Nominated for the OE1 Radio Play Award for the best Original Radio Play of 2025
First Broadcast:
NIGHT PREMIERE
Ö1 Art Sound: Kunst zum Hören
Thursday, December 11, 11:03 p.m.
https://oe1.orf.at/…/Nacht-Premiere-Johnny-von-Susanne…
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Ö1 Hörspiel
Saturday, December 13, 2:00 p.m.
https://oe1.orf.at/…/816567/Johnny-von-Susanne-Ayoub
JOHNNY begins like a crime story and gradually turns into something quite different.
A judicial investigation seeks to determine the guilt of two women. What happened to Johnny? Only at the end is the mystery solved: who is the perpetrator, who the victim—and who bears responsibility?
Two women, one son—and the power of dependency
What goes on in the apartments behind closed doors? What relationships connect people—and destroy them, even to the point of murder? These are the themes the writer and journalist Susanne Ayoub explores in her new radio play Johnny, using the example of two neighbors who live in their small studio apartments three floors apart.
Both have gone through bitter divorces. Karla had to leave her children with her ex-husband, while Eva took her son Johnny with her: a withdrawn and probably autistic child who, over the years of living next door, grows into a man but at 29 still lives with his mother.
One day the door to Karla’s apartment stands open. Inside lies Johnny, covered in blood. What has happened? Dr. Berg, an investigating judge—or is he a doctor?—conducts the interrogations.
Quote from the review in Der Standard, Dec 14, 2025, “Radio Diary” by Irene Brickner: