Radio Play Based on Dark Side of the Moon

As most of you already know, Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon turned 40 this past Sunday. The band's website even streamed the whole album on their website, inviting fans to participate via Twitter with the hashtag #DarkSide40.

But that isn't all that will be happening to celebrate this seminal album. The BBC has announced that Sir Tom Stoppard, the Academy Award Winning author of Shakespear in Love, will write a radio play based on the Pink Floyd classic.

From the BBC:

Stoppard’s hour-long play, called Dark Side, will incorporate music from the album, which stayed in the charts for 741 weeks until 1988, and what is described as a ‘fantastical and psychedelic story that takes listeners on a journey through their imaginations.’

Stoppard, a long-time Pink Floyd fan who was first approached with the idea of writing a play about the album by a friend in 1973, said: ‘This is more or less, I think, the first time anything like this has been done on radio.’

Guitarist David Gilmour has even seen the script and found it, as Spock would say, "fascinating".

“I can’t wait to hear it come to life with the great cast performing it and our music woven into it. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate The Dark Side of the Moon’s 40-year anniversary.”

This isn't the first time that Pink Floyd inspired an author. Douglas Adams' famous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy used songs from Pink Floyd for it's original radio broadcast and led to his friendship with Gilmour.

The cast will include Bill Nighy, Adrian Scarborough and Rufus Sewell.