Thomas Chatterton Manuscript Project
Chatterton in the Arts
Video - TV - Film - Radio
Chatterton: The Allington Solution
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The play stars Benedict Cumberbatch. It is available by clicking the image above.; The link will take you to the Internet Archive's radio player.
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Set in both the present day and the 18th century, Chatterton: The Allington Solution, is the first play for Radio 4 by the acclaimed writer, biographer and historian, Peter Ackroyd.
​​A preview of the play (from Archive.org) :
Afternoon Play: Chatterton: the Allington Solution Thursday 1st May 2008, 14:15 on BBC Radio 4 FM.
Who or what killed the boy genius Thomas Chatterton?
For over two hundred years, everyone thought he committed suicide, a neglected poet driven to despair. Everyone, that is, except Jeremy Allington, a literary historian, who thinks the prevailing wisdom is nonsense. Only he isn't quite as polite as that …
Dangerously close to losing his job and his partner, Allington is determined to prove that history is not as simple as some historians would have us believe.
Cast:
Thomas Chatterton ..... Benedict Cumberbatch
Jeremy Allington ..... Adrian Scarborough
Ruth ..... Rachel Bavidge
Partridge ..... David Timson
Sam Beaumont ..... Glen McCready
Mrs Angel ..... Liza Sadovy
Jackman ..... Hugh Ross
Mr Crane ..... Jonathan Keeble
Coroner ..... Hugh Dickson
Mark Lawson ..... Himself
Producer: Nicolas Soames
A Ukemi Production for BBC Radio 4.
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Thomas Chatterton (20 November 1752 – 24 August 1770) was an English poet whose precocious talents ended in suicide at age 17. He was an influence on Romantic artists of the period such as Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Links to Chatterton's Works & Correspondence
Call it what you will, authentic, doubtful, lost, or plainly wrong - if it was linked with Chatterton it will be included in Chatterton's Works & Correspondence. This will be the base point from which we can examine every piece of work, and add notes and links accordingly.