In fact there’s a dead body to be dealt with… In a two-hander written by relative newbie Liv Fowler, Shvorne Marks and Ami Metcalf, who play Em and Chloe, are fun and believable, their interaction snappy even the in-between-scenes music is good. They niggle and tease, irritate and reminisce. In Sutton Wetherspoon’s, twentysomethings Em and Chloe are bantering like the old mates they are. In contrast, Happy Hour is a small affair: one writer, two actors, one producer, one sound person. The team behind People Who Knew Me is enormous: nine executive producers in all, seven people on dialogue. I’ve heard the first two episodes of People Who Knew Me and I’m in for the long haul. She exec-produced and starred in the interesting historical drama Edith!, is a stalwart of book narration (including the Wheel of Time series) and recently hosted the true crime-ish podcast Mother, Neighbor, Russian Spy. She has done more audio work over the past few years. And Pike is great: bristling, sharp, seductive, with, to my ears, a perfect American accent. No flat, in-studio sound, no stock atmosphere, not a single unbelievable piece of dialogue. It helps that Connie is a bit spiky that we don’t really know why she disappeared that Hugh Laurie appears in episode two and, especially, that the show has been meticulously produced. If she doesn’t, and she dies, Claire will be left with nobody.ĭoes this seem like a low-stakes plot? Written down, perhaps it does, but the script is taut and tense, the story well paced, and Pike sells Connie so brilliantly that I found myself absolutely absorbed.

But now Connie/Emily has cancer, she’s going to have to come at least partly clean and find people who are related to her, or who knew her in the past. There, she reinvented herself, created a tight family life for her and Claire and nobody else. Spoiler (but not much of one – you work this out within minutes): Connie is in fact Emily Morris, who used 9/11 to fake her own death and ran away from New York to California. Connie is the single mother of 13-year-old Claire, and, well, Connie’s been living a lie. People Who Knew Me on BBC Radio 5 Live, written and directed by Daniella Isaacs (from Kim Hooper’s book), tells the tale of Connie Prynne – played by Rosamund Pike – and the crisis caused by her breast cancer diagnosis. Here’s a classy drama series: excellently soundscaped, grippingly plotted, smoothly acted and exec-produced by Sharon Horgan. This Cultural Life: Nick Cave (BBC Radio 4) | BBC Sounds

Whose Truth Is It Anyway? (BBC Radio 4) | BBC Sounds People Who Knew Me (BBC 5 Live) | BBC Sounds

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