter and Osbourne so I was learning slowly. Then around the beginning of December I was looking through one of my monologue books and came across one of the Archie Rice speeches and was hooked by his laid back malice. So when I put the play on I was hoping to enjoy the whole thing.

I worked and listened and found myself sucked into this family that just exists, much like Britain after WWII the rice family just exists. It doesn't prosper and it has no future according to its main protagonists. Nighy was brilliant as Archie playing him in the first three quarters with so much charm that I believed I had the character down all wrong, that I must have misheard and misread all the information I had found about the play. Then nearer the end he becomes nastier as it transpires he has fallen for some floozy and has no interest in his wife or family any longer. By the time he puts his elderly father back on the stage you hate Archie Rice and realise that he plays the role of genial gentleman and comic 24/7 even with his immediate family just so he can get what he wants from life. I found the play very interesting and entertaining as well. I look forward to listening to more BBC productions on BBC 7 in the coming weeks.

I recommend anyone who wants to experience some of the best actors in the UK playing some fantastic roles to go straight to the BBC Radio website and check out Radio 4 and Radio 7.