Omar Sharif leads an all-Egyptian cast in this three-part drama, recorded entirely in Egypt's capital.

Adapted from the novels of Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz, this gripping family saga chronicles the life of a downwardly-mobile middle class family as Egypt emerges from colonialism and adjusts to the modern world.

The Cairo Trilogy traces three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. We are introduced to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons-the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. As his rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination, the world around them opens to the currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoil brought by the 1920s.

Throughout the trilogy, the family's trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two World Wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries.

Cast:
Old Kamal...........Omar Sharif
Young Kamal.......Karim Fouda
Kamal............Amr Waked
Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawab.....Ihab Sakkout
Amina..............Caroline Khalil
Fahmy..............Mena Reda
Yasin................Tamer Nasrat
Miriam..............Ola Roshdy
Aida...............Shirine El Ansari
Zanuba...........Maryam El Khoshed
Zubayda..........Zeinab Moubarak
Ahmad................Sedky Sakhar
Munim.................Ahmed Nour
Sawsan...............Dina Nadim
Badur..................Radwa Elgabry
Other cast members: Rena Malak, Yara Goubran, Nairy Avedissian, Ekram Zalat, Sherif Nour, Salah Fahmy, Yeve Youssef, Saymaa Shalan, Mika Thabet, Hany Seef, Hugh Sowden.

Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon
Directed by John Dryden
Music by Sacha Puttnam
A Goldhawk Production for BBC Radio 4