The Stroma Sessions

Written by Timothy X Atack
Created by Nicolas Jackson & Timothy X Atack
First broadcast: 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30 October 2016
BBC Radio 3

Finalist for the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2017 for Best Script (Tinniswood Award) and Best Supporting Actress (Valene Kane)

‘The Blackletter Quartet’, a new music ensemble, had an idea: to write and record an album on Stroma, an abandoned island off the north coast of Scotland.

Five years after the Quartet’s disappearance, ‘The Stroma Sessions’ – a series of audio files charting the musicians time on the island and the music they created there – were discovered on the internet.

Stroma was abandoned in the early 1960s: its few remaining buildings stand dilapidated, battered by the North Sea. The four musicians sought inspiration in the ruined houses and unforgiving weather. They wanted to make music in a ghost town. The evidence suggests they found what they were looking for.

Cast

Riley….. Rebekak Statons
Hilde ….. Valene Kane
Sam ….. Jade Matthew
Nico …. David Carlyle
Telephone man ….. Timothy X Atack
Narrator ….. Colin Salmon

Written by Timothy X Atack
Created by Nicolas Jackson & Timothy X Atack
Music by Danny Norbury
Music performed by Danny Norbury, Hazel Correa and Patricia Ramirez.
Executive producer, Sara Davies
Sound design by Steve Bond
Directed by Nicolas Jackson, Steve Bond and Isolde Penwarden
Produced by Nicolas Jackson

‘The Stroma Sessions’ is an Afonica production for BBC Radio 3