Dangerous Visions

Tania's presence immediately sparks excited speculation that, in the event of a defeat for the PM, NaNo will to provide the much heralded futuristic surveillance technology to ensure a soft border remains on the island of Ireland.

But as always with Tania, the business objective is much grander than a solution to the Irish border problem. All she's got to do is convince Fintan to forget local politics and get ready for the company to make a killing.

Cast:

FINTAN - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦. - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦Colin Morgan

SINEAD - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦.. - ¦ - ¦.. - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦. Simone Kirby

TANIA - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦. - ¦.. - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ Jeany Spark

DOUGLAS - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦. Frank Laverty

ROSS/RECEPTIONIST.... - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦ - ¦.Fergal McElherron

Written by Hugh Costello

Directed by Eoin O'Callaghan

A Big Fish Radio production for BBC Radio 4

An imagined and irreverent look at one potential Brexit outcome in Ireland.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

It's 2020 and the bees are nearly all gone. Human beings might be next.

Robotics expert, Deborah, builds artificial bees in order to help pollinate fruit trees across the world - real bees having been driven to the brink of extinction. But then a strange phenomenon strikes mankind - people start getting lost. It happens slowly, people lose their way, forget where they are. But before long society starts to crumble.

Deborah must fight her way across an apocalyptic Britain and find her way back home. But first she must remember where that is.

A dark and cautionary tale about our busy technology-filled lives.

Directed by James Robinson

A BBC Cymru Wales Production.

In the year 2020 the bees are nearly all gone. And human beings might be next.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

Scientific Advisor ...... Dr Claas Kirchhelle

Director ..... Sally Avens

With increasing numbers of infections becoming drug resistant Al Smith's dystopian play takes a step into the near future.

Anna is a Doctor working in infectious diseases and is forced everyday to help choose whether to treat a patient or not. But what does it do to both you and your patient when your judgement is wrong?

Culture was developed through the Wellcome Trust Experimental Stories scheme.

Al Smith's dystopian vision of a world where antibiotics have ceased to work.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

A dangerous obsession with immersive virtual reality games has deadly consequences.

In the near future Harry is obsessed with totally immersive virtual reality gaming. Then one day he wakes up with a dead body lying next to him in bed. All evidence points to the fact that Harry is the killer. Harry even remembers doing it. But why? Did the violence of the games give him his gruesome blood lust? Or is something far more sinister going on?

Slowly Harry uncovers a conspiracy that has its roots in the illicit underbelly of the Internet.

Sex, violence and virtual reality combine in this futuristic thriller.

Directed by James Robinson

A BBC Cymru Wales Production.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

Adapted by Simon Scardifield

At the height of the media attention during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, US President Bill Clinton reportedly referred to Arthur Koestler's novel, telling an aide, 'I feel like the character in the novel Darkness at Noon....I am surrounded by an oppressive force that is creating a lie about me and I can't get the truth out.

Clinton was referring to Nicholas Rubashov, the protagonist of Koestler's novel inspired by the Moscow Trials of Stalin's Russia. Rubashov, once a powerful player in the regime, finds the tables turned on him when he is imprisoned and psychologically tortured. His reflections on his previous life and experiences in prison are at the heart of this thought-provoking masterpiece.

Written after Koestler became disillusioned with Communism, Darkness at Noon is a moving and thought-provoking indictment of totalitarianism. Simon Scardifield's adaptation draws on Koestler's original manuscript - which had been thought lost for 75 years, after Koestler hurriedly fled Paris before the German occupation in 1940, only to be recently discovered in a Zurich library.

Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko.

Adaptation of Arthur Koestler's nightmarish portrait of a totalitarian state.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

One of three plays nominated as Best Single Drama at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2014.

Mark's wife Donna has an accident and ends up in a life-threatening coma. But when he comes home from hospital, Donna is in the kitchen. Not Donna, in fact, but a near-perfect replica provided by her insurance company.

Award-winning writer Ed Harris tells a wickedly twisted tale of love - and adjustments.

Producer/Director ... Jonquil Panting.

Mark discovers his wife has been replaced by a replica, in Ed Harris's twisted love story.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

Claire Cross is an Army Intelligence Corps officer stationed in Estonia where 800 British soldiers currently form part of a NATO forward presence, protecting the Baltic state from the threat of aggression from neighbouring Russia. She's called in to investigate the disappearance Darren, a young squaddie, last seen in a nearby bar - and to keep the matter as low-key as possible.

With local police officer Leks, she tries to piece together Darren's movements. Did he fall foul of criminals, or a jealous boyfriend? Could there be a terrorist link?

When Darren's mother, Christine, arrives in Tallinn, Claire realises she has to help this extraordinary woman whether or not it means defying her military and political masters.

Written by Hugh Costello

Directed by Eoin O'Callaghan

A Big Fish radio production for BBC Radio 4.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

by Gary Owen

Starring Suzanne Packer as Marian and Connor Allen as Jamie

Marian has always told her son, Jamie, that it is fine to be gay, fine to be who you really are and that, in years to come, of course it will be possible for him to marry another man or adopt children.

All this changes when a newly elected coalition government decides political correctness has got out of hand and passes a Freedom Law that licenses both the freedom to say whatever you like, however hateful, and the right not to be offended. Now Jamie has to decide how to be true to himself in a society where intolerance has become acceptable, and Marian confronts what she might need to do to keep him safe.

An absorbing play about the political becoming personal and how an apparently liberal society can threaten those who don't conform.

Marian - Suzanne Packer

Jamie - Connor Allen

With Brendan Charleson and Claire Cage

Directed by Gilly Adams

A BBC Cymru Wales Production

Gary Owen is a Welsh playwright whose recent plays include the award-winning Killology which premiered at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff and then played at the Royal Court; Violence and Son for the Royal Court, and Iphigenia in Splott for which he won the James Tait Black Prize for Drama and which was performed at the National Theatre.

By Gary Owen. A dystopian story questioning what freedom of speech means.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

As people continue to live longer, they cost the NHS and Social Services far too much; in our futuristic dark comedy a new Prime Minister and her aide come up with a radical solution to the problem. All they need now is a volunteer.

Sam . . . Tony Robinson

Prime Minister . . . Haydn Gwynne

Ella . . . Sophia di Martino

Gerry . . . Paul Hickey

Mr King . . . David Hounslow

Chrissy . . . Debbie Korley

Bianca . . . Debbie Korley

Sue . . . Helen Clapp

Mrs Griffin . . . Susan Jameson

Directed by Sally Avens

Jon Canter's dark comedy about the politics of dying with Tony Robinson and Haydn Gwynne.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

Too many people are living longer costing the Government too much money. Jon Canter's dark comedy has a radical solution, with Tony Robinson and Haydn Gwynne.

As people continue to live longer, they cost the NHS and Social Services far too much; in our futuristic dark comedy a new Prime Minister and her aide come up with a radical solution to the problem. All they need now is a volunteer.

Sam . . . Tony Robinson

Prime Minister . . . Haydn Gwynne

Ella . . . Sophia di Martino

Gerry . . . Paul Hickey

Mr King . . . David Hounslow

Chrissy . . . Debbie Korley

Bianca . . . Debbie Korley

Sue . . . Helen Clapp

Mrs Griffin . . . Susan Jameson

Directed by Sally Avens

Jon Canter's dark comedy about the politics of dying, with Tony Robinson and Haydn Gwynne.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

Our Will Guest is a modern day, 21st Century man, travelling from 2016 to a future Utopia. The word utopia comes from the Greek ou-topos, meaning 'no-place' or 'nowhere'. There is uneasy antagonism between Will's 21st Century values and those of 'Nowhere'. But there is also love......Will goes on a time travelling voyage of discovery, finding a new love for society, as well as a woman.

Part of the Dangerous Visions BBC Radio 4 season.

Cast

Will Guest.......................Ron Cook

Ellen...............................Catrin Stewart

Dick.................................Keiron Self

Clara...............................Claire Cage

Old Hammond.................Richard Nichols

Grumbler.........................Roger Evans

The girl...........................Kristy Phillipps

Chinese worker.............Crystal Yu

Dramatist Sarah Woods

Producer Polly Thomas

Sound design Nigel Lewis

Production co ordination Lindsay Rees

A BBC Cymru/Wales production for BBC Radio 4

Will wakes to find he has travelled 100 years into the future to a post-capitalist London.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

In the not-so-distant future, siblings Josie and Liam live in a city divided by a giant, electrified fence. The haves live on one side, the have-nots on the other.

Josie and Liam live on the non-affluent side of the city and share a room - as in Josie lives in it for twelve hours a day and Liam for the other twelve; it is too small for two people to be in at one time. Then one day they're offered the opportunity to cross the fence and see how the other half lives.

A dystopian comedy about an increasingly divided society written by and starring comedians Josie Long and Liam Williams.

There's a lovable romantic sensibility here... heartfelt and eccentric.' (The Guardian)

Josie is often described as a unique voice in comedy. She started stand-up at 14, winning the BBC New Comedy Award. She has appeared on: The News Quiz, Just A Minute, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, The Alternative Comedy Experience, Have I Got News For You and 8 out of 10 Cats, and is the voice of the Radio 4 show Short Cuts.

The Philip Larkin of British Comedy.' (The Huffington Post)

Liam is a stand-up comedian, host of Invisible Dot's Stories night, and one-third of comedy sketch troupe Sheeps. He was shortlisted in 2013 for Best Newcomer at Edinburgh Festival, and his show 'Capitalism' was nominated for Foster's Best Comedy Show at Edinburgh last year. He's written and starred in his own series for Radio 4 (Liam Williams: Ladhood) and BBC 3 (Pls Like).

Directed by James Robinson

A BBC Cymru Wales Production.

By Josie Long and Liam Williams. Dystopian comedy about a city divided by a giant fence.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

When a couple discover that they can't have a healthy baby naturally, Zenith Genomics seems to offer the solution: they can create a perfect, bespoke child, with every gene hand-picked. For a price. But the parents soon find that perfection brings its own problems...

A dark fable about parental expectation and the pressures of parenting in a competitive and commodified world.

Anita .... Laura dos Santos

Tom .... Joseph Kloska

Dr Ahmed .... Seeta Indrani

Beth .... Amy-Jayne Leigh

Mr Dean .... Ewan Bailey

Writer .... Joseph Wilde

Director .... Abigail le Fleming

The Writer

Joseph is a young writer for stage, screen and radio. His breakout play CUDDLES was originally produced in 2013 and revived in 2015 for a UK tour and New York transfer. Joseph has also written plays for Hightide Festival Theatre and Ovalhouse, and in 2014 he worked as an assistant director at the Royal Shakespeare Company. His first radio play THE LOVING BALLAD OF CAPTAIN BATEMAN won the 2014 Imison Award, and for television, he currently writes for DOCTORS and completed the CASUALTY shadow scheme in 2015.

Unsettling drama set in a future in which you can hand-pick everything about your child.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

Steve Erickson's 2017 novel was hailed by critics as the first novel of the Trump era. It imagines checkpoints and borders and rupture zones in a country that's torn apart.

Parker, aged 23, and his 15 year-old sister Zema are driving from the West coast to see their mother in Michigan. On a news feed they hear that the Twin Towers have reappeared in South Dakota. Overnight. Out of nowhere. Strange sounds seem to be coming from them. Is there anyone inside? The buildings look pristine.

Dubbed by reporters on the scene as an 'American Stonehenge', they immediately become a pilgrimage site.

Headstrong Zema insists that they change course and join the throng heading to the site. She has brought along mix tapes made by their dad who was a music DJ. The songs somehow reflect where they are and what they are thinking about. Astonished, they learn over social media that their car has become a magnet. Hashtag Supersonic. What is the strange cargo they carry?

Meanwhile, around the Twin Towers, every sightseer hears different music. And on a top floor in the otherwise empty South Tower, Jesse Presley the twin brother of Elvis wakes up. He has his own demons and music raging in his head.

Jesse's journey has parallels with Parker and Zema's. It's a supernaturally charged trip across an America which is familiar and yet eerily angry and dangerous, and back in altered time.

Steve Erickson, often described as a writer's writer, has had ten novels published in as many languages. He's known for Zeroville (soon to be seen as a movie), Our Ecstatic Days, and These Dreams of You which contains some of Shadowbahn's characters.

Recorded on location in Arizona and New York.

Other parts played by

Pete McElligott

Chris Dwane

Sara Berg

Reynaldo Piniella

Raphael Martin

Written by Steve Erickson

Adapted for radio by Anita Sullivan

Produced and Directed by Judith Kampfner and Steve Bond

A Corporation For Independent Media production for BBC Radio 4.

The Twin Towers reappear in Dakota in 2021. Teenagers cross border guards to investigate.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

Starring Pippa Haywood and Andrew Gower

Lucian has a vocabulary that is limited to a core 1500 words, but Clara wants to teach him those that are forbidden. A dystopian love story about the power of words, set in a near future where the language spoken is Globish - a reduced version of English.

The OED lists 171,476 English words in current use. The average adult native English speaker has an active vocabulary of about 35,000 - 50,000 words. But studies suggest our vocabularies are shrinking.

Globish is a real international business language, developed in 2004, made up of the most common 1500 English words. It is designed to promote international communication in the global economy. 'Speak' imagines a future in which Globish has become the official language.

A gripping two-hander about the power of words; how words - and even more, the absence of words - can control, confine, leach emotion and trap minds.

Directed by James Robinson

A BBC Cymru Wales Production.

By Philip Palmer. A dystopian love story about the power of language.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

Produced and directed by Gemma Jenkins

Jonathan Holloway has taken Dostoyevksy's tale of the lonely civil servant on the verge of a nervous breakdown and relocated it to a steampunk version of 19th Century St Petersburg, substituting the labyrinthine Tsarist bureaucracy of the original with the advanced computer systems office of the Russian Federation's Intelligence Services.

To win his superiors' admiration the story's hero, Golyadkin, starts working on perfecting a new cyber-weapon only to find that a new arrival in the office who looks remarkably like him is taking all the credit for his work.

In this new adaptation the 21st century begins to intrude - samovars bubble, dances mix trance with live string quartets, electric taxis whine on the highways while horses clatter by and computers are gas-fuelled.

In Golyadkin's fractured mind he's lost all sense of where he exists in time and what we're experiencing is his dream of the future.

Dostoyevsky's themes of grinding bureaucracy, societal pressures inducing feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness are given a bleakly modern twist.

Dostoyevsky's nightmare vision of a man whose life is usurped by his double.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

A young traveller encounters a vagrant on the road who claims his tattoos come to life after dark and have the powers of prophecy.

The vagrant offers his young travelling companion tantalising glimpses into the future with tales of restless androids, children caught up in a sinister game and astronauts stranded in outer space which all hint at dark and troubling times ahead.

The Illustrated Man.....Iain Glen

The Youth.....Jamie Parker

The Tattoo Witch.....Elaine Claxton

The Driver.....Wilf Scolding

Brayling/Brayling 2.....Patrick Kennedy

Smith.....Stephen Hogan

Mink....Nell Herrin

Mother....Heather Craney

Father....Clive Hayward

Anna....Lucy Hutchinson

Hollis....Alec Newman

Applegate....John P. Arnold

Stone....Jaimi Barbakoff

Stimson....Craige Els

Directed by Gemma Jenkins

Production Co-ordinator: Philippa Tilbury

Studio Managers: Anne Bunting, Peter Ringrose, Alison Craig.

First published in the UK in 1952, it's the startling framing device of a man whose tattoos predict the future of humankind which signals Bradbury's collection out as one of the defining works of 20th century Science Fiction.

The award-winning radio dramatist, Brian Sibley's other credits include dramatisations of TH White's The Once and Future King, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels and The Lord of The Rings trilogy.

Ray Bradbury's iconic book featuring a man with prophetic tattoos, adapted by Brian Sibley

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

It is the day after tomorrow. The NHS is history and the Artificial Intelligence health app Medpatch has ushered in a new era of diagnosis and treatment. As ex-health workers adjust to a vanished career, Jenna, a former doctor, finds herself employed on a new frontier of public health. And she's about to make a discovery. Thriller about healthcare and technology.

Jenna........................Ophelia Lovibond

Medpatch/Lauren.....Meera Syal

Luke............................Joe Bannister

Dean............................James Cooney

Sash..............................Verity Henry

Jake..............................Kenny Blyth

Director/Producer Gary Brown

Drawing on the revolution in remote, smartphone led diagnostics and advances in health AI, it's a thriller about how much of ourselves we're willing to hand to the private sector. And as corporations vie to become the Google of Health - Welcome to Medpatch considers questions about technology and healthcare which may have to be answered sooner than we think.

Welcome to Medpatch. New Dangerous Visions drama for BBC Radio 4.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.

What will happen when VR games can deliver real love?

Theo has been booked to give twenty-four hour care to a gamer who's in an elective coma. The new immersive game he's playing simulates your first love affair.

But is it a simulation? Not to Theo...

Ben Tavassoli stars as Rash in Anthony Horowitz's new police drama, 'New Blood', on BBC One. He played Alpha in 'No Offence', and has recently appeared in 'Silent Witness' and 'Tyrant'.

Oliver Chris has starred in great British comedies from Bluestone 42 to Green Wing and The Office. He was the original Stanley Stubbers opposite James Corden in 'One Man, Two Guv'nors', played the Assistant Commissioner opposite Billie Piper in Richard Bean's 'Great Britain', and Prince William in Mike Bartlett's 'King Charles III'.

Claudie Blakley became well-known for her roles in period dramas 'Cranford', 'Lark Rise to Candleford' and 'Gosford Park'. More recently she's starred with David Threlfall and Steven Macintosh in 'What Remains', with David Morrissey in 'The Driver', and recently theatre roles include 'The Painkiller' with Rob Bryden and Kenneth Branagh.

Ed Harris's writing for radio has included winning the Audio Drama Award for BILLIONS, Sony Gold for THE RESISTANCE OF MRS BROWN, the Writer's Guild Award for TROLL, and THE WALL nominated for the Prix Europa. He writes the Radio 4 comedy DOT.

The music for the game is by Abi Fry

Theo ..... Ben Tavassoli

Saskia ..... Claudie Blakley

Paul ..... Oliver Chris

Sophie ..... Scarlett Brookes

Theresa ..... Adie Allen

Game ..... Nicola Ferguson

Human ..... Nick Underwood

Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting

Ben Tavassoli, Oliver Chris and Claudie Blakley star in Ed Harris's virtual love story.

Dramas that explore contemporary takes on future dystopias.