# The Rivals

Heard 1968. 1 episodes.

Dame Flora \[1902-1984\] was giant of stage, screen and television. BBC Radio 4 Extra is delighted to feature one of her rare radio appearances in a drama not heard for 57 years. Originally featured as part of the 1968 Flora Robson Festival, 'The Rivals' is a 'comedy of manners' written by Dublin-born Richard Brinsley Sheridan \[1751-1816\] which premiered at Covent Garden Theatre in January 1775. The drama is set in 18th century Bath, where the wealthy and fashionable went 'to take the waters'. In a wonderfully convoluted plot, a cheeky alias is almost the undoing of two young lovers’ plans. Knowing that Lydia Languish is a hopeless romantic her sweetheart, Captain Jack Absolute, has assumed the persona of a poor army officer. Lydia is enthralled with the idea of eloping with him under the nose of her moralistic guardian, Mrs Malaprop, played by Dame Flora. How will Lydia react when she learns that the impoverished object of her desire is actually well-to-do Jack? Dame Flora is joined by Peter Pratt, Christine Finn, Bernard Brown, William Ingram, Rosalind Shanks, Peter Tuddenham, Denys Hawthorne, Barbara Mitchell, Christopher Bidmead, Ronald Herdman, Alan Dudley, Carol Marsh and LeRoy Lingwood. - https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/proginfo/2025/03/the-rivals

## Sets

- The Rivals (Listeners' uploads): the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it. Source: https://archive.org/details/the-rivals-1968-04-15-bbc-radio-4

## Episodes, in broadcast order

1. [BBC Radio 4](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/radio-drama/series/rivals/d3cd3605d726), aired 15 April 1968 (1 h 28 min): https://archive.org/download/the-rivals-1968-04-15-bbc-radio-4/The-Rivals_1968-04-15_BBC-Radio-4.mp3

Uploaded to the Internet Archive by the person named, outside its radio collections.

Nothing here is called public domain on this site's say-so. In the United States, sound recordings first fixed before 15 February 1972 have federal protection under the Music Modernization Act of 2018, for most until 2067 at the latest, so most American radio of the 1930s to the 1950s is not in the public domain there. Each set shows the licence, mark or statement its archive gives, and says whose it is.