Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Louise Brealey, David Haig, Don Gilet, Peter Bankole, David Carlyle, Madeline Potter, Richard Laing, Joel MacCormack, Martina Laird.
We never think of how a disease comes into being, how it is ‘born’, how it evolves…we leave that to the scientists and we react with surprise when it is put to us that the wild speculation we have gossiped over when a friend is diagnosed with a particular illness, is in fact wrong, that it is far more sinister than we imagine, but also more acutely disturbing for our species.
We are in a war against viruses, our bodies are the fodder for their ability to feed, to multiply, to alter, to eventually kill, but some have imposed themselves on our collective conscious in ways that leave us terrified, that have changed the way we see our own responsibility take the lead in safety.
To create a play with such incredible fortitude, to give a voice to the AIDS virus as it explains its history, the moment it jumped from another species into the unwitting human host is to be thought of in great detail, the structure of the pathogenesis more than half a century before even it became spoken of in hushed tones in the clubs of New York and Los Angeles, and by which Anita Sullivan in her role as playwright, and to someone to whom the AIDS virus could be seen as an unwelcome passenger in her journey, the result is one of the most interesting productions to have been placed on the B.B.C.’s audio drama roster.
End Of Transmission is disturbing, but enlightening, it is revealing, it is the force of fear to which many have turned their face from as if the word alone can cause infection, and to an extent that is understandable, for like all diseases which cause such suffering, the stigma, which still remains within society, is enough to point the finger of blame at the one who is under its thrall, under the thumb of its demands…a Victorian mindset that lingers as long as the disease, damn the victim, not humanity’s burden on the planet, and this thinking leads our outrageous attitude to nature, to other species, as one of a narrative that we never learn from.
The radio play offers the listener an informed piece of theatre, it is a treatment in education of virology and the human emotions that come from the discovery of mortality, and even in an age where we believe we are more enlightened upon the nature and effect that such a diagnosis can have on the mind, such an Earth-shattering development can leave the individual broken, alone, friendless.
With David Haig giving his voice to the virus, the listener is shown the anger from within, that force to which only a distinctive sense of authority can install alarm and anxiety, and with the pleasure of hearing various voices to whom The Terrance Higgins Trust have helped in their own journey telling their brief tales between the conversation between Jude and The Virus, End Of Transmission is arguably one of the finest radio dramas to delve into the world of those living with one of the most awful diseases to ever develop in humanity.
A seismic play, and one to which gets under the skin of our own prejudice as we open our eyes to the effects of the nature of fear.
Ian D. Hall