State of the Rendezvous--Beeb goes SF

Woo Hoo!:

BBC radio is to launch a major cross-station drama season based around the science fiction genre, which will see BBC 7 broadcast its biggest original series commission to date.

The season will be spread over two weeks in February and March and will see BBC Radio 4, Radio 3 and BBC 7 play host to a number of science fiction-themed plays, featuring both original works and adaptations, including Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama and Iain M Banks’ The State of the Art.

I loved Rama when I was a kid, but haven't read it since, so that'll be cool. State of the Art definitely makes sense as a Culture adaptation, and the rest of the stuff they talk about sounds very cool indeed. 5 months to wait though :-(

ETA: Paul Cornell is writing the SOTA adaptation, and gave details in an interview on IO9 awhileback:

The other great fun thing is the radio play, an adaptation of Iain Banks' "The State of the Art" for BBC Radio 4, which should go out early next year. We've recorded it, with Sir Antony Sher as the Ship (he's exactly what you expect one of Banks' ships to sound like), Patterson Joseph (who's probably best known for Neverwhere) as Linter, and Nina Sosanya as Sma, and the BBC production job is terrific. I can write 'we feel the presence of the Ship floating beside the car' and they can actually do that! Iain's approved the script. I really want to do some more SF for this lot. Good people.

Woo Hoo! That's the The Marquis De Carabas and the sexy one from Teachers. OK, it's just a radio play, but even so...