Saturday, March 7, 2009

BBC to Air 'Bring Me The Head of Philip K Dick'


BBC Radio Three is scheduled to broadcast a program entitled "Bring Me The Head of Philip K Dick." The website summarizes the episode:

"Gregory Whitehead's dark, surreal and satirical drama, set in contemporary America, centres on a deadly futuristic weapon in the shape of the android head of science-fiction writer Philip K Dick. Invented by a shadowy research unit inside the Pentagon, the head - which believes it actually is Dick himself - is wreaking havoc on society and must be stopped before it finds its body."

The program is scheduled to air on Sunday March 8, at 20:00 hours. I don't know when this is exactly, but it looks like the show will be available as a podcast. More info here.

This sounds good, and the character names sound better:

Cryptica Scriptura ...... Elizabeth Aspenlieder
Cathy Nebula ...... Karen Beaumont
Reverend Darkleigh ...... George Bergen
Nancy Robinson ...... Hilary Deely
Philip Dooley ...... Richard Jackson
Tiffany Splenda ...... Karen Lee
The Potato Man ...... Jon Swan
Perky Pat ...... Anne Undeland
The Patriot ...... Gregory Whitehead
Written, produced and directed by Gregory Whitehead.
Music by Laura Wiens and Nick Zammuto.
Poem by Jon Swan.

Update: Haven't listened yet, but the early reviews are positive. You can stream the audio until March 15 right here. Anyone know how we could get a podcast of this?

Update 2: Listened to the program last night, whoa, it's a trip. Make sure you take your herbal supplements before listening....

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

This was fookin' brooliant. Playwright Whitehead some kind o radio genius. Stunning and raucous mix in Dick mode, but no easy replicants. God is nowhere now here. Did ya catch the Heraclitus souls smell in Hades? Wow. Never heard anythunk like that on beebster 3, nix. Loved the Nancy character, twin peak missiles, and the rector's lobster song. And the line "love is not potato", and the Splenda chick with her beaver. Mein gott! Long live the Valis!

Anonymous said...

Anyone know how we could get a podcast of this?

Using mplayer

mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile BringMeTheHeadOfPhilipKDick.ra -playlist http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/aod/playlists/kt/51/j0/0b/RadioBridge_intl_2000_bbc_radio_three.ram

mplayer -ao pcm:file=BringMeTheHeadOfPhilipKDick.wav BringMeTheHeadOfPhilipKDick.ra

George Myers said...

Golf spelled backwards is flog and of course potato spelled backwards doesn't make anything sensible. I make headway out of it, if it were a hen I'd know what it weighed but it's a head. Was it ever in the overhead? Maybe Bill Smith took it like in "Millennium" (Kris Kristofferson), they gave the FBI $6 billion for it.

Unknown said...

The Android Head of PKD must be the imaginary unitary gnostic adjunct of the Vast Active Living Intelligence System that had been bathed in the Pink Light of March 1974 in Fank Zappa's Dangerous Kitchen that then checked into the Black Iron prison and was transmogrified after Palmer Eldritch came back to Earth with Perky Pat and the Quizmaster, Jimmy Carl Black and Don Van Vliet along with Horselover Fats.Rum Tiddle Tum. What's a meta for?

Anonymous said...

I also haven't had a straight 90 minutes to listen to Bring Me the Head of Philip K. Disk, but yesterday I forced my computer to listen to it for me and boil it down to a nice M4A file (playable in iTunes). It's on BitTorrent now. Here's the link:

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2363955

Now, reviewing the comments, I see that there's another way to do it, but BitTorrent looks a whole lot easier than MPlayer, and besides it's already done.

Share and enjoy.

Anonymous said...

Has that drama turned you all bonkers!?
It was way too weird for me, and there didn't seem to be much plot, apart from PKD's head going round raping and molesting people. Maybe it was because I was on the verge of falling asleep during a lot of it, but I found it so hard to follow. And did it have that much to do with PKD, apart from inserting a few buzzwords, like "Black Iron Prison", "Empire never Ended", "Perky Pat" etc.
-giospurs

Jerry said...

Another way to get an MP3, is download "Radio Downloader" and install it, click "Find Programme," choose BBC Radio, choose to search by genra, click "Drama," and then subscribe to "Drama 3." The program is the latest Drama 3 program. So if you do this before the 15th, you'll end up with the PKD android head story.

Jason Gusmann said...

okay, like sarah i've been following and this is my first time to leave a comment. this radio play sounds super-awesome. plus, you said herbal supplements. heh heh.

Martin said...

Wooo you're right about topping up on the herbal supplements first ;) All I can say is 'wow', reminds of the trippy French psychedelic movies from the 60's

Anonymous said...

Thank you Roy the torrent guy

you're the man

Anonymous said...

"The program is scheduled to air on Sunday March 8, at 20:00 hours. I don't know when this is exactly ..."

Guffaw guffaw. What exactly confused you about Sunday March 8 at 22 hundred hours?