The Lunatic is On the Air: A Stoppard Radio Play for Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’

BBC Tom Stoppard, center, and the cast members of “Dark Side,” including Rufus Sewell, left, and Bill Nighy, right.

The 40th anniversary of the release of “The Dark Side of the Moon,” that best-selling Pink Floyd album, technically occurred earlier this month. But in the case of a seminal prog-rock record that deals with the nature of time (and the slowing-down thereof), we’ll forgive Tom Stoppard if his unique effort to celebrate this milestone doesn’t actually arrive until the summer.

Mr. Stoppard, the celebrated playwright of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” and “The Coast of Utopia” and a screenwriter of “Shakespeare in Love,” among many other works, has written a new play for British radio that will mark the 40 years since “The Dark Side of the Moon” was released in March 1973, The Guardian reported. But this latest dramatic work is no simple narrative of how Roger Waters, David Gilmour and company spent several months at Abbey Road recording songs like “Money,” “Time” and “Breathe.” This one’s … a little weird.

Describing Mr. Stoppard’s radio play, called “Dark Side,” at its Web site, the BBC called it “a fantastical and psychedelic story based on themes from the seminal album” that incorporates “music from the album and a gripping story that takes listeners on a journey through their imaginations.” (So keep your black-light posters handy, apparently.)

Mr. Stoppard, a self-identified Pink Floyd fan, said in a statement that he had spent the past four decades contemplating this project but had “no idea for a long time what I would do.”

“Finally,” he continued, “I found some time and sat down and listened to the album for the thousandth time and picked up from the beginning and kept going.”

The BBC said that the cast of “Dark Side” will feature actors like Bill Nighy, Rufus Sewell and Iwan Rheon but did not describe their roles. Mr. Gilmour of Pink Floyd said he had read Mr. Stoppard’s play and “found it fascinating.”

Mr. Stoppard’s “Dark Side” will be broadcast on BBC radio in August. There was no immediate announcement of an American air date or whether the play syncs up with “The Wizard of Oz.”