Euripides' Medea - Fiona Shaw - BBC Radio 3

A production for BBC radio of Euripides' Medea, translated by Kenneth McLeish and Frederic Raphael. Fiona Shaw stars as Medea, with Jonathan Cake as Jason.
Unfortunately there's a missing section of 10 seconds of audio at 47:20 so I filled the gap with surtitles. I don't have the McLeish translation of the play, so I substituted the Vellacott translation. If anyone has the missing lines of dialogue I'll happily revise the upload.

[@lalitaa5065]

Wonderful play. Euripides was truly a revolutionary playwright.

[@PhilosopherMuse]

Astounding performance! Thank you for uploading. This Fiona Shaw brought me to tears.

[@rdford1116]

Wonderful. Thanks so much for posting. The best version I've heard>

[@zoyablake9538]

Excellent. Thank you.

[@markhammonds3970]

Thank you!

[@erpthompsonqueen9130]

Thank you.

[@lilyahk8164]

Does anyone know of a video recording of this production? I've seen clips of it, so clearly a recording does exist, but I am having a hard time locating it. Any suggestions?

[@richardlevy1459]

I really love Zoe Caldwell as Medea but Fiona Shaw rocks in whatever she does

[@djkorydallos]

22:29

[@thallesvinicius2729]

01:00

[@a0b0]

happy be those that are childless

[@rdford1116]

Tangled is the web we weave when first we practice to conceive.

[@jeffreypick57]

Fiona Shaw is always good, but I have a problem with classic plays and their complex issues, rendered into colloquial every day English. The text has classic references within it, but is not spoken like the daughter of a classic King from 2,000 years ago, but a suburban housewife with domestic troubles - her husband has run off with another woman - an every day occurrence. Medea is considered a dark and mysterious witch queen, who murdered and cut her brother into pieces, to hinder the chase. You don't get deeper and more complex than that and you need complicated writing to convey that.

[@emmajay5084]

this is so funny - have you read it in Greek??? it's not written in an overcomplicated way. The whole entire point is that it's written in colloquial language to be performed and related with by the contemporary audience. recommend reading it in greek if you haven't lol

[@emmajay5084]

it's cool because 'suburban housewife with domestic troubles' is exactly how it would have read to a contemporary audience, so you've hit the nail on the head - just that's not a fault, that's the way it's written

[@andykeri8370]

Better in Ancient Greek.
Boris Johnson could recite it.