The Cairo Trilogy on BBC Radio

A big thank you to reader Marwa for alerting me to a BBC Radio rendition of Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy, featuring the great Omar Sharif and my friend Ihab Sakkout (he’s also great):

The Cairo Trilogy, part 1 of 3

By Naguib Mahfouz, dramatised by Ayeesha Menon

Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawab, a prosperous shopkeeper, is a tyrant at home who terrorises his wife and two daughters and keeps them in strict seclusion behind the house’s latticed windows. But outside the home he is a serial womaniser with an appetite for plump, middle-aged singers.

The First World War is ending, and then there is a popular uprising in March 1919, when the eldest son Fahmy joins the nationalist cause.

Recorded entirely in Cairo.

Old Kamal …… Omar Sharif
Young Kamal …… Karim Fouda
Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawab …… Ihab Sakkout
Amina …… Caroline Khalil
Fahmy …… Mena Reda
Yasin …… Tamer Nasrat
Miriam …… Ola Roshdy

Music by Sacha Puttnam; producer/director John Dryden.

I’ll try to record them and post them for iPod enjoyment.

Update: 68MB MP3 file available here. Not great quality, unfortunately. Min babak?