This story was one of three stories by Alison MacLeod commissioned as a suite of Chekhov-inspired stories by BBC Radio 4.

All three were later collected in Alison MacLeod's short fiction collection ALL THE BELOVED GHOSTS (2017):
http://eprints.chi.ac.uk/2608/

BBC Programme Notes:
Chekhov's Telescope
Series Title: Imagining Chekhov

A set of three stories, commissioned specially for Radio 4. Alison MacLeod explores the life and work of one of the finest short story writers of them all - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.

Episode Two:
Chekhov and his lover - the actress Olga Knipper - take a holiday in Yalta, unaware that a news reporter is stalking their every move.

A note on the letters between Chekhov and Olga.
These are fictional composites of the writer's own words and Chekhov's actual letters from the volume Dear Writer, Dear Actress: The Love Letters of Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper, translated by Jean Benedetti.

Alison MacLeod lives in Brighton. She was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2011 and her stories Solo, A Capella and In Praise Of Radical Fish have featured in previous Radio 4 series. Her works include The Changeling and The Wave Theory of Angels. Her novel, Unexploded, was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and was broadcast as Book At Bedtime. Alison is Professor of Contemporary Fiction at the University of Chichester.

Reader: Peter Firth
Producer: Jeremy Osborne

A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.