Interview: Sophie Stone and Lloyd Coleman on radio drama Beethoven Can Hear You

There’s a particular irony in talking to Lloyd Coleman over Google Meet. The deaf musician, who’s been commissioned to write the score for a new BBC Radio 3 drama, Beethoven Can Hear You, is unable to hear me on the call. With my phone picking up his audio, we agree that I will type out my questions using the in-built chat function.

Our conversation takes place the day Lloyd finished recording the score for the 90-minute radio drama, which sees a deaf time traveller arrive in a world where the German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven never lost his hearing. 

“It’s been an absolute joy,” he says. “I wanted to do it because it was a challenge and a new challenge for me about a man and a composer that I greatly admire, with a writer, Tim X Atach, who I also greatly admire.

“I’m a huge fan of Peter Capaldi and the idea of having [him] as Beethoven, I found too difficult to resist,” Lloyd continues. “Then Sophie Stone, of course, as well, another actor I hugely admire, and I think all the creative decisions that James [Robinson, producer] and Tim have taken in the project have been ones that have really, really excited me.”

Meanwhile Peter Capaldi will star as Ludwig van Beethoven in @BBCRadio3 drama “Beethoven Can You Hear Me”, marking 250 years since the composer’s birth. Created by @TimAtack, Beethoven is visited by a deaf traveller from another time. 8/9 ⬇️

— BBC Arts Publicity Team (@BBCArtsPR) June 5, 2020

Sophie, who previously worked alongside Peter in an episode of Doctor Who, will be the one doing the time travelling this time around, starring as The Visitor.

“Well, in Peter’s case he’s been able to run around on adventurous escapades and negotiate with monsters and cyborgs, whereas I negotiated WhatsApp directions in a cupboard on my own, so it’s not quite the same level of exploration,” Sophie tells me about the role reversal, “but it did push my imagination into the realm of ‘what if I met my heroes from the past…?’

“People usually advise against that kind of thing because they’re never quite as heroic as we paint them to be,” she continues. “We’re humans, and pretty flawed, so imagining going back to a time where we discover the history we’ve been fed was a bit of a lie, is pretty close to what we’re discovering now as we unpack a lot of historical questions. These monsters are real.”

The drama, produced as part of the BBC’s Beethoven Unleashed programming, has been announced in unusual circumstances, as a result of the ongoing coronavirus crisis. While Sophie explains that her makeshift recording space involved padded out duvet and a tiny cupboard, Lloyd tells me that lockdown made the process longer, with each instrument recorded in isolation.

Literally just finished recording this in my cupboard of duvet! Cannot wait for you all to be introduced to this – music by deaf composer Lloyd Coleman 🙌 thanks @TimAtack for an incredible piece x https://t.co/bRzNxxBbvt

— sophiestone (@sophieLstone) June 5, 2020

“I would always prefer to have musicians recording together in the same room where possible,” he says. “You can never get that alchemy that you get between musicians and performing musicians. It would have been lovely to have that in the room, but it just wasn’t possible on the time that we had, the circumstances we had and the budget we had.”

Lloyd goes on to add: “It’d be really interesting to start with one musician, and then see how other musicians then listen to the musician like, ‘alright, so they’ve made that choice, play a bit louder there, or be quieter there’ or whatever the choice might be. It’s been really interesting to see the layers of the music build out.

While Lloyd created the score, Sophie explains that she worked with writer Tim X Atack on earlier drafts of the story to focus more on deaf empowerment – something she says meant the authentic experience was included.

“This is probably something Beethoven himself wouldn’t have been given in the telling of his own story,” says Sophie. “He wrote a suicide letter but never showed anyone or succeeded in doing the deed, but he spoke of not being understood and feeling judged by people underestimating him because of his deafness.

“He was made to fear going deaf as his music was his life, but once he realised he could still produce incredible music, if not better, he stuck around.

“In this drama, I saw someone who feared the unknown and the internal fight between rejecting and accepting the part of himself that he has no control over,” Sophie adds. “I understood why he felt rage and was deemed rude and arrogant. Trying to hold onto parts of yourself with pride when other people try to fill you with shame is a common war in the deaf and disabled community.”

Beethoven’s struggle with his deafness is well-documented. On 6 October 1802, the composer penned The Heiligenstadt Testament, addressed to his brothers Carl and Johann.

“O how harshly was I repulsed by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing, and yet it was impossible for me to say to men speak louder, shout, for I am deaf,” he writes. “Ah how could I possibly admit such an infirmity in the one sense which should have been more perfect in me than in others, a sense which I once possessed in highest perfection, a perfection such as few surely in my profession enjoy or have enjoyed.

“O I cannot do it, therefore forgive me when you see me draw back when I would gladly mingle with you, my misfortune is doubly painful because it must lead to my being misunderstood,” he continues.

“I’d tell him it’s ok to be angry, to be sad,” Sophie replies, when asked what she would say to Beethoven if she met him, “but to realise that it’s not being deaf that will hold him back, it’s letting people tell him he’s worth less because of it.

“To trust his instincts, his talent and find new ways to understand his skill so it evolves through a new lens. I’d tell him never to submit to being shamed but also not to close himself off. There’ll be many people along the way who will empower him to be the best new version of himself. And to find his identity and community. That family will keep you alive,” she concludes. 

Lloyd, meanwhile, wouldn’t want to approach Beethoven, because he would be too scared to upset him. “I would definitely love to just sit and watch Beethoven work, because he sounds like he’s a very chaotic working existence. I think it would have been very interesting to watch him write. You look at the manuscripts, they are illegible. You can tell that they’re just written very, very quickly – sometimes very furiously, like scribbling things in and out, and revising things over and over again.

“You can always imagine him sitting at the piano, wiping off a sheet of manuscript paper, and just like throwing it over his shoulder, or scrunching it up into a ball. So, I would love to go back in time and watch Beethoven composed.”

A BBC spokesperson has said the drama will be broadcast during the Autumn. The Limping Chicken has reached out to the BBC to confirm if a transcript for the programme will be provided.

Photo: BBC.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is a mildly deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He wears bilateral hearing aids and can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.

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Update: BBC Radio 3 have since confirmed that the radio drama will be broadcast on Sunday at 7:30pm, with a transcript made available on the programme’s website.