Landfall - BBC Saturday Night Theater - Nevil Shute

Nevil Shute Norway was an English novelist and aeronautical engineer who spent his later years in Australia. He used his full name in his engineering career and Nevil Shute as his pen name to protect his engineering career from inferences by his employers (Vickers) or fellow engineers that he was not a serious person or from potential negative publicity in connection with his novels, which included On the Beach and A Town Like Alice.

Saturday Night Theatre was a long-running radio drama strand on BBC Radio 4. The strand showcased feature-length, middle-brow single plays on Saturday evenings for more than 50 years, having been launched in April 1943. The plays featured in the strand included stage plays, book adaptations and original dramatisations. For most of its history, programmes ran for 90 minutes and were largely entertainment-centred, such as thrillers, comedies and mysteries.

Saturday Night Theatre was noted as the major drama of the week on BBC Radio 4, until it was scrapped as a programme strand in 1996. Shorter plays continued to be broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday evenings from 1996 until the relaunch of the channel's schedule in April 1998 by James Boyle, when single dramas were removed from the Saturday evening schedule. Since 1998, the main weekly play on the station has been The Saturday Play, a daytime programme that runs for 60–90 minutes.

There have since been campaigns to bring back Saturday Night Theatre, but in the context of BBC budget cuts, that have included the 2010 axing of Radio 4's Friday Play (established in 1998, when Saturday Night Theatre was abolished), any return looks unlikely.

[jacksonburnette]

Love Neville Shute. Great war drama and inspiring and genteel love story.I felt very good at the end.

[janebrown]

Nevil Shute was such an excellent wordsmith. This is tense and pacy, with a semi-omniscient audience structure (ie, we aren't told the plot, but we know enough to come to conclusions long before the characters do) which in this case increases the tension. The outcomes were never obvious (in fact I expected far worse and less honourable moves as the cover-up took shape).
The woman who pulls all the loose ends together is never directly rewarded, but seems satisfied with the outcome.
A satisfying and realistic wartime drama.
Nevil Shute Norway was a British forces pilot and aeronautical engineer, and his aeronautical design knowledge shows up in his novels, including this one.

[daftirishmarej]

Nevil Shute never disappoints!!
Thanks a million! Xx

[iap-ugoy]

Really enjoyable, thank you…I used to listen every week to Saturday night theatre …I think that was about fifty years ago.

[edwardanchor]

Excellent play as usual thoroughly enjoyed it..never disappointed with any of Shute’s stories..

[feralbluee]

very good play!!! love how everything works out. thanks so much :) 🌷🛩
the poetic philosophical ending is beautiful. there is the big picture which goes down in the history books. but there are so many individual people who make up that history who are often glossed over and their stories are poignant, even more poignant than the whole picture. we have soldiers coming back from the middle east who have gone through hell, who have both physical and mental problems - some don’t make it - it is just too much for them. this happened in WWI, WWII, Nam, and today. we should n know their stories. and who tells us about them - writers: playwrights, Hemingway, Stephen Crane (Red Badge of Courage), film writers. sometimes in the media. another group are the photographers - sometimes their shots say so much more, than one can write. again, thank you so much for giving us this radio-play, which is wonderfully produced in every way 🌷🖊🪶

[nosnibor]

Very good - bring back Saturday night theater. Neville Shute was such a good story teller.

[clivejones]

Cracking tale of "Jerry" Chambers, an RAF pilot with Coastal Command during WW II. Romance, court of enquiry and experimental bomb thing. Satisfying.

[pegallen]

Brilliant! Can never go wrong with Neville Shute. Thank you

[marybowers]

I love all Nevil Shute books! Thank you.

[RelicRetrievalistChannel]

Second time of listening, really good play!

[martincopeland]

NSN was the designer of the independent Air Ship the 101 (or 100, I can never remember which is which).
His autobiography “Slide Rule” is worth reading, I read it decades ago when I discovered a proof copy in a bookcase.

[maureenmcmonagle]

Absolutely stunning representation of this great classic novel by Neville Shute.

[traviscummings]

Very well done! I will have to look up Nevil Shute. Great play! Thanks!

[RobertLongden-df]

Also, what a great production and sound effect's.

[EastWing]

Would like to hear On The Beach done as a radio drama.

[ecamp]

This was, perhaps, Nevil Shute's only true detective story, with the unlikely detective being the barmaid.

[gillfinlayson]

Great story and Shute is always worth a listen. One thing. How come barmaids seem to always have a ridiculously dumb voice? I couldn't remember all those drinks orders and add the cost up in my head. Quite often they are made out to by empty headed blondes This one one was particularly sharp. Deserved better! 😉

[philiphema]

I must be dense. Wasn't the car broken down or, as I say, am I being dense😀😃😄😁😆😅🤣!

[boojay]

sound rather fluffy, but otherwise a good play, I do understand that it is an old recording you will have to learn how to clean these plays up a bit😁