The Cairo Trilogy

Omar Sharif leads an all-Egyptian cast in this three-part drama, recorded entirely in Egypt's capital. Adapted from the novels of Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz, this gripping family saga chronicles the life of a downwardly-mobile middle class family as Egypt emerges from colonialism and adjusts to the modern world. The Cairo Trilogy traces three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. We are introduced to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons-the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. As his rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination, the world around them opens to the currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoil brought by the 1920s. Throughout the trilogy, the family's trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two World Wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries. Cast: Old Kamal...........Omar Sharif Young Kamal.......Karim Fouda Kamal............Amr Waked Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawab.....Ihab Sakkout Amina..............Caroline Khalil Fahmy..............Mena Reda Yasin................Tamer Nasrat Miriam..............Ola Roshdy Aida...............Shirine El Ansari Zanuba...........Maryam El Khoshed Zubayda..........Zeinab Moubarak Ahmad................Sedky Sakhar Munim.................Ahmed Nour Sawsan...............Dina Nadim Badur..................Radwa Elgabry Other cast members: Rena Malak, Yara Goubran, Nairy Avedissian, Ekram Zalat, Sherif Nour, Salah Fahmy, Yeve Youssef, Saymaa Shalan, Mika Thabet, Hany Seef, Hugh Sowden. Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon Directed by John Dryden Music by Sacha Puttnam A Goldhawk Production for BBC Radio 4