May 1749. Grainger's travelling fair develops an astonishing new act, care of Sebastian Fox and his 'electrickery' in a play by Julie Mayhew.
In the courtyard of a country tavern, Mr Francis P Grainger displays the wonders of his menagerie - ani
Read more…It is July 1921, and a production company has descended on Max Gate, Thomas Hardy's house near Dorchester, to make a film of The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Hardy wants his second wife Florence to come and watch the actors at work.
But Florence, worn
Read more…Henry James took as his inspiration for his tale The Aspern Papers the story of a mistress of Byron's who outlived the poet into lonely old age. He transposed the setting to Venice and cast the city he loved as a character in a taut narrative of l
Read more…By Andrew O'Hagan, abridged by Sian Preece
Andrew O'Hagan's novel follows 82-year old Anne Quirk, a forgotten pioneer of documentary photography who lives in sheltered housing on the west coast of Scotland. A planned retrospective stirs long-buri
Read more…Episode 1 of 3
Jim Nostrand, proprietor of Cheap Threads, a church-owned clothing firm in Minnesota, becomes the scapegoat when news-reports implicate the company in a child-labour scandal.
Four thousand miles away
Read more…Queen Victoria reigned for 63 years--the longest reign of any British monarch. During those years she was transformed from a shy young bride to the formidable "Mother of Europe", making her mark on the 19th century in a manner that will never be fo
Read more…High up, on Clufton Bay Railway Bridge, young Albert treads the girders, calmly painting the rust-red steel. But his distant perspective soon begins to alter his view of life on the ground.
And then Fraser appears ...
Cast:
Albert......... John Hu
Drama set in 2012, in the run up to the Olympic Games. The lives of three residents of Dagenham in east London are about to change for ever as the event draw closer, and the looming economic impact on their community disrupts their hopes and dreams
Read more…A moving drama by Mike Walker about the most famous British fighter aircraft in history, first broadcast in September 2010 to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Framed by recollections from veteran Geoffrey Wellum, the drama features
When a woman decides to write a play about the founder of the National Trust, she begins to uncover secrets about her own family.
With Kenneth Cranham & Sophie Stanton
Directed by Sally Avens
From 2009
Size 40MB. Length 45 Minutes. Bitrate 12
Read more…In 1941 Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane, now regularly voted top in critics' and audience polls, picked up nine Oscar nominations and was already being spoken of as a work of genius. But there were powerful forces lobbying hard against it, not least
By Enid Bagnold, adapted for radio by Margaret Etall.
"Who has tried to grow rhododendrons in a chalk garden?"
Living in the past amid the fading glories of her Sussex garden, Mrs St Maugham rules a household no less eccentric than herself. Th
Christopher Hampton's drama, based on the novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.
The plot focuses on the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, rivals who use sex as a weapon of humiliation and degradation, all the while enjoying their cru
Read more…By Edmund Gosse, adapted by Nick Warburton
A frank memoir of a Victorian childhood first published in 1907 and subtitled 'a study of two temperaments'.
'Faith is like love; it does not let itself be forced.'
Edmund Gosse was raised in the strictl
Read more…By Franz Kafka, and dramatised by Hanif Kureishi.
Joseph K. is an unexceptional man. He lives a quiet life and works in a bank. But one ordinary morning he is woken by two men and finds himself under arrest. What is his crime? From that moment on
Read more…Be advised these dramas contain sexual references and language that may offend.
A new long-running drama series from G F Newman based on the characters from the multi-award winning writer's best-selling crime novel. Spanning six decades, it plots
Read more…The Lady in the Van
by Alan Bennett
Cast
Miss Shepherd ..... Maggie Smith
Alan Bennett ..... Adrian Scarborough
Alan Bennett 2 ..... Alan Bennett
Mam ..... Marcia Warren
Rufus ..... Matt Addis
Pauline ..... Janice Acquah
Underwood ..... Stephen Critchlow
Soci
Martin Jarvis directs Ian McKellen, Charles Dance and a starry cast in Bernard Shaw's first play. Written in 1892 it became an immediate success and remains astonishingly relevant in the present property investment world. Funny, observant, incisiv
Read more…By George Bernard Shaw, adapted by Jonquil Panting
Saint Joan is the embodiment of absolute conviction. Given, as she believes, a divine mission to lead the French to victory and nationhood, she is also divinely forbidden to shed a single drop of b
Read more…Series 1
1/4 When Dee Dee's estranged son is arrested for shoplifting, only his stepfather Frank Twist can come to the rescue.
Frank........................................David Schofield
DeeDee..........................................Denise Welch
Ben
