The Stuarts

Dramatisations and readings of EM Forster’s finest works, plus Stephen Wakelam’s radio play A Dose of Fame and the documentary feature Forster in India: Sex, Books and Empire. One of the greatest English novelists of the 20th century, EM Forster was also an accomplished short story writer. This collection includes stunning adaptations of his classic novels A Passage to India, Where Angels Fear to Tread, A Room with a View and Howards End. Among the star casts are Penelope Wilton, Ellie Kendrick, Sian Thomas, Emilia Fox, Sheila Hancock and John Hurt.

After a lifetime spent in public relations, one-woman dynamo Agatha Raisin struggles to adapt to life in a quiet country village - but she soon finds that there is murder and mayhem aplenty to keep her busy. Among the cases she has to deal with are a poisoned quiche; a vet who has been ‘put to sleep’; a hanged horticulturist; a murdered rambler and a curate who meets his Maker somewhat sooner than expected.

Charles Dickens was, for a time, editor of a daily newspaper. This series takes an imaginative look at how Dickens would have tackled bringing the news to the masses. We follow Dickens the editor as he contends with railway crashes, gory deaths in the River Thames, having his editorial judgement scrutinised, working with tyrannical landowners, entering the murky worlds of opium and prostitution, and most tragically of all, investigating a child's death. He and his newspaper tackle financial plotting, encountering a young and secretive Disraeli, and the prospect of war overseas.

Crowned ‘the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation’ by EM Forster, DH Lawrence has an undisputed place in England's canon of great authors. In this wide-ranging collection, dramatisations and readings of some of his major works are brought together, exploring themes such as romantic love and sexual desire, individual freedom, class division, war, the beauty of nature and the ugliness of industrialisation.

Inspired by Holinshed's Chronicles, this series of radio dramas about the Plantagenet dynasty tells the story of the birth of a new Europe after the dark ages. The issues of control, freedom, belief and the temptations of power were new to an age which had no template for domination on this scale.  

DS Dave Brook is a long-serving, ducking-and-diving police officer who takes armed robberies and violent crime in his stride. But then he is teamed up with young 'grammar school boy' DC Blair Maxton from sleepy Epsom. How will Max cope with the mean streets of his new patch? Among the thrilling cases in these four series, the detectives tackle an armed gang, confront a notorious crime family, search for a missing wife, investigate a gruesome ax murder and the death of a reclusive young woman, and assist ‘The Sweeney’ flying squad.

King Street Junior and its sequel, King Street Junior Revisited, ran for 20 years and 100 episodes between 1985 and 2005, and were among the BBC’s most successful and popular radio programmes. In these four series, we return to the inner-city primary in the new millennium. A different head is in charge, but the challenges remain the same: from planning a big fundraising concert, to searching for a truant, to coping with wintry weather and a disappearing lollipop lady. 

From Parents’ Evening to the PTA, and from supply teachers to staff room squabbles, every day brings fresh challenges for headmaster Mr Beeston. Among the problems facing him are a flu epidemic, a shortage of computers, a phantom prune thief and a mysterious graffiti artist - and there’s trouble in store when in comes to sex education, school trips and Sports Day. Meanwhile, idealistic newcomers Mr Brown and Mr Sims learn some lessons about teaching, and their battle-scarred colleagues vie for promotion - or look forward to retirement. 

Disillusioned with the capitalist system, five ambitious students set out to make waves and change the face of democracy. Holding their meetings in a garden shed, budding politician Jared, ideas engine Simon, socialist firebrand Mel, image conscious materialist Phoebe and Communications Tsar Duncan wrangle with the modern political machine and attempt to lay the foundations of a new movement. Or they would, if only they had a pen.

Eleven compelling BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramas telling the stories of the Russian tsars. Broadcast to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution, this extraordinary drama cycle by Mike Walker comprises 11 ambitious plays spanning over 400 years, exploring the lives of Russia’s key rulers from Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin. 

Series 1-3 of the BBC Radio 4 legal drama, starring Claire Rushbrook and Clare Corbett. Behind Closed Doors is a courtroom drama with a difference – it centres around civil law, not criminal. In these nine plays, London barrister Rebecca Nyman takes on cases ranging from workplace harassment to the sensitive, secret trial of a terrorist and a morally complex ‘right to die’ hearing. 

Tumbling from one love entanglement to another, 30-something teacher Izzy Comyn has a predilection for inappropriate men. Over the three hilarious series of Up the Garden Path, Izzy, played by Imelda Staunton, deals with the complicated ups and downs of her attempts to find true love.  

Three thrilling full-cast dramas starring Julian Rhind-Tutt as the irrepressible Horace Rumpole. For 15 years, Rumpole has fought, won and occasionally lost myriad cases - and fallen in and out of love with both wife Hilda and ‘the Portia of our Chambers’, Phillida Erskine-Brown. These three episodes leave us guessing until the very end - will Rumpole finally leave ‘She Who Must be Obeyed’ for Phillida? 

First published between 1870 and 1893, Émile Zola’s 20-book cycle chronicling four generations of the Rougon-Macquarts was a shocking exposé of the decadence, degradation and moral decay of 19th-century France. It included some of his greatest novels, among them his masterpiece, Germinal. These innovative, ambitious dramas, first broadcast on Radio 4 over 24 hours in 2015-16, are a radical reimagining of Zola’s classic series, introducing us to 104-year-old matriarch, Dide, imprisoned in an asylum in southern France. 

In the first series, Lander presents a four-part exposé into irregularities over plans to site a new London airport near Birmingham. Series 2 finds him reopening the investigation into the Archibald Gallery (was the key suspect framed?), reporting on revolutionary methods of baby production, probing MI5 about dirty tricks, purple herrings and mauve sheep and interviewing a double agent in his luxury home in Bulgaria....