Chicken Soup with Barley by Arnold Wesker

October 4, 1936, London's East End is awaiting one of Mosley's Fascist marches.

We meet Sarah Kahn; her shiftless husband, Harry; their two children, Ada and Ronnie; Harry's sister, Cissie (a trade union organiser); and Dave Simmonds, who will later marry Ada.

We follow them through twenty years of doubt, difficulty, and disillusion, at the end of which the indomitable Sarah can still cry, 'We got through, didn't we? We got scars but we got through. You hear me, Ronnie? You've got to care, you've got to care or you'll die!'

Starring Frank Finlay as Harry Kahn and Miriam Karlin as Sarah Kahn.

Chicken Soup with Barley, the first of a trilogy of plays, was written by London born playwright Arnold Wesker (1932 - 2016) and was first staged in 1958. Arnold Wesker was knighted for his services to drama and literature in 2006.

Sarah Kahn ... Miriam Karlin
Harry Kahn ... Frank Finlay
Monty Blatt ... Haydn Jones
Dave Simmonds ... Mark Eden
Prince Silver ... Malcolm Hayes
1st Voice ... Will Leighton
2nd Voice ... Jonathan Scott
Hymie Kossof ... Peter Claughton
Cissie Kahn ... Marjorie Westbury
Ada Kahn (as a child) ... Adrienne Poster
Ada Kahn (grown-up) ... Sheila Allen
Ronnie Kahn ... David Saire
Bessie Blatt ... Hilda Kriseman
Girl ... Elizabeth Morgan
Man ... Will Leighton
Narrator ... Peter Claughton

Producer: Charles Lefeaux

First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in April 1962.

*** Celebrated actor Frank Finlay joins 4 Extra’s 100 Club – born 06 August 2026. He died in 2016 aged 89.****