''Darkside'' is a 2013

philosophical Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, dramatised, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the liste ...

written by

Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (; born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...

, produced and directed by James Robinson and based on the themes of

Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experiments ...

's 1973

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed " progressive pop", the ...

album ''

The Dark Side of the Moon ''The Dark Side of the Moon'' is the eighth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 1 March 1973, by Capitol Records in the US and on 16 March 1973, by Harvest Records in the UK. Developed during live performances before ...

''.

Cast

* Amaka Okafor as Emily McCoy *

Iwan Rheon Iwan Rheon (; born 13 May 1985) is a Welsh actor and musician. He is best known for his roles as Simon Bellamy in the E4 series '' Misfits'' (2009–2011), Ramsay Bolton in the HBO series ''Game of Thrones'' (2013–2016), and Mötley Crüe gu ...

as The Boy *

Bill Nighy William Francis Nighy (; born 12 December 1949) is an English actor. Known for his work in numerous stage, television and film productions, he has received several awards including a British Academy Film Award and a Golden Globe Award, and ...

as Doctor Antrobus / The Witch Finder *

Rufus Sewell Rufus Frederik Sewell (; born 29 October 1967) is a British actor. In film, he has appeared in ''Carrington (film), Carrington'' (1995), ''Hamlet (1996 film), Hamlet'' (1996), ''Dangerous Beauty'' (1998), ''Dark City (1998 film), Dark City'' (1 ...

as Mr Baggott / Ethics Man *

Adrian Scarborough Adrian Philip Scarborough is an English actor. He has appeared in films including '' The Madness of King George'' (1994), '' Gosford Park'' (2001), '' Vera Drake'' (2004), '' The History Boys'' (2006), '' The King's Speech'' (2010), '' Les Misé ...

as Fat Man * Peter Marinker as The Wise One * Robert Blythe as Banker * Ben Crowe as Politician * Philippa Stanton as Emily's Mother

Production

Stoppard was first approached with the idea of writing a play based on the album in 1973, but had "no idea" how to approach it until much later. BBC's radio drama producer James Robinson said that the initial idea was "to see what sort of a journey the album takes Tom Stoppard on." Stoppard used all of the album, apart from lyrics, as "a kind of underscore", taking emotional cues from the music. He contacted Pink Floyd's

David Gilmour David Jon Gilmour ( ; born 6 March 1946) is an English guitarist, singer and songwriter who is a member of the rock band Pink Floyd. He joined in 1967, shortly before the departure of the founder member Syd Barrett. By the early 1980s, Pink F ...

, who gave Stoppard permission to write dialogue that would be heard over the instrumental pieces, and found the resulting script "fascinating". On adapting the album, Stoppard stated: "I didn't try to make a story that was the album writ large in any way. I invented a little story in the spirit of the album, taking a cue as to what level of reality this story might be on."

Themes

The following

themes are present in the play: * The

trolley problem The trolley problem is a series of thought experiments in ethics, psychology, and artificial intelligence involving stylized ethical dilemmas of whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number. The series usually begins with a Scenario ...

, a traditional

thought experiment A thought experiment is an imaginary scenario that is meant to elucidate or test an argument or theory. It is often an experiment that would be hard, impossible, or unethical to actually perform. It can also be an abstract hypothetical that is ...

The tragedy of the commons The tragedy of the commons is the concept that, if many people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource, such as a pasture, they will tend to overuse it and may end up destroying its value altogether. Even if some users exercised vo ...

Utilitarianism In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals. In other words, utilitarian ideas encourage actions that lead to the ...

** Utilitarian

consequentialism In moral philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a ...

Nietzscheanism Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) developed his philosophy during the late 19th century. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Arthur Schopenhauer's ''Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung'' (''The World as Will and Represe ...

** Nietzschean

egoism Egoism is a philosophy concerned with the role of the self, or , as the motivation and goal of one's own action. Different theories of egoism encompass a range of disparate ideas and can generally be categorized into descriptive or normativ ...

Kantianism Kantianism () is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The term ''Kantianism'' or ''Kantian'' is sometimes also used to describe contemporary positions in philosophy of m ...

* Hobbesianism * The prisoner's dilemma, a traditional example analyzed in

game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions. It has applications in many fields of social science, and is used extensively in economics, logic, systems science and computer science. Initially, game theory addressed ...

Marketing

Aardman Animations Aardman Animations Limited, known simply as Aardman, is a British animation studio based in Bristol, England, United Kingdom. It is known for films and television series made using stop motion and clay animation techniques, particularly those fe ...

created a three-minute short film to promote the play, consisting of a montage depicting a world on the verge of collapse, with huge ploughs destroying landscapes and skies filled with warplanes. The short was directed by Darren Dubicki, and was intended to evoke themes of "greed, conflict and consumption" with the eventual message that "Life is futile, and destined to descend into madness." The animators drew inspiration from the surreal album artwork by

Storm Thorgerson Storm Elvin Thorgerson (28 February 1944 – 18 April 2013) was an English art director and music video director. He is best known for closely working with the group Pink Floyd through most of their career, and also created album or other art f ...

and

Hipgnosis Hipgnosis were an English art design group, based in London, that specialised in creating album cover artwork for rock musicians and bands. Their commissions included work for Pink Floyd, Def Leppard, T. Rex, the Pretty Things, Black S ...

Broadcast

The play was broadcast on

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the sta ...

on 26 August 2013, the year of the album's 40th anniversary. It was preceded by a number of programmes to complement the event. During the broadcast, Aardman Animations' short film was played in a loop on the BBC Radio 2 website, BBC Big Screens and several third-party sites. The first online review of the play was by Robin Hilton. The play is now available on Deezer and Spotify.

References

{{Aardman Animations 2013 radio dramas Plays based on music Plays by Tom Stoppard British radio dramas Fantasy radio programs