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Darkside
"Darkside, " a play written by Tom Stoppard for BBC Radio 2, incorporating music from Pink Floyd s iconic The Dark Side of the Moon is released as a deluxe CD package on 25 November. The play was an original commission by Radio 2 to mark the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd s album, and broadcast on 26 August 2013.
Produced in collaboration with Sir Tom Stoppard s publishers Faber and Faber, the luxury package resembles a hard-backed book, including a CD carrying the 54-minute play, which includes the majority of The Dark Side of the Moon album, plus a 56-page bound insert of the play s script.
"Darkside" is an abstract and compelling drama which follows Emily, a philosophy student, through a series of thought experiments, which are vividly brought to life. The play also ranges over a series of grand themes, which are both thought provoking and laced with Stoppard s characteristic wit and humour. The cast is impressive, with Bill Nighy as Dr Antrobus/the Witch Finder, Rufus Sewell is Mr Baggott/Ethics Man, Adrian Scarborough is Fat Man and Emily is Amaka Okafor.
Produced in collaboration with Sir Tom Stoppard s publishers Faber and Faber, the luxury package resembles a hard-backed book, including a CD carrying the 54-minute play, which includes the majority of The Dark Side of the Moon album, plus a 56-page bound insert of the play s script.
"Darkside" is an abstract and compelling drama which follows Emily, a philosophy student, through a series of thought experiments, which are vividly brought to life. The play also ranges over a series of grand themes, which are both thought provoking and laced with Stoppard s characteristic wit and humour. The cast is impressive, with Bill Nighy as Dr Antrobus/the Witch Finder, Rufus Sewell is Mr Baggott/Ethics Man, Adrian Scarborough is Fat Man and Emily is Amaka Okafor.
56 pages, Hardcover
Published November 25, 2013
7 people are currently reading
159 people want to read
About the author
Tom Stoppard
147 books1,013 followersSir Tom Stoppard was a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. He was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.
Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three years (1943–1946) in a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.
Stoppard's most prominent plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974), Night and Day (1978), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993), The Invention of Love (1997), The Coast of Utopia (2002), Rock 'n' Roll (2006) and Leopoldstadt (2020). He wrote the screenplays for Brazil (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Russia House (1990), Billy Bathgate (1991), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Enigma (2001), and Anna Karenina (2012), as well as the HBO limited series Parade's End (2013). He directed the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), an adaptation of his own 1966 play, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as the leads.
He has received numerous awards and honours including an Academy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, and five Tony Awards. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture". It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play, Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century Vienna. The play premiered in January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre. The play went on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2022 Tony Award for Best Play.
Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three years (1943–1946) in a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.
Stoppard's most prominent plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974), Night and Day (1978), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993), The Invention of Love (1997), The Coast of Utopia (2002), Rock 'n' Roll (2006) and Leopoldstadt (2020). He wrote the screenplays for Brazil (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Russia House (1990), Billy Bathgate (1991), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Enigma (2001), and Anna Karenina (2012), as well as the HBO limited series Parade's End (2013). He directed the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), an adaptation of his own 1966 play, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as the leads.
He has received numerous awards and honours including an Academy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, and five Tony Awards. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture". It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play, Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century Vienna. The play premiered in January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre. The play went on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2022 Tony Award for Best Play.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 22, 2017
Tom Stoppard plus Pink Floyd? This was too easy to like for me.
That said, it was almost too short and feels as much like music as a book. On second thought, that seems as much like a compliment as a criticism.
If you enjoyed Rosencranz and Guildenstern are dead or philosophical thought experiments and the Dark Side of the Moon, you really cant go wrong.
That said, it was almost too short and feels as much like music as a book. On second thought, that seems as much like a compliment as a criticism.
If you enjoyed Rosencranz and Guildenstern are dead or philosophical thought experiments and the Dark Side of the Moon, you really cant go wrong.
December 8, 2013
A marvelous, psychedelic mash-up of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and moral philosophy. Yes, you got that right. A BBC radio play from summer 2013 that progresses through the classic album asking the question - what's it all about? What is 'the good?' Sir Tom is up to his old wordplay tricks in a thoroughly playful way, covering ethics and the meaning of life and something about whether or not you believe in the juggler. On the radio. That you can't hear. But must be there. While Pink Floyd spins. Beautifully written and acted. Recommended.
March 6, 2014
Darkside: A new drama from playwright Tom Stoppard,to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.
BBC description: "Darkside, " a play written by Tom Stoppard for BBC Radio 2, incorporating music from Pink Floyd s iconic The Dark Side of the Moon is released as a deluxe CD package on 25 November. The play was an original commission by Radio 2 to mark the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd s album, and broadcast on 26 August 2013.
Produced in collaboration with Sir Tom Stoppard s publishers Faber and Faber, the luxury package resembles a hard-backed book, including a CD carrying the 54-minute play, which includes the majority of The Dark Side of the Moon album, plus a 56-page bound insert of the play s script.
"Darkside" is an abstract and compelling drama which follows Emily, a philosophy student, through a series of thought experiments, which are vividly brought to life. The play also ranges over a series of grand themes, which are both thought provoking and laced with Stoppard s characteristic wit and humour. The cast is impressive, with Bill Nighy as Dr Antrobus/the Witch Finder, Rufus Sewell is Mr Baggott/Ethics Man, Adrian Scarborough is Fat Man and Emily is Amaka Okafor.
Just incase there is someone who hasn't heard the album here it is.
= the meaning of life.
Sir Tom Stoppard takes Radio 2 to the Dark Side
5* Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
5* Arcadia
5* Darkside
3* Artist Descending a Staircase
4* Albert's Bridge
3* The Dog It Was That Died and Other Plays
October 3, 2020
When Tom Stoppard bravely decided to build a radio play around Pink Floyd’s iconic Dark Side of the Moon LP, he even more bravely decided to have one of the characters actually tell the audience the secret of life. In my opinion, Stoppard’s wonderful line -- “This is not a drill” -- cannot be improved upon for its conciseness, and the hope, optimism, and importance that it brings to this short, painful, beautiful life that we fall through as humans in this singleton existence.
More of a musical radio play than a real play, the philosophical arguments that play out through "thought experiments" over the Dark Side of the Moon songs are better (and less serious) than I thought they would be. Silly really, but only Stoppard could have pulled it off. I like it more every time I hear it, and my kids think it is the real version of Dark Side of the Moon (and they like it too).
More of a musical radio play than a real play, the philosophical arguments that play out through "thought experiments" over the Dark Side of the Moon songs are better (and less serious) than I thought they would be. Silly really, but only Stoppard could have pulled it off. I like it more every time I hear it, and my kids think it is the real version of Dark Side of the Moon (and they like it too).
December 31, 2016
A peculiar little gem, that might be part promo item but is also great fun. The scenes wind round the music of the album, with both benefitting. It might be that at times you want to tell the actors to shut up so you can hear the music but the dialogue is so entertaining, thought provoking and often very funny that you don't really mind. The themes of the album, particularly of madness, ring through and true.
July 28, 2014
Not as rich and mind-blowing as the original Pink Floyd album, but building up a play connecting the themes and tunes of The Dark Side of the Moon sure was an interesting... thought experiment.
July 17, 2015
Amusing for fans of Pink Floyd and philosophical ethics as prisoner's dilemma, utilitarianism, epistemology etc. are discussed to a background of dark side of the moon
October 9, 2023
Een soms wat te complex maar altijd boeiend hoorspel van Tom Stoppard, met veel fantasie en humor geschreven, en mooi opgehangen aan de prachtige muziek van The dark side of the moon’ van Pink Floyd. Brengt gedachten aan rond de zoektocht naar een moreel kompas, de zin van het leven, hoe de mens de aarde verneukt en nog veel meer. Maar vooral, mee dankzij de knap geïntegreerde hemelse muziek, een emotioneel rijke ervaring.
January 7, 2015
If you can track down the MP3 of this Tom Stoppard radio play you simply MUST listen to it!
October 22, 2020
It was like the “worlds are colliding” episode of Seinfeld where George Constanza fears that when his relationship world (his girlfriend) comes in contact with his personal world (his friends) both worlds may blow up.
Behind me, as I write this, is a bookshelf with Ibsen, Hellman, Brecht, Shakespeare, etc., and of course Stoppard. On top of the shelf, however, is my CD collection (yes, I still own CDs) containing Hendrix, Dylan, Berry, Waters, etc., and of course Pink Floyd.
Usually, these two worlds are far apart. I rarely, if ever, discuss the guitar solo in Comfortably Numb with the same person that I’m discussing the parallel structure of Arcadia. I rarely even listen to music when I read or write.
But in this work, I’m forced to confront both of my worlds at once, simultaneously. Honestly, it’s weird. I’ve listened to Pink Floyd since high school. Darkside of the Moon, for a person my age, was almost a soundtrack. You didn’t need to own the album -- it was always on the radio or somebody was playing the record.
So there’s always tangled up in that music my feelings as a rather dull 16-year-old boy growing up in blue-collar conservative America. And here those feelings confront a dull man closer to retirement than middle age living a white-collar life in liberal America.
It’s a rather strange feeling.
But ultimately this is a lark – a jolly experiment that I don’t think one is meant to take too seriously. Stoppard wraps an eclectic story about moral systems (and the destruction of the natural world) around the classic album and it is cleverly done. The involved (pretentious?) discussions of the various forms of morality, however, contrast (conflict?) with the simple language of the album. There is a clash of tone, depth and feeling. Stoppard’s discussion about our destruction of the natural world feels a bit too big and too trite for the album which seems to me to be about a more personal type of hell. (That’s what my 16-year-old self says.)
But it’s all fun. (Well, as fun as a play about the destruction of the world can be.) I imagine there are a lot of Stoppard fans who listen to Floyd and can enjoy them together without the angst. Anyway, it’s an odd but enjoyable lark.
P.S. It must be nice to be Tom Stoppard, though. To do something like this as a lark, and have world-class actors, videographers and studios at your beck and call.
Behind me, as I write this, is a bookshelf with Ibsen, Hellman, Brecht, Shakespeare, etc., and of course Stoppard. On top of the shelf, however, is my CD collection (yes, I still own CDs) containing Hendrix, Dylan, Berry, Waters, etc., and of course Pink Floyd.
Usually, these two worlds are far apart. I rarely, if ever, discuss the guitar solo in Comfortably Numb with the same person that I’m discussing the parallel structure of Arcadia. I rarely even listen to music when I read or write.
But in this work, I’m forced to confront both of my worlds at once, simultaneously. Honestly, it’s weird. I’ve listened to Pink Floyd since high school. Darkside of the Moon, for a person my age, was almost a soundtrack. You didn’t need to own the album -- it was always on the radio or somebody was playing the record.
So there’s always tangled up in that music my feelings as a rather dull 16-year-old boy growing up in blue-collar conservative America. And here those feelings confront a dull man closer to retirement than middle age living a white-collar life in liberal America.
It’s a rather strange feeling.
But ultimately this is a lark – a jolly experiment that I don’t think one is meant to take too seriously. Stoppard wraps an eclectic story about moral systems (and the destruction of the natural world) around the classic album and it is cleverly done. The involved (pretentious?) discussions of the various forms of morality, however, contrast (conflict?) with the simple language of the album. There is a clash of tone, depth and feeling. Stoppard’s discussion about our destruction of the natural world feels a bit too big and too trite for the album which seems to me to be about a more personal type of hell. (That’s what my 16-year-old self says.)
But it’s all fun. (Well, as fun as a play about the destruction of the world can be.) I imagine there are a lot of Stoppard fans who listen to Floyd and can enjoy them together without the angst. Anyway, it’s an odd but enjoyable lark.
P.S. It must be nice to be Tom Stoppard, though. To do something like this as a lark, and have world-class actors, videographers and studios at your beck and call.
November 29, 2017
What is the good?
It's nothing but a contest of kindness.
It's nothing but a contest of kindness.
December 29, 2017
Genialita!
July 17, 2024
Confusing.
Something to do with The Dark Side of the Moon.
Oh did I mention it it very confusing?
Something to do with The Dark Side of the Moon.
Oh did I mention it it very confusing?
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews