The Revelation

by 5:4

Quite a few years ago, in the early 1990s, the BBC broadcast what i can only assume was one of the last productions to have involved the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. It was a one-off dramatisation of the book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible, starring Derek Jacobi in the rôle of John the evangelist, accompanied by music composed by Radiophonic Workshop veteran Peter Howell. Howell’s music – akin more to a film score than the bleeps and noises of conventional Radiophonic fare – is a mixture of synthesisers and voices (performed by the BBC Singers) and, along with the striking sound effects, helps to bring this most abstruse portion of scripture alive in a powerful, vivid way. The dramatisation uses about a third of the text of Revelation from the King James Version, and is grand in scope beyond its 30-minute brevity, particularly in the opening of the Seven Seals, and the encounter with the Whore of Babylon. It’s preceded by a specially-written introduction to Revelation, read by Judy Dench. As the season of Advent is now upon us, shifting attention forward, to the future, there’s no better time to delve deeply into the Bible’s most challenging book.


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David Huggins

Thanks for posting this – wonderful to hear.
According to BBC Genome, The Revelation was broadcast as part of BBC R3’s “Between the Ears” series. https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/f3ba7aab2e3440ca9bb7da8769ccd929

I was wondering if you might have any other recordings of this series, which was presented by Mark Russell. I’m searching for the episode broadcast 19th October 1993, which featured a rare interview with the playwright Barry Bermange about his radiophonic work with Delia Derbyshire. This episode is sadly missing from the BBC archive, so a home recording would be a huge help if you have it. Many thanks for reading, and for any help you may be able to provide on this.

BBC Genome listing for the missing episode I’m searching for:
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/51b13222e2c04bc19770706e7a77ee5e

Kind regards,
David.

David Huggins

My belated thanks for you to replying and checking this for me, it’s much appreciated. Sorry I took so long to reply. Things have been very busy and stressful lately as my mum’s been seriously ill (now recovering thankfully).

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