Radio Drama: Turing’s Test

History Boys and Desperate Romantics star Samuel Barnett plays Second World War Enigma code breaker Alan Turing in a new radio drama part of a pioneering experiment between The Independent and award-winning production company Made in Manchester (MIM).

Turing’s Test is a fictional take on what might have been going through Turing’s mind in his dying moments after he’d eaten the apple laced with cyanide in 1954.

Just a few weeks ago, Alan Turing, often referred to as the father of modern computer science, received a posthumous apology from Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the persecution he suffered at the hands of the state for being gay in the 1950s.

In Turing’s Test, Alan is confronted by a ‘machine’ (played by Paul Kendrick – Consenting Adults, BBC4) about why he’s taken his life and about the future consequences of his pioneering computer work.

Roger Alton, Editor of The Independent, said: "Alan Turing was one of the great British heroes of the 20th Century, and whose death is a terrible scar on British justice. It is a great privilege to make this new drama available on The Independent website, and is part of the great tradition of innovation which has always characterised The Independent."

Turing’s Test is downloadable from The Independent website.

Turing’s Test is written by Phil Collinge and Andy Lord and stars Samuel Barnett as Alan Turing and Paul Kendrick as ‘the machine’. It is directed by Mike Heath and Neil Gardner and is produced by Ashley Byrne and Iain Mackness. It is a Made in Manchester/Dark Smile Production.