Jessica Dromgoole

Jessica Dromgoole is a British director of contemporary theatre and radio-plays, as well as a former Artistic Director of the Finborough Theatre from 1988 to 1991. From 1991 she has been New Writing Co-ordinator for BBC Drama, Entertainment and Children's programmes.

Early life

Dromgoole is the daughter of schoolteacher Jenny Davis and Patrick Dromgoole, a former managing director of Harlech Television. Dromgoole is the older sister of Dominic Dromgoole.^[1]

Awards

Dromgoole won the 2007 Prix Italia for Original Radio Drama with The Incomplete Recorded Works of a Dead Body.^[2] She won the 2012 BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Audio Drama with Lost Property: The Year My Mother Went Missing.^[3] She won the 2012 Bronze Sony Radio Academy Award for Best Drama with A Tale of Two Cities.^[4]

Radio plays

Radio plays directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Date first broadcast	Play	Author	Cast	Synopsis Awards	Station Series
31 March 2007	The Incomplete Recorded Works of a Dead Body[5][6]	Ed Hime	Khalid Abdalla, Ameet Chana, Elaine Lordan, Saikat Ahamed, John Dougall, Mark Straker, Anthony Glennon and Jasmine Callan	Ed Hime's blackly comic fictional documentary combines a collage of deliberate recordings, from police surveillance tapes to an unfinished installation piece on pigeons, as it follows Babak Beyrouti, famous Iranian sound recordist and agoraphobic, as he braves London in his quest for lost love. Won the Prix Italia for Original Radio Drama in 2007.[2]	BBC Radio 3 The Wire[7]
18 June 2008	Listen to the Words[8]	Ed Hime	Joe Dempsie, Lizzie Watts, Sam Crane, Lisa Stevenson, Nyasha Hatendi, Helen Longworth, Ben Crowe, John Rowe, Liz Sutherland, Stephen Critchlow and Dan Starkey	Tim has a problem with empathy, and justifies tapping fellow student Sophie's phone as the only way to understand her. When it all goes wrong, he books the media room of the secure unit where he is being held and creates a broadcast for his college radio station.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play[9]
2 August 2010 – 6 August 2010	The Shooting Party[10]	Isabel Colegate dramatised by D J Britton	Olivia Colman, Ellie Kendrick, Sam Dale, Jaimi Barbakoff, Michael Shelford, Christine Kavanagh, Joshua Swinney, Sean Baker, Sally Orrock, Jude Akuwudike and David Seddon	Autumn 1913; a shooting party takes place on an Oxfordshire country estate. An error of judgement results in a death.	BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Drama[11]
18 November 2010	All the Blood in My Veins[12]	Katie Hims	Elaine Lordan, Shannon Tarbet, Tyger Drew-Honey, Katie Angelou, Alfie Browne-Sykes, Jude Akuwidike, Lloyd Thomas, Deeivya Meir and Shirena Watt	Viola, a 14-year-old girl, has responsibilities beyond her age.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
3 May 2011	Lost Property: The Wrong Label[13]	Katie Hims	Rosie Cavaliero, Alex Tregear, Katie Angelou, Daniel Cooper, Daniel Rabin, Stuart McLoughlin, Bethan Walker, Sally Orrock, Sean Baker and Joanna Monro	London, 1941, and Alice knows that to stop your children from being evacuated is tantamount to siding with Hitler.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
10 May 2011	Lost Property: The Year My Mother Went Missing[14]	Katie Hims	Rosie Cavaliero, Shannon Flynn, Ceallach Spellman, Elliot Griffiths, Ralph Ineson, Daniel Rabin, Jane Whittenshaw, Sally Orrock, Stuart McLoughlin and Sean Baker	It's 1979, and it's not the first time that Ruthie's mother Queenie has gone missing, but usually she leaves a note. Won the BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Audio Drama in 2012.[3]	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
17 May 2011	Lost Property: A Telegram from the Queen[15]	Katie Hims	Rosie Cavaliero, Edna Doré, Gary Beadle, Daniel Rabin, Stuart McLoughlin, Sean Baker, Jane Whittenshaw, Alex Tregear, Joanna Monro and Sally Orrock	It's 2011, and, as Alice's 100th birthday present, Ruthie sets out to put her family back together again. The final play in Katie Hims' trilogy of heartbreak and redemption.	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play
26 December 2011 – 30 December 2011	A Tale of Two Cities[Note 1][16]	Charles Dickens dramatised in five parts by Mike Walker Music by Lennert Busch	Robert Lindsay, Jonathan Coy, Alison Steadman, Karl Johnson, Lydia Wilson, Andrew Scott, Paul Ready, James Lailey, Tracy Wiles, Simon Bubb, Carl Prekopp, Adjoa Andoh, Daniel Cooper, Clive Merrison, Gerard McDermott, Paul Moriarty, Christopher Webster, Adam Billington, Rikki Lawton and Alex Rivers	In London and Paris before and during the French Revolution, these five episodes show the plight of the French people under the brutal oppression of the aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, and the corresponding savage brutality of the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the years immediately following. Won the Bronze Sony Radio Academy Award for Best Drama in 2012.[4]	BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play

Notes

1. Directed by Jessica Dromgoole and Jeremy Mortimer

Sources

• Jessica Dromgoole's radio play listing at Diversity (suttonelms.org.uk)
• Jessica Dromgoole's radio play listing at RadioListings

References

1. Dromgoole, Dominic (2007). "Acknowledgments". Will & Me: How Shakespeare Took Over My Life. Pegasus Books. pp. 293–4. ISBN 1933648465. Retrieved 11 March 2013. My sister Jessica was extremely helpful, as she always is, with matters of tone, with extra material and with a large helping of extra jokes.
2. Prix Italia, Winners 1949 – 2010, RAI
3. BBC – BBC Audio Drama Awards 2012
4. Sony Radio Academy Awards 2012 – Best Drama
5. BBC – The Wire – The Incomplete Recorded Works of a Dead Body
6. The Incomplete Recorded Works of a Dead Body – A radio play by Ed Hime (script)
7. BBC – The Wire
8. BBC – Afternoon Play – Listen to the Words
9. BBC – Afternoon Play
10. BBC – Woman's Hour Drama – The Shooting Party
11. BBC – Woman's Hour Drama
12. BBC – Afternoon Play – All the Blood in My Veins
13. BBC – Afternoon Play – Lost Property: The Wrong Label
14. BBC – Afternoon Play – Lost Property: The Year My Mother Went Missing
15. BBC – Afternoon Play – Lost Property: A Telegram from the Queen
16. BBC – Afternoon Play – A Tale of Two Cities