Kenneth Branagh and David Tennant star in BBC Radio 4's ambitious eight-hour dramatisation of Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman's epic masterpiece set during the Battle of Stalingrad
A sprawling account of life on the Eastern Front, charting the fate of both a nation and a family in the turmoil of war: It’s Autumn 1942 and the Russians are defending Stalingrad from the ferocious attack of the Germans. Featuring a stellar cast, including Kenneth Branagh, David Tennant and Greta Scacchi, this dramatisation follows the lives of the Shtrum/Shaposhnikov family against the backdrop of the siege of Stalingrad and life in the camps of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.
Told through multiple connected plotlines, and completed in 1960, Life and Fate’s comparison of Stalinism with Nazism was considered by Soviet authorities to be so dangerous that the KGB placed the manuscript under arrest, and Grossman was informed his book would not be published for at least 200 years. Having been a household name as one of Russia's most distinguished war correspondents, Grossman died aged 58 - the banning of his book hastening the end of his life - and he would never know the fate of his masterpiece: smuggled out of the Soviet Union on microfilm, to freedom and eventual publication in the West. Today it is increasingly hailed as the most important Russian novel of the 20th Century.
Content List:
- Track 1: Viktor and Lyuda & Anna’s Letter
- Track 2: Krymov and Zhenya - Lovers Once & Vera and Her Pilot
- Track 3: Journey & Abarchuk
- Track 4: Building 6.1 - Those Who Were Still Alive & Lieutenant Peter Bach
- Track 5: Novikov's Story
- Track 6: A Hero of the Soviet Union & Krymov in Moscow
- Track 7: Fortress Stalingrad
- Track 8: Viktor and the Academy
Cast and credits
Written by Vasily Grossman
Viktor Shtrum - Kenneth Branagh
Commissar Krymov - David Tennant
Lyuda Shaposhnikova - Greta Scacchi
Zhenya Shaposhnikova - Raquel Cassidy
Alexandra Vladimirovna - Ann Mitchell
Getmanov - Philip Jackson
Abarchuk - Malcolm Storry
Pyotr Sokolov - Nigel Anthony
Mostovskoy - Peter Marinker
Sofya Levinton - Sara Kestelman
Captain Grekov - Joseph Millson
Pyotr Pavlovich Novikov - Don Gilet
With Alex Tregear, Eleanor Bron, Adrian Scarborough, Carl Prekopp, Malcolm Tierney, Kenneth Cranham, Jonathan Forbes, Jude Akuwudike, John Sessions, Harriet Walter, Ellie Kendrick, and Philip Madoc.
Further parts played by Stephen Greif, Harriet Walter, Ralph Ineson, Janet Suzman, Bruce Alexander, Sam Dale, Peter Polycarpou, Freddie Fox, Peter Wight, Stuart Mcloughlin, Jane Whittenshaw, Sean Baker, Luke Treadaway, Morven Christie, Simon Bubb, Gerard McDermott, Samuel West, Laurence Belcher, Christine Kavanagh, Deeivya Meir, Henry Devas, Alun Raglan, Stephen Hogan, Katie Angelou, James Lailey, Geoffrey Streatfeild, Lloyd Thomas, Michael Shelford, Tony Bell, Jessica Raine, David Seddon, Ewan Bailey, Elliot Levey, Matthew Marsh, Elliot Cowan, Jonathan Cullen, Alison Pettit, Jack Shepherd, James Greene, Henry Devas, Daniel Rabin, Elaine Claxton, Adeel Akhtar, Sally Orrock, Stuart Mcloughlin, Chris Pavlo, and Susie Riddell.
Translated by Robert Chandler
Dramatised by Mike Walker & Jonathan Myerson
Original music by John Hardy with Rob Whitehead
Musicians: Oliver Wilson-Dickson, Tom Jackson, Stacey Blythe and Max Pownall
Director: Alison Hindell and Jonquil Panting,
Producer: Alison Hindell
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2011
©2011 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2011 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd
