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Resistance
- BBC Radio 4 full-cast drama
- Narrated by: Gina McKee, full cast, Chetna Pandya, Emily Pithon, Nitin Kundra
- Length: 2 hrs and 11 mins
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Summary
Gina McKee stars in this chilling apocalyptic radio drama by award-winning writer Val McDermid.
It's the summer solstice weekend, and 150,000 people have descended on a farm in the northeast of England for an open-air music festival. Reporting on the event is journalist Zoe Meadows, who files her copy from a food van run by her friends Sam and Lisa.
When some of Sam's customers get sick, it looks like food poisoning, and it's exacerbated by the mud, rain and inadequate sanitary facilities. It's assumed to be a 24-hour thing until people get home and discover strange skin lesions, which ulcerate and turn septic. More people start getting ill - and dying.
What looked like a minor bug is clearly much more serious: a mystery illness that's spreading fast and seems resistant to all antibiotics. Zoe teams up with Sam to track the outbreak to its source; meanwhile, can a cure be found before the disease becomes a pandemic?
From a number one best-selling author, this original drama envisages a nightmare scenario that seems only too credible in our modern age.
Duration: 2 hours 30 mins approx.
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What listeners say about Resistance
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- Simon
- 07-04-17
Resistance is not Futile
You've got to hand it to the Beeb, they know drama and how to produce it. Resistance is a quality production which highlights the very modern and contemporary issue of drug-resistant disease. The upside of a dramatization is its quick-moving and exciting pace plus the genuine acting that brings the story alive. Here the cast do a great job of it and the sound is well-mastered as the myriad backing sounds never drown out the voice acting.
The story centres around Zoe Meadows, a journalist at a music festival in the North East of England. During the festival a mysterious illness starts to affect those there and then spreads beyond to the bafflement of scientists who are also represented as well as politicians trying to deal with the situation. The strength of the whole thing is that it deals with this most contemporary threat to society highlighting how the profit motive of the modern pharmaceutical industry runs counter to the wellbeing of humanity. It challenges the listener to question our priorities as a race.
If there's a weakness it's that the short format never really gets into the detail of the issue or the characters and apart from the biological nature of the disease there is very much a "been done before" air about the storyline.
I was happy to spend a credit on this despite the short length. The quality acting makes it exciting enough to warrant that but possibly the well-worn storyline and lack of depth will fail to satisfy regular readers of the apocalyptic genre.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Nigel
- 22-05-17
A great thought provoking story
‘Resistance’ is a great solid story, told well. Though I have just listened (yesterday) to John Dryden’s ‘Pandemic’ which is also by the BBC (both 2hrs 11mins) and has a similar vein of ‘World catastrophe/ Armageddon’. Both are great listens, but I would suggest to opt for ‘Pandemic’ as it’s a hidden gem.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Textilephd
- 14-07-22
Loved it
I heard this a couple of years ago as a radio play the Was well before Covid
Listening again the similarities are very interesting
It was really good wish it had been longer
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- Gina Jones
- 31-05-22
excellent
loved it , recommend it to anyone who likes murder mysteries, couldn't stop listening
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- Ulla
- 11-02-22
Very apt.
This story is very apt for the time we live in, and quite frightening too.
At the start of the covid outbreak I watched the movie Contagion for the second time, now I have listened to Resistance for the second time.
It really makes you think, and a little bit frightened.
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- Jean
- 03-03-21
Disappointing
This is my first book by this author & I was so underwhelmed. I’m reading a lot of fiction along these lines at the moment & I just wasn’t invested in the characters at all, loose ends weren’t tied up in the plot, it just seemed somehow a half-hearted story.
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- Kirsten
- 10-01-21
Chillingly familiar
I heard this in radio 4 a few years ago, and it took me a while to track it down again. really interesting to hear it again during a global pandemic. So much of it seemed so far fetched when I first heard it, but now it seems so familiar 😔
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- Sam Jones
- 16-06-19
A good story but ends abruptly
I enjoyed the story but it was left a little unresolved which was a little frustrating.
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- Mrs Sally Martin
- 15-09-18
Excellent!
Thoroughly engrossed throughout. Extremely thought provoking and has generated much discussion. More dramatisations of this calibrate please.
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- Cestus Magnus
- 12-08-18
Damn good production
Audio play with excellent cast list. Plot was typical pig flu genre but very good nevertheless. Set in first person and we'll delivered.
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