“There’s nothing more dramatic than the end of the world as we know it”
Vals radio play ‘Resistance’ has been selected as contender for BBC Audio Drama Awards 2018
With The finalists being announced on Thursday 4 January 2018, the play centered around the dramatic consequences of anti-microbial resistance to antibiotics. The 3 part play was included in Radio Four’s ‘Dangerous Visions’ series. Sadly the play is not currently available on BBC iPlayer, but you can hear Val talking about the play here.
Val McDermkd took part in a workshop with scientists & medical experts before writing the Radio 4 thriller “Resistance.”
by BRIAN FERGUSON
Leading Scottish crime writer Val McDermid has written a new BBC drama about an apocalyptic epidemic – based on the real-life concerns of scientists.
Their concerns about the rise of antiobiotic resistance across the planet will be replayed out in the Radio serial about a mystery illness which engulfs a music festival.
McDermid took part in a two-day workshop attended by scientists, academics, writers and radio producers which she says left her “profoundly shocked.” Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, was among those to give a presentation,
Fife-born author McDermid, who is best known for her series of books on the criminal psychologist Tony Hill, pitched the idea of an “uncontrollable epidemic.”
Gina McKee, star of Our Friends in the North and Notting Hill, plays a journalist caught up in the outbreak when she attends the music festival in the north-east of England.
The three-part serial, Resistance, will be broadcast on 3, 10 and 17 March on Radio 4.
A new radio drama by Val McDermid highlights the worrying prospect of antibiotic resistance becoming a global epidemic.
Imagine a world in which even the slightest scratch could be lethal. Cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, and organ transplants are no longer possible. Even simple surgery is too risky to contemplate, while epidemics triggered by deadly bacteria have left our health services helpless.
It is science fiction, of course – but only just. According to many doctors and scientists, the rise of antibiotic resistance across the planet could soon make this grim scenario a reality. And if it does, humans will have to face up to challenges that would once have seemed unthinkable. The question is: when – and how – might this horrific medical ordeal unfold for the human race?
We face returning to a time when every form of surgery was life-threatening
It is a question that crime writer Val McDermid will attempt to answer next month in an unusual way – in a three-part radio drama, Resistance, which is to be aired on Radio 4. In it she will put dramatic flesh on scientific warnings of the hazards we now face because of our past misuse of antibiotics.
“We are looking down a barrel, into a world that was like the one we had when there were no antibiotics,” says McDermid. “We face returning to a time when every form of surgery was life-threatening, because every form of surgery carries with it the danger of infections. Even going to the dentist to have a tooth out will have risks involved.”
