Under Western Eyes

Directed by Stuart Burge
Writer: Stuart Burge(adaptation), Joseph Conrad(novel)

First broadcast 12 January 1962

  • Daniel Massey . . . . . . . . . . Razumov
    John Phillips . . . . . . . . . . Ivanovich
    Richard Pearson . . . . . . . . . . Peters
    Mary Morris . . . . . . . . . . Tekla
    Willoughby Goddard . . . . . . . . . . General Tulin
    Frank Finlay . . . . . . . . . . Mikulin
    Sheila Burrell . . . . . . . . . . Sophia Antonovna
    David Andrews . . . . . . . . . . Haldin
    Kika Markham . . . . . . . . . . Natalya Haldin
    John Tate . . . . . . . . . . Landlord
    Stan Simmons . . . . . . . . . . Ziemianich
    Geoffrey Dunn . . . . . . . . . . The Prince
    Michael Williams . . . . . . . . . . Ivan
    Peter Thompson . . . . . . . . . . Policeman
    Bernard Goldman . . . . . . . . . . Nikita
    Peggy Fame . . . . . . . . . . Madame de Sale

    The very wonderful Willoughby Goddard and Frank would work together, many years later, on stage in the National Theatre production of Amadeus (1981) by Peter Shaffer.




  • "EV0LUTION, not revolution; direction, not destruction; unity, not disruption." An unusual philosophy for a student at St. Petersburg University in pre-revolutionary Russia - but Kiryl Razumov is a serious young man, his sole aim in life to make a solid and respectable career for himself.

    It is to Razumov, of all people, that his fellow-student Victor Haldin turns for help after assassinating a Minister of Stare. To Razumov, who asks : "What do you people hope to do by scattering a few drops of blood on all this snow-this immensity that is Russia?"

    Anxious to be rid of his unwelcome and highly dangerous visitor, Razumov goes in search of a sleigh driver who will help the assassin to escape. The consequences of this simple errand change his whole life. Henceforth he is a hero to the revolutionaries and a suspect to the dreaded secret police. Russia is not big enough to hide a man tainted with suspicion of revolutionary activity, and at last Razumov is forced into exile in Geneva, where his story is played out to its grim, ironical end.

    Tonight's play, an adaptation of the novel written by Joseph Conrad in 1911, is a fascinating study of espionage and counterespionage, and a penetrating study of the Russian character as it appeared to observers beyond the borders of a country in which resentment against the ruthless repression of liberal ideas was boiling toward the explosion that was to end the Tsars.

    In Stuart Burge's production Daniel Massey plays Razumov, while David Andrews is cast as Haldin. The company also includes Mary Morris as Tekla and Kika Markham as Natalya, Haldin's sister, who explains to her English teacher, shocked by the assassination and disapproving of such violence : "Of course you don't understand. To western eyes this must seem like a class conflict, a conflict of interests. It is nothing of the kind. It is a movement of the spirit."

    RADIO TIMES 4th January 1962