Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

Monkey Business

Go ape with Philip Franks and Rosalie Craig! A programme to launch you on a 'flung festoon half-way up to the jealous moon' with mischievous music to match.

It begins in mischief and ends in confusion. Monkeys are the lords of misrule. They're as entertaining as they are mischievous. In their needs and affections they can also seem almost human. Are we monkeys or are they men? In Monkey Business the actors Rosalie Craig and Philip Franks will be leaping about between the probable and the improbable. Searching for airborne fun rather than earthbound enlightenment. They'll be swinging from the cosmology of 16th-century China to the simian aspirations of The Jungle Book and will conjure mayhem from Satie, Beethoven, Britten and Ligeti to hasten them on the way. As Kipling put it - "here we go in a flung festoon, half-way up to the jealous moon."

Producer: Zahid Warley

1 hour, 14 minutes

Last on

Sun 4 Nov 2018 17:30
大象传媒 Radio 3

More episodes

Previous

Summer Nights

Next

Pilgrimage

See all episodes from Words and Music

Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • Wu Cheng'en translated by Arthur Waley

    Birth of monkey from Monkey read by Philip Franks

  • 00:02

    Ludwig van Beethoven

    Rondo a capriccio in G major, Op.129 - 聯Rage over a lost penny聰

    Performer: Artur Schnabel (piano).
    • NAXOS 8110765.
    • Tr41.

  • Rudyard Kipling

    Road Song of the Bandar-log read by Philip Franks

  • 00:08

    Erik Satie

    Sonnerie pour r茅veiller le bon gros Roi des Singes (Lequel ne dort toujours que d'un 聹il), fanfare pour deux trompettes

    • Erato 9029598879.
    • CD3 Tr1.

  • George Schaller

    First sighting of the gorilla from The Year of the Gorilla read by Philip Franks

  • 00:12

    Georges Brassens

    Le Gorille

    Performer: Georges Brassens.
    • Philips 586343 2.
    • Tr3.

  • Carol Ann Duffy

    Queen Kong read by Rosalie Craig

  • 00:20

    Benjamin Britten

    Messalina from Our Hunting Fathers

    Performer: Ian Bostridge.
    • EMI CDC 556342.
    • Tr13.

  • Katherine Philips

    A Married State read by Rosalie Gray

  • 00:29

    Dudley Moore

    Little Miss Britten

    Performer: Dudley Moore.
    • EMI CDEMC 3727.
    • Tr7.

  • John Collier

    Emily visits the British Museum from His Monkey Wife read by Rosalie Craig

  • 00:33

    Gy枚rgy Ligeti

    Gepopo聮s first aria from Le Grand Macabre

    Performer: ORF Symphonie Orchester and ORF Chor, Elgar Howarth (conductor).
    • WERGO WER 61702.
    • CD2 Tr1.

  • Walter De La Mare

    Language lessons for the monkeys from The Three Royal Monkeys read by Philip Franks

  • 00:38

    Charles Mingus

    Pithecanthropus Erectus

    Performer: Charles Mingus.
    • Atlantic 7814562.
    • Tr1.

  • John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

    Man and Monkey read by Rosalie Craig

  • 00:50

    Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman

    I wan'na be like you (The Monkey Song) from Opening Medley

    Performer: Los Lobos.
    • A&M CDA 3918.
    • Tr1.

  • Simon Gray

    The Family Tree from The Year of the Jouncer read by Philip Franks

  • 00:56

    B茅la Bart贸k

    Intermezzo from Concerto for Orchestra (Sz 116)

    Performer: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle (conductor).
    • EMI CDC 5550942.
    • Tr12.

  • James Lever

    Tarzan and Cheeta visit Constance Bennet from Me, Cheeta, read by Philip Franks

  • 01:02

    Charles Ives

    The Unanswered Question

    Performer: Glenn Fischthal (trumpet), San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas (conductor).
    • RCA 09026637032.
    • Tr17.

  • Franz Kafka

    From Report for an Academy read by Rosalie Craig

  • 01:10

    Chuck Berry

    Too Much Monkey Business

    Performer: Chuck Berry.
    • CD CHESS 21.
    • Tr5.

Producer's Notes: Monkey Business

There鈥檚 something uncanny about monkeys. Most of us can see the ape in ourselves if we鈥檙e being honest even if it is like looking into a fairground mirror.聽 We recognise our features but at the same time we鈥檙e too long, too short and above all too funny.聽 Monkeys mean mischief.聽 The problem, I suppose, is that we can鈥檛 quite decide whether we are naked apes or they are hairy humans.聽

This evening鈥檚 Words and Music is all about playing with the species divide and going ape.聽 Our lords of misrule and monkeys-in-chief are the actors, Rosalie Craig and Philip Franks.聽 They leap from Tarzan and Cheeta in Hollywood to the Caroline poet, Katherine Philips and her animadversions on marriage.聽 On the way they stop to pluck a lyric from Kipling, muse with Simon Gray on his family tree and wonder with John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester whether it is wiser to be a monkey or a man.聽 They also borrow 鈥� or should that be steal, from Kafka for his simian observations in the short story, Report for an Academy and from Carol Ann Duffy who explores the wilder shores of love in her poem, Queen Kong.

The music matches these twirls and tumbles.聽 Serious and mock serious it follows the monkey gospel of mimicry and subversion.聽 Beethoven parodies himself; Dudley Moore parodies Benjamin Britten; and Charlie Mingus celebrates 鈥渢he missing link鈥� in his composition Pithecanthropus Erectus.聽 There鈥檚 a lament for a pet monkey, and a fanfare for a royal monkey as well as humans singing like monkeys and monkeys singing like humans鈥� you鈥檒l have to listen and find out for yourself鈥� that鈥檚 safer at any rate than just sitting there waiting for your tail to be pulled!

Producer: Zahid Warley

Broadcasts

  • Sun 21 Aug 2016 18:15
    大象传媒 Radio 3
  • Sun 4 Nov 2018 17:30
    大象传媒 Radio 3

The hidden history of plant-based diets

The hidden history of plant-based diets

Forget social media influencers - the meat-free movement started with the Victorians.

Books website

Get closer to books with in-depth articles, quizzes and our picks from radio & TV.

Gallery