Theatre & Dramatisations

Brideshead Revisited (Dramatised)

• ORIGINAL (3 hrs and 48 mins)
• By Evelyn Waugh
• Narrated By Full Cast

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Evelyn Waugh's stunning, tragi-comic novel of the lives, loves, and mores of the English aristocracy. The action moves between 1944 and 1923, to tell the story of Charles Ryder and his infatuation with the decadent Sebastian Flyte.

Spoonface Steinberg

• ORIGINAL (58 mins)
• By Lee Hall
• Narrated By Becky Simpson

The listener response to this play when it was first broadcast as part of the God's Country series was overwhelming, and it has gone on to become an audio best seller. Performed by Becky Simpson, Spoonface Steinberg is about a young autistic Jewish girl who, learning that she is terminally ill, contemplates the meaning of life and death in a dramatic monologue interwoven with operatic extracts from the magical voice of Maria Callas.

Bleak Expectations: The Complete First Series

• ORIGINAL (2 hrs and 49 mins)
• By Mark Evans

A Victorian epic of awful schools inc the aptly named St Bastards, worse prisons, nuns at St Bitches, giant rabbits, and long lost super-hero aunts, in the style of Charles Dickens after far too much gin.

Bleak Expectations: The Complete Second Series

• ORIGINAL (2 hrs and 48 mins)
• By Mark Evans
• Narrated By Anthony Head, Celia Imrie, Geoffrey Whitehead, and others

Bleak Expectations is the remarkable adventures of young Philip Bin as he struggles to rescue himself and his sisters from the plotting of his guardian, the scheming, evil and badly-named Mr Gently Benevolent, and the blood-curdling Hardthrasher brothers.

Marley was Dead

• ORIGINAL (56 mins)
• By John Nicholson, Richard Katz
• Narrated By John Nicholson, Richard Katz, Sirine Saba, and others

A Christmas Carol, but not as you've ever heard it before. A surprise all-star cast gather to bring Dickens' timeless classic to life. Introduced by Jonathan Dimbleby. Starring John Nicholson and Richard Katz, with Jane Horrocks, Dara O'Briain, Charlotte Green, Richard Madeley, Peter Purves, Gwyneth Williams and Chris Evans. Written by John Nicholson and Richard Katz. First broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

The Last Tycoon

• ORIGINAL (1 hr and 26 mins)
• By F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Narrated By Charlotte Emmerson, Aiden Gillen, Jack Shepherd

F Scott Fitzgerald's last and unfinished novel, a gorgeous, excruciating, heady tale based on his painful experiences working as a Hollywood screenwriter. Haunted by the death of his wife, 1930s studio head Monroe Stahr works 18-hour days, crammed with meetings, set visits, script brainstorms and screenings. The "last of the princes", he's making the studio millions and seems bulletproof. Then one day, an earthquake breaks two water mains, sending a river of water through the studio.

Shakespeare Observed: Studies in Performance on Stage and Screen

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 20 mins)
• By Samuel Crowl
• Narrated By Brian E. Smith

In this lively study of both modern film and stage productions of Shakespeare, Samuel Crowl provides fascinating insights into the ways in which these productions have been influenced by one another as well as by contemporary developments in critical approaches to Shakespeare's plays. Written in a style which places a premium on capturing the vivid and often dazzling moments of stage and film performances of Shakespeare, Crowl's study will be of interest to the avid film and theatergoer as well as to the scholar and student.

The Trachinian Tragedy: Women of Trachis

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 19 mins)
• By Sophocles
• Narrated By Jack Nolan

In The Trachinian Tragedy, better known as the Women of Trachis, the wife of Herakles, Deianeira, finds she has a rival in the house for her husband's affection. The consequences of her counteraction are incredible. In this faithful translation, F. L. Light attempts to write as good a play in English as the original in Greek. F. L. Light has also translated Antigone of Sophocles.