One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Episode 5

Another chance to hear Christian Slater read Ken Kesey's powerful, anti-authoritarian novel. Based on the author's own experiences at a war veterans' mental hospital in California, it was described as "a glittering parable of good and evil" on its publication in 1962. It tells the story of Randle Patrick McMurphy, a rebellious inmate in a mental hospital who leads a rebellion against the repressive staff. In the fifth episode, after questioning the other patients, McMurphy finds out that most of them are there voluntarily, whilst he, Scanlon and a few of the chronics are the only ones committed. McMurphy decides to behave and to try not to provoke Nurse Ratched's fury. This series first broadcast on Radio 2 in 2004, when Christian Slater was playing McMurphy in London's West End.