DOWNHEAVAL

DOWNHEAVAL

A body is found on the pavement below Anne Frank's room in Amsterdam. Is it Talbot, who steals cameras from tourists in Paris? He detests their touristification of a city through which they pass in a flash-bulb trance.

The model lives and works in Amsterdam but is being pressurised to move on within the business. She comes to Paris with her photographer for fashion week. Tired of the catwalk, she does a tour of the sights. At the Arc de Triomphe, she encounters Talbot and asks him to take her shot. He runs off with the photographer's expensive camera.

Holed-up and isolated in his monthly hotel, Talbot mulls over his theft. He is struck by the model's similarity to Anne Frank, whose diary he has read. And he fears he has endangered her. He goes to Amsterdam in the hope of finding her and returning the camera. But he finds himself an unwitting tourist and enters the museum of Anne Frank. DOWNHEAVAL is a tale of a thief driven to destruction by his hatred of tourists.

DOWNHEAVAL was produced twice in 1995 -- by RTE and BBC. It was third-place winner of the RTE/PJ O'Connor Radio Drama Award. That production had a separate cast and was 30 minutes long. Later that year, BBC Radio Three accepted an extended and developed script and Peter Kavanagh produced the play in this 45-minute version here.

Radio reviewer Anne Karpf wrote in the Guardian: "Fleming's originality lies in the way he uses the two parallel converging narratives -- Talbot's and the model's (good performances from Owen O'Neill and Kate Hardie) -- and the vivid evocation of demi-monde and near-despair. The piece, all done in flashback, also had a momentum which had you hanging on."