The Bell by Iris Murdoch Episode 1 to 3

Classic Serial: The Bell
From - Sun 7th Nov 1999, 15:00 on BBC Radio 4 FM
By Iris Murdoch, dramatised in three parts by Michael Bakewell.

Music Elizabeth Parker.
Producer Catherine Bailey
Director Jane Morgan.

Episode 1

1: Sex and religion come into conflict in this story of a lay community which is seriously disturbed by the arrival of an errant wife.

Dora Greenfield: Cathryn Bradshaw
NoelSpens: Charlie Simpson
Paul Greenfield: Nicholas Farrell
James Tayper Pace: Philip Voss
TobyGashe: Jamie Bamber
Nick Fawley: Nicholas Boulton
Mrs Mark: Jane Booker
Michael Meade: Crispin Redman
Mark Strafford: Matthew Morgan
Sister Ursula: Marian Diamond
Catherine Fawley: Emma Gregory

Episode 2 55:56
2: A new bell is due to arrive at the Abbey, but Dora is haunted by the story of the old bell and of the death that it foretold.

Michael Meade: Crispin Redman
Dora Greenfield: Cathryn Bradshaw
Paul Greenfield: Nicholas Farrell
Peter Topglass: Struan Rodger
TobyGashe: Jamie Bamber
James Tayper Pace: Philip Voss
Catherine Fawley: Emma Gregory
Nick Fawley: Nicholas Boutton
Mrs Mark: Jane Booker
The Irish nun: Kate Binchy

Episode 3 1:49:55

3: Raising the bell from the lake required almost supernatural strength, and Dora is determined to continue playing the witch in the holy community of Imber.

Michael Meade: Crispin Redman
Paul Greenfield: Nicholas Farrell
Nick Fawley: Nicholas Boulton
James Tayper Pace: Philip Voss
Mrs Mark: Jane Booker
The Abbess: Janet Suzman
Dora Greenfield: Cathryn Bradshaw
Noel Spens: Charlie Simpson
The Bishop: Norman Rodway
Catherine Fawley: Emma Gregory
TobyGashe: Jamie Bamber
Mark Strafford: Matthew Morgan

A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an enclosed order of nuns. A new bell, legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. Dora Greenfield, erring wife, returns to her husband. Michael Mead, leader of the community, is confronted by Nick Fawley, with whom he had disastrous homosexual relations, while the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved, whatever that may mean....Iris Murdoch's funny and sad novel has themes of religion, the fight between good and evil, and the terrible accidents of human frailty.

The Bell is an early philosophical novel by Iris Murdoch, the Irish academic and Oxford professor of Philosophy, who also wrote in total 26 novels. This is her fourth novel, first published in 1958. The first of her novels to be shot through with ethical considerations, The Bell remains the one novel in her entire output where the moral conundrums are the most explicit. Until now, the characters in Iris Murdoch's novels had been concerned with having a good life rather than living one; a subtle difference perhaps, but a profound one.

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