A rollicking wartime comedy set in the personnel department of the Cabinet War Rooms, starring Fenella Woolgar as Dot.
“Little chills the blood so much as the phrase ‘new Radio 4 comedy’. But, dear reader, be un-chilled... a lovely, period-mocking script delivered with its eyebrow at precisely the right level of archness,” – The Times
“Dot’s quirky wit is all of her own,” – The Observer
“Excellent, eccentrically comic,” – The Daily Mail.
Dot's had quite enough of making tea in the Cabinet War Rooms. When she finds a cryptic message in the newspaper she enlists the help of her gals – will this be the big break Dot's been waiting for?
Follow Dot as she gets squiffy over Agent Bertie Whiff-Whaff, concocts stirring yet pithy slogans for the war effort, and goes on a mission to St Horribly Vulture’s School for Boys to enlist a teacher for... “shhhh... Bletchley Park!”
Dot will do her bally utmost for King and Country in these spiffing tales of derring-do (and, occasionally, derring-don’t), whether investigating suspicious deaths, outwitting dastardly spies, or helping the Prime Minister with his French vocab.
Cast:
Dot...Fenella Woolgar
Myrtle...Kate O’Flynn
Peg...Freya Parker
Millicent...Jane Slavin
Peabody...David Acton
Other parts played by Roslyn Hill, Stephen Critchlow, Adie Allen, Alicia Ambrose-Bayly, Susan Jameson, Sean Baker, Brian Protheroe, Sam Rix, Nick Underwood, Scarlett Brookes, David Sterne, Nicholas Murchie, John Dougal, Emma Handy, Ryan Whittle, Stephen Hogan, Elizabeth Counsell, Sean Murray, John Lightbody, Lauren Cornelius and introducing Officer Background as himself.
Written by Ed Harris.
Produced and directed by Jessica Mitic (Series 1 and 2) and Sasha Yevtushenko (Series 3)
Ed is a playwright, comedy writer and poet based in Brighton. Before finding his feet as a writer, Ed was a bin man, care-worker, amusements lackey on Brighton Pier, and even spent one winter as a husky trainer in Lapland.
Ed’s first major play Mongrel Island was commissioned by Soho Theatre and opened Steve Marmion’s first season as Artistic Director in July 2011. His other plays include The Cow Play, What The Thunder Said (which won the Writers’ Guild Award for Best Children’s Play 2017), and Never Ever After (shortlisted for the Meyer-Whitworth Award). His first opera, A Shoe Full of Stars was described as a “comic opera for children... about terrorism!” and won the international YAM Award in 2018 for Best Opera.
Ed has also become one of BBC Radio Drama’s most regularly commissioned and highly acclaimed dramatists in the time since his first radio play Porshia was produced in 2007. Between 2011 and 2015 he won a Sony Gold/Radio Academy Award for The Resistance of Mrs Brown, a Writers’ Guild Award for Troll, and a BBC Audio Drama Award for Billions.