Richard is to play Lovelace in Samuel Richardson's Clarissa in a four part adaptation to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 starting on Sunday 14th March 2010 at 3pm.
The Classic Serial –
Clarissa: The History Of A Young Lady Ep 1/ 4
New series
Sunday 14 March
3.00-4.00pm BBC RADIO 4
Samuel Richardson's Clarissa is a heartbreaking and compulsive piece of epistolary storytelling and one of the world's greatest novels. Published in 1747, it was the precursor to and inspiration for many of the great European novels which followed in its wake.
The young and beautiful Clarissa is courted by the rake Lovelace, who tricks her into his power, carries her off to London, and rapes her. Clarissa then falls into decline. Lovelace becomes involved in an avenging duel with Clarissa's cousin, and Clarissa's family and friends must live with the guilt and shame of their own neglect and betrayal of her.
This new, four-part dramatisation by Hattie Naylor stars Richard Armitage (BBC One's Spooks) as Robert Lovelace and Zoe Waites (Roxanne, The Bristol Old Vic) as Clarissa Harlowe. The company includes: Alison Steadman; Deborah Findlay; Miriam Margolyes; Oliver Milburn; John Rowe; Julian Rhind-Tutt; Adrian Scarborough; Stephen Critchlow; Cathy Sara; Sophie Thompson; Ellie Beaven; Lisa Hammond; and Linda Broughton.
In this first part, beautiful young heiress Clarissa Harlowe is dangerously attracted by the wiles of the notorious libertine Robert Lovelace. Threatened by an imminent marriage arranged with the odious suitor her family have found for her, Lovelace persuades Clarissa to flee with him.
Producer/Marilyn Imrie
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