John Purser Carver

Set in the mid-16th century, John Purser 's award-winning drama contrasts the radiance of Robert Carver 's music with the earthiness of his character and the destructive force of the Reformation. Director Stewart Conn CAST: Carver: Tom Fleming Margaret: Anne Kristen Armourer: Iain Agnew Isobel: Hilary MacLean Alan Richardson: Benny Young Marie de Guise: Anne Lacey James V: James Bryce Davie: Kenneth Glenaan Atex Kyd: Paul Hickey Stevie: Gary Bakewell Peter: Stevie Hannan James: Stuart Bowman Sunday Play Carver Sunday 8th December 1991, 19:30 on BBC Radio 3 Carver, at 100', was Purser's first full-length play and was a joint commission for BBC Radio Scotland and Radio 3 for The Sunday Play. Carver tells the story of the 16th-century Scottish composer Robert Carver and the survival of the Carver Choirbook - sole evidence for most of his output. Carver won the New York International Radio Festival Gold Medal in the Specialist Drama category, and it also won a Giles Cooper Award for the script and was published by Methuen along with the other award-winners of that year. The part of Carver himself was taken by Tom Fleming. As with all Purser's plays up to that time, the Producer was Stewart Conn. [johnpurser.net] IT’S an alarming fact that perhaps our greatest composer was almost permanently evicted from our national cultural life by the Reformation. How the Carver Choirbook survived it, we do not know, but if it hadn’t we would have lost nearly all Robert Carver’s masterpieces. What survives? For sure, five masses for ten, four, four, five and six voices respectively; and two motets, one for 19, the other for five. Did he write more? Almost certainly a couple of anonymous works, but apart from that we don’t know. [The National Scott] “What is so good about the play is the spectrum of characters Purser creates, no mere cyphers, but believable individuals who developed. . . The contrast between Carver’s rich colourful world and Alan’s greyer Calvinism is sparely and effectively drawn without recourse to the clichéd abuse relentlessly poured on Calvin these days . . Purser’s writing is vigorously earthy where necessary, but rising to heights of a real lyricism which works on the voice (something not always achieved by dramatists).” (Joy Hendry in The Scotsman 6.4.1991)

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.

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