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On Sunday nights, Pacifica Radio KPFK is once again offering 2-hour audio presentations of stage plays recorded by the Los Angeles Theatre Works (LATW).
On July 30 at 10PM Pacific Time (1AM Eastern Time), they will be airing and live streaming "Breaking the Code" Starring Simon Templeman
In Hugh Whitemore's play, Simon Templeman stars as brilliant mathematician Alan Turing, the man who cracked the German Enigma code and enabled the Allies to win World War II. But Turing was to find that the country he saved cared less about his genius and more about his sexual orientation.
Featuring Simon Templeman, Sheelagh Cullen, Kenneth Danziger, Peter Dennis, Samantha Robson, Orlando Seale, W. Morgan Sheppard, and Andrew Sogliuzzo. Directed by Rosalind Ayres.
Recorded before a live audience at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles in July of 2003.
Also available at www.latw.org for one week only.[1]
[1] If this is meant to say "gratis", I haven't found that.
LATW notes
Breaking the Code is part of L.A. Theatre Works' Relativity Series featuring science-themed plays.
That page has DRM-free 2-CD sets and MP3s for sale ($30), available until the heat death of the universe, apparently.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday July 31 2017, @01:38AM (7 children)
So it's a complete work of fiction then, where the poor lone genius Turing does all the work and heavy lifting while the country hates him? Pure fiction. As for the play I can only assume they just cut out all the work that Gordon Welchman did, again -- as they always do when they mention Turing since it apparently destroys the whole image of the lone genius. If it hadn't been for Welchman and others the machine wouldn't even have worked. The Hut Six Story written by Welchman is well worth a read.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday July 31 2017, @01:40AM (2 children)
As my computer science instructor told me many years ago, "Alan Turing had a lot of kids considering he was a faggot."
He was part of the Catholic mafia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @02:15AM
Hey, EF, if you're gonna be a smart-ass, first you have to be smart. Otherwise you're just an ass. Mostly a stupid ass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @06:10AM
It sounds as though your instructor misunderstood the honorific "father of computer science."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 31 2017, @01:43AM (2 children)
Yes, perspective is good, though it's not surprising that Welchman's perspective is that Turing would never have gotten anywhere without Welchman's contributions.
Certain factual points are hard to dispute, like chemical castration ordered by the court - from that, it's not hard to imagine that Turing had problems fitting in and working well with others...
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(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday July 31 2017, @02:30AM (1 child)
As I recall the book, The Hut Six Story, Welchman shares the credit with quite a few people. He didn't replace one lone genius with himself. I'm sure there might have been some ego stroking involved, it's hard to tell. That said Welchman did pay a high price for the book since his security clearance was revoked and with it went his work for MITRE and the NSA. So there was parts of the book they didn't really fancy becoming public knowledge, I think it was the parts in the book that deal with Traffic analysis as the explanation for how the Enigma worked and was broken was probably not that sensitive anymore.
The court didn't order chemical castration for Turing. Turing chose it over going to prison. He was having a homosexual relationship with a 19 year old man/boy in an age where homosexuality was illegal and seen as a mental disorder, which remained the case in large parts of the world until the late 70's. That said Turing was apparently never to shy about the whole thing, it was no big secret apparently that he liked and had sexual relationships with men. The military sure did know and they didn't really care all that much about it, after all he did do good work. He lost his security clearance due to being convicted of a crime and not for merely being a homosexual, even tho the two are here linked. But this was a few years after the second world war and his work on the Enigma was already over. He poisoned himself with cyanide in 1954, so he didn't die from the chemical castration either like some people seem to want to believe.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 31 2017, @09:10PM
So, as you say, it wasn't a mandatory order, he had the option of prison - nice choice there.
Anyone who tries to take "sole diva" credit for any part of anything as massive as the WWII British intelligence gathering operation is clearly delusional. But, that's the way so much dramatized fiction is written, I'm afraid that the same people who believe that "The Martian" was a documentary also believe the diva delusions.
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @06:15AM
Yeah. I'm listening and the timeline is a botch.
The homosexuality charges came in 1952.
The play is set during WWII and has moved that stuff ahead at least 7 years.
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