'Some Radio 3 controllers have played around with the drama on the network, fretting at the cost, tutting at the content. These days radio is the only place where plays longer than 90 minutes or more specialist in appeal can still be heard. There's no room for Shakespeare, Shaw or Sheridan on Radio 4, hardly more space for traditions of other cultures. Radio 3, with the smallest audience of any network, can risk its ratings and gain prestige for the BBC at the same time. Sunday night's play The Mrichhakatikaa, worthily forbidding though it sounded in prospect (5th century Sanskrit and all) was actually a delight: accessible, enchanting, funny, ingeniously adapted by Roger James Elsgood and Willi Richards to show the past flowing into the present, recorded on location in India, absolutely beautifully acted. Listeners otherwise tuned missed a radio play that whirled you into other times and places but made sure you felt totally at home. If this was Charter Review programming, let's have more' . Gillian Reynolds The Daily Telegraph

THE MRICHHAKATIKAA

Drama on 3, BBC Radio 3

An adaptation for radio of the 5th century Sanskrit story sometimes known as ‘The Little Clay Cart’ by Roger James Elsgood and Willi Richards which tells that only where there is real love can there be real forgiveness. The Mrichhakatikaa was recorded on location in Bombay and Khandala with a cast including Joy Sengupta, Dipika Roy, Denzil Smith and Rehaan Engineer.

Director Willi Richards
Producer Roger James Elsgood

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