Alfie (Burt Bacharach song) featured on the October 1966 album release entitled "Chér". Despite the relative failure of the version of "Alfie" cut for the US film release, Cilla Black's UK success with the song had attracted sufficient attention in the US for several American singers besides Cher to cover the song by the time the film "Alfie" opened in the US in August 1966. Two of these covers actually predate the Cher recording although neither was released prior to Cher's, the first evident recording of "Alfie" by an American singer being that cut by Jerry Butler in May 1966 which first appeared as
Radio drama Naughton turned it into a stage play which was put on at London's Mermaid Theatre. Later, he wrote the screenplay for a film version, "Alfie" (1966), starring Michael Caine. Other notable radio dramatists included Henry Reed, Brendan Behan, Rhys Adrian, Alan Plater; Anthony Minghella, Alan Bleasdale, and novelist Angela Carter. Novelist Susan Hill also wrote for BBC Radio, from the early 1970s. Henry Reed was especially successful with the Hilda Tablet plays. Irish playwright Brendan Behan, author of "The Quare Fellow" (1954), was commissioned by the BBC to write a radio play "The Big House" (1956); prior to this he