Edward William Chaillet, III (; born 29 November 1944) is a radio drama producer and director, writer and journalist.
Chaillet, American by birth, was born in Boston, Massachusetts[1] but is a "native of Washington" according to The New York Times.[2] He has lived in Britain since 1973.
His newspaper career began at the Washington Evening Star in 1964, interrupted by service in the United States Army. He then lived in Europe, founded the Free State Theater company in Maryland, and studied at the University of Maryland, College Park and California Institute of the Arts.
Chaillet moved to London in 1973 to work at The Times Literary Supplement for the editors Arthur Crook and John Gross 1974–76. He was deputy drama critic (to Irving Wardle) for The Times 1975–83. In 1983 he joined the BBC as Editor, Radio 3 Plays, before becoming a producer for BBC Radio Drama. At the same time (1983–86) he wrote drama criticism for The Wall Street Journal – Europe.[3]
His radio programmes have received five Sony Radio Academy Awards, and the Prix Italia for Fiction in 1997. In 2005 he was nominated by the Directors Guild of Great Britain for Outstanding Achievement in Radio.[4] Between 2008 and 2012, Ned taught Radio and Microphone Technique at the Central School of Speech and Drama (London).[5] In 2013, working with Chris Wallis at Autolycus Productions, he completed the recording of David Suchet's single-voice reading of the entire Bible (New International Version, 2011) for CTVC.[6]
| Radio plays directed or produced by Ned Chaillet | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date first broadcast | Play | Author | Cast | Synopsis Awards | Station Series< | -- Template for additional rows – make a copy of the following seven lines and insert in correct chronological order below, keeping this template blank |
| [7] | , and | BBC Radio 4 --> | ||||
| – | Salesman in Beijing | abridged in four parts by | Read by Arthur Miller | Arthur Miller reads from his account of his journey to Beijing to direct a production of his play Death of a Salesman in Chinese. | BBC Radio 3 | |
(Recorded on 29 September 1984) | Marion | Maggie McCarthy, Jill Gascoine and Brian Kelly | Anne (Jill Gascoine) and Brian return from their mother's funeral to encounter an unexpected visitor: an unknown woman who makes some startling claims and revelations. | BBC Radio 4 Thirty-Minute Theatre | ||
(Recorded on 17 April 1986) | Where Are You Wally? | from a story by Barry Wasserman and Patrick Carroll | Alfred Molina, Bill Paterson, Shaun Prendergast, Jennifer Piercey, Pauline Letts, Edward de Souza, Deborah Makepeace, Janis Winters, Ronald Herdman, Louis Mahoney, Paul B. Davies, Andrew Branch, Garard Green, Natasha Pyne, Stephen Rashbrook and Avril Clarke | When Albert picks up a passenger in his mini-cab he is left with a bag full of money as the passenger rushes to catch a train. £275,000 proves too great a temptation, and he goes on the run. The Detective Sergeant who pursues him finds that Albert clings to his radio and finally establishes contact via the airwaves, but the police are not the only people interested in finding Albert. | BBC Radio 4 | |
| Optimistic Tragedy | translated and adapted by and | Toyah Willcox, Shaun Prendergast, Trader Faulkner, Linda Marlowe, Stephen Boxer, Richard Durden, John Church, Paul Barber, Trevor Allan Davies, Garard Green, James Goode, Brian Hewlett, George Parsons, Pauline Letts, Elaine Claxton and David Learner | Vishnesvsky's Soviet classic from 1932/3 celebrates the indomitable spirit of the new Soviet navy in the turbulent years following the Revolution. A young female commissar is appointed to represent the revolution on a ship's company, but Anarchists undermine the Communists at every turn and make them vulnerable to the Germans. | BBC Radio 3 | ||
|- id="Biography Races"|
(Recorded on 24 August 1995)| Biography Races| | Presented by John Walsh, Literary Editor of The Independent.
Biographers Victoria Glendinning, Humphrey Carpenter and Miranda Seymour join publisher Helen Fraser.| | BBC Radio 4
Books and Company|- id="Begin at the Beginning"|
(Recorded on 7 September 1995)| Begin at the Beginning| | Presented by John Walsh, Literary Editor of The Independent.| Children's storytelling has become a global industry where books sell upwards of 30 million copies.| BBC Radio 4
Books and Company|- id="The Literature of Rock 'n' Roll"|
(Recorded on 14 September 1995)| | | Presented by John Walsh, Literary Editor of The Independent.
With Nik Cohn, Lucy O'Brien and Jon Savage.| Are books about rock the new rock'n'roll?| BBC Radio 4
Books and Company|- id="The Burglar"|
(Recorded on 22 September 1995)| [27] | | Read by John Turner| Neighbourly concern about a suspicious stranger sets a new puzzle for Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis in a story specially written for the Nottingham Boucheron.| BBC Radio 4
Short Story|- id="Death of an Ugly Sister"| | Death of an Ugly Sister| | Roy Barraclough, Paul Shane, Linda Regan, John Alstead, Tina Grey, Jilly Mears, Gordon Reid, Annabel Mullion, Christopher Sidon, Oliver Senton, David Lerner, Crawford Logan, Peter Yapp, Michael Tudor Barnes. Becky Hindley, Sandra Bowe and James Beatty| A very dark comedy of pantomime, serial murder, crack addiction and secret gay sex.......| BBC Radio 4
Saturday Night Theatre|- id="The Proust Screenplay"|
Extended repeat 11 May 1997| [28] | adapted for radio by | Douglas Hodge, John Wood, Emma Fielding and Harold Pinter| Harold Pinter's film script of Marcel Proust's novel À la recherche du temps perdu has never been produced for the screen, but in this radio adaptation Harold Pinter himself guides us through the story, speaking the 'big print' of the script as it sets each scene and describes establishing shots, closeups, long shots, scenes without dialogue ... all in the immediately recognisable language of film.| BBC Radio 3
Memory Evening|- id="The American Wife"|
(Recorded on 2 January 1996)| | | Melinda Walker, Zoë Wanamaker, Anton Lesser, Emily Richard, Oona Beeson, Oliver Cotton, John Sharian and Alan Marriott| | BBC Radio 4
Thirty Minute Theatre|- id="The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn"|
(Recorded on 6 January 1996)| [29] | dramatised by | John Shrapnel, Robert Glenister, Richard Pasco, Meg Davies, Stephen Critchlow, David Timson, John Hartley, Lyndam Gregory and Roger May| Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse faces a puzzling trip into the world of deaf people with the murder of an invigilator in a foreign exam syndicate.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Heartache"|
(Recorded on 14 January 1996)| Heartache|, text completed by .| Richard Griffiths, David Timson, Jim Broadbent, Tracy Wiles, Lee Montague, David de Keyser and Meg Davies| Cartoonist Mel Calman, who died two years previously, left a final play for radio in which all of a man's body parts rise up to resist his heart attack.| BBC Radio 4
Thirty Minute Theatre|- id="The Chips Are Down"|
(Recorded on 28 January 1996)| | | Alice Arnold, Jane Whittenshaw, Ann Beach, Nicky Henson, Bob Sherman, Zulema Dene, Frances Tomelty and Israel Horovitz| A comedy of anxiety in New York City.
Jeffrey, a writer, struggles with a magazine article.| BBC Radio 4
Thirty Minute Theatre|- id="Everybody Comes to Schicklgruber's"| | Everybody Comes to Schicklgruber's| | Clive Swift, David Kossoff, Jane Whittenshaw, Keith Drinkel, Kerry Shale, Alice Arnold, Ann Beach, Bruce Purchase, Cyril Shaps, Kim Wall, Kristin Millward, Lee Montague, Steven Crossley, Timothy Bateson and Wolfe Morris| The war's been over for fifty years. Then Edward Schicklgruber, Adolf's cake cook brother, turns up in Vienna, just where he's been all along, doing what he does best.
1997 Silver Sony Award for Best Radio Play| BBC Radio 4|- id="American Faith"| | American Faith|
Music by Neil Brand| Alan Marriott, Colin Stinton, William Roberts, William Dufris, John Sharian, Kate Harper, Ed Bishop, Garrick Hagon, Bob Sherman, Tara Hugo, Morgan Deare, Steven Crossley, Norman Chancer and William Hootkins| Richard Milhous Nixon's road to Watergate.| BBC Radio 4|- id="The Voluptuous Tango"| (Recorded on 21 April 1996)| | Text: David Zane Mairowitz
Music: Dominic Muldowney
Sound: Ian Dearden| Maria Friedman and Alan Belk| In Dominic Muldowney's score an erotically charged collision between two of the cultural stars of the 20th century makes for operatic radio. Isadora Duncan and F. T. Marinetti vie for carnal domination over a futurist meal...
Winner: Prix Italia Special Prize for Fiction 1997 [30]
Sony Gold Award for Best Radio Drama 1997 | BBC Radio 3
Between the Ears [31] |- id="By Jeeves"| | By Jeeves [32] [33] [34] [35] |
adapted by Alan Ayckbourn| Steven Pacey, Malcolm Sinclair, Robert Austin, Diana Morrison, Simon Day, Nicholas Haverson, Lucy Tregear, Cathy Sara, Nicolas Collicos, Richard Long, Denise Silvey, Giles Taylor and Mike Windsor| Recorded with an audience at the BBC Radio Theatre, with the West End cast playing to piano accompaniment with the West End recording of the songs mixed in later.| BBC Radio 2|- id="The Westward Journey"| | [36] | | Carolyn Jones and Marcia Warren| "We are now beyond the Missouri River. We have left the States behind. Ahead of us lie the great uncivilised plains." On the wagon trains of the perilous migration across America to Oregon and California, the strength of women was tested against the ambition and pride of their men.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Love Story"| | Love Story [37] | dramatised by | Ingri Damon, Mark Leake, Patrick Allen, Sheila Allen, John Guerrasio, David Brooks, William Dufris, Gerrard McDermott, Tracy-Ann Oberman and Christopher WrightHarpsichord: David Roblou| "What do you say about a twenty-five-year old girl who died? That she was brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me." The most potent romantic novel of the 1970s in a new dramatic version by Juliet Ace.| BBC Radio 4
Saturday Play [38] |- id="As You Like It"| | As You Like It [39] | adapted by | Imogen Stubbs, Toby Stephens and Ronald Pickup| Shakespeare's comedy of true love, misplaced love, gender confusion and reconciliation.| BBC Radio 4
The Monday Play|- id="Goodbye Kiss"| | Goodbye Kiss| | Tom Courtenay and Peggy Phango| For Master Donny, a return to the South Africa he left as a youth offers a fragile hope of reconciliation.
But it depends on Annie.| BBC Radio 4
Thirty Minute Theatre|- id="Bell, Book and Candle"| | Bell, Book and Candle| adapted by | Beatie Edney, Stephen Moore, Ann Beach and Nicholas Boulton| Bewitched and bewildered, Anthony Henderson wanders into the Christmas cauldron of a Knightsbridge witches' coven just when Gillian Holroyd decides that she wants a new man in her life.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Fighting over Beverley"| | Fighting over Beverley| | Rosemary Harris, Ian Carmichael, Elizabeth McGovern and Israel Horovitz| A Yorkshireman belatedly flies to America to reclaim the war bride taken from him by an American war hero 45 years earlier.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Last Man Out"| | Last Man Out| | Louise Lombard and Donald Sumpter| At the end of a night of jazz, only the drummer and the bar manager remain, packing up and picking over the ruins of their lives.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Phone Tag"| | Phone Tag [40] | | John Guerassio, Elizabeth Mansfield and Doreen Mantle| A transatlantic love affair is played out on the telephone as calls are missed, messages are left and confusion reigns.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Old Times"| | Old Times| | Julia Ormond, Michael Pennington, Cheryl Campbell and Harold Pinter| A darkly erotic drama. In an isolated country house, the past is about to come calling.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Summer with Monika"| | Summer with Monika [41] | | Mark McGann and Katy Carmichael| Roger McGough's dramatisation of his magical poem of love in the 1960s.| BBC Radio 4|- id="The Monkey Bin"| | | | William Hootkins, Stefan Dennis and James Laurenson| British actors and would-be Mel Gibsons have flocked to Los Angeles for the 'pilot season', and Billy Bob's apartment house is the venue for high ambition and low plots.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play [42] |- id="The Captain's Wife"| | [43] | | Patricia Hodge| As the years pass, a navy spouse moves from craving conformity to rebellion.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Stations of the Cross"| | Stations of the Cross| | Israel Horovitz, Nicky Henson and Joanna Monro| David has returned from America, the land of his father, to make a farcical, poetic rail crossing of England to the home of his sister – and to an unforgettable funeral.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Love, Pray, and Do the Dishes"| | Love, Pray, and Do the Dishes| | Paul Bradley, Struan Rodger and Alice Arnold| A mobile phone ringing out in the middle of a Sunday service is the start of a media roller coaster ride for Father Andrew. Only his employer would ring him at work... | BBC Radio 4|- id="Trust me, I'm a Policeman"| – | Trust me, I'm a Policeman
(Six-part series)| | John Woodvine, David Antrobus and Jan Winters| Detective Sergeant Matrix takes a reluctant work-experience youth on a stakeout and passes the time with highly unreliable tales of police work.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Victorville"| | Victorville [44] | | Stanley Kamel, David Ogden Stiers and William Hootkins| In Los Angeles last month, three actors recreated a crucial hour in cinema history – when Orson Welles delivered his verdict on the screenplay for Citizen Kane. At stake is the credit for the film, being written by Herman J Mankiewicz and overseen by John Houseman.| BBC Radio 4
Friday Play [45] |- id="The Dish"| | [46] | | Bette Bourne| Bette Bourne stars as China Dish, the role he played on stage to great critical acclaim. The intimate radio version provides an equally funny and chilling insight into the dying days of a Bournemouth bed-and-breakfast that has seen both joy and Aids. Music: Laka Daisical. | BBC Radio 4
Friday Play|- id="The Father"| | |
translated and adapted by Eivor Martinus| Ronald Pickup, Cheryl Campbell, Eleanor Moriarty, Tom Mannion, Christopher Good, Eve Pearce, Ben Crowe and Paul Panting| A mother knows her own child, but the seed of paternal doubt can poison a father's mind.| BBC Radio 3|- id="The Hairy Hand of Dartmoor"| | | | Struan Rodger, Emily Richard and Angela Pleasence| Alcohol, anger, infidelity and stories of Dartmoor witches and the "hairy hand" are the ingredients in a cocktail party that goes dangerously awry for Geoffrey.| BBC Radio 4|- id="J Edgar Hoover: Red Scare"| | : Red Scare| | William Hootkins, Bob Sherman, Kate Harper and Patrick Allen| The 24-year-old Hoover is charged with orchestrating America's first campaign against communism.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="J Edgar Hoover: Public Enemy"| | : Public Enemy| | William Hootkins, Michael Neill, John Guerrasio, William Roberts, Mac MacDonald, Adam Sims and Dave Brooks| Hoover sheds his younger self and moves into the orbit of Walter Winchell, America's radio pundit, as they wage war against gangsters, creating and destroying heroes.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="J Edgar Hoover: They Call Him Bobby"| | : They Call Him Bobby| | William Hootkins and John Sharian| A powerful duologue for US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover.It is set in the volatile years of the Kennedy administration, when the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. and the war against the American Mafia were high on the Kennedy agenda.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="J Edgar Hoover: Private and Confidential"| | : Private and Confidential| | William Hootkins and David Soul| J. Edgar Hoover's life is reviewed by his lifelong companion and assistant director, Clyde Tolson.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="The Old Man and the Sea"| | [47] |
dramatised by | Rod Steiger, Ramon Estevez and David Allister| A dramatisation of the book which led to Hemingway's Nobel Prize for Literature.
An old fisherman's epic struggle for one last great fish is a classic fable of the 20th century.| BBC Radio 4
Friday Play|- id="Bent's Business: Talk's Cheap"| | Bent's Business: Talk's Cheap| | James Faulkner, Amy Shindler and Brian Croucher| The glamour, and particularly the corruption, of the international art trade is Anthony Bent's business.
In the first of two adventures, the theft of a Constable painting from a London gallery leads to death, and to Spain.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Bent's Business: An Old Flame"| | Bent's Business: An Old Flame| | James Faulkner, Amy Shindler and Brian Croucher| The glamour, and particularly the corruption, of the international art trade is Anthony Bent's business.
In the second of two adventures, the murky underworld of international art theft threatens those nearest to him, and his own reputation.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="On the Eve of the Millennium"| | On the Eve of the Millennium| | Warren Mitchell, Karl Johnson, Cathy Tyson and Ioan Meredith| In a comic and touching performance, Mitchell evokes the rich humanity of a father determined to pass on a hidden heritage to his son – when his bouts with Alzheimer's disease permit.| BBC Radio 4
Friday Play|- id="1000 Years of Spoken English: Know What I Mean?"| | 1000 Years of Spoken English: Know What I Mean?| | Patricia Hodge, Michael Kitchen and Sylvester Williams| A marriage between a barrister and a management consultant is under threat when a Caller comes to visit, but they have the armoury of their professional languages on their side.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="1000 Years of Spoken English: The Verger Queen"| | 1000 Years of Spoken English: The Verger Queen| | Bette Bourne| An ancient verger in a historic church is disturbed by a tour party who sparks him into memories of hundreds of years of the church, forgotten pleasure gardens, and the coded world of a once-secret sexual culture.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Her Infinite Variety – Writing to Veronica"| | Her Infinite Variety – Writing to Veronica| | Eleanor Moriarty| Five 15-minute plays inspired by Shakespeare's Women. Faced with parental disapproval of the boy of her choice, a young Juliet of today at least has the internet and agony aunt Veronica.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama [48] |- id="A Shout in the Distance"| | [49] | | Andrew Scott, Sorcha Cusack, T. P. McKenna, James Greene, Gavin Muir, Gavin Stewart, Valerie Lilley and Elizabeth Bell| A comedy of Irish manners is the last thing young Winston expects when he is uprooted from Northern Ireland and transplanted to London. But there is more than rhyming slang that he must learn to understand.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Her Infinite Variety – Diary of a Dutiful Daughter"| | Her Infinite Variety – Diary of a Dutiful Daughter| | Anna Massey| Faced with a doddering dad and a nursing home she runs as a business, what can a modern Goneril do but offer him the box room?| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="Her Infinite Variety – And All That Jazz"| | Her Infinite Variety – And All That Jazz| | Bette Bourne| Count Orso offers a modern Viola a spectacular twelfth night, with a wardrobe beyond most cross-dressers' dreams.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="Her Infinite Variety – Dirty Linen"| | Her Infinite Variety – Dirty Linen| | Elizabeth Bell and Oliver Cotton| Everyone thought Rocky would tame the shrewish Cat, but 20 years of their tempestuous marriage is played out in a national newspaper.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="Alphabox"| | Alphabox|
dramatised by | Conrad Nelson, Gemma Saunders, Beth Chalmers, Harry Myers, Christopher Kellem, Tom George and Rosie Cavillero| Alphabox is a mysterious and almost fairytale-like short story based on letters and their relationship to story-telling. In the book, a writer has his letters hand-delivered to him each day one by one, in a mysterious wooden box. | BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="The Deep End"| | | | Michelle Holmes, Patrick Nielsen and Stephen Hogan| A magical underwater world awaits Leni – if her cry from the depths of the public swimming baths can be heard.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Design for Murder"| | Design for Murder| | Malcolm Sinclair, Eleanor Bron, Kristin Milward, Tam Williams, Nicholas Boulton, Gemma Saunders, Joe Dunlop and Don McCorkingdale| Actor, playwright, songwriter, director and star, Noël Coward never quite added sleuth to his astonishing achievements.
But just before the war with Hitler, there is a gap in his memoirs – is there a murder mystery in those days?| BBC Radio 4
The Saturday Play|- id="Father! Father! Burning Bright"| – | Father! Father! Burning Bright|
abridged by | Read by Alan Bennett| Alan Bennett reads his comic story in five parts.| BBC Radio 4
Book at Bedtime|- id="Joe Gould's Secret"| – | Joe Gould's Secret [19] | abridged by | Read by Eli Wallach| A classic literary mystery by New Yorker journalist Joseph Mitchell, describing his true-life encounter with a Greenwich Village bohemian in the 1940s who claims to have written a great American book.| BBC Radio 4
Book of the Week [50] |- id="The Lost Journals of Marina Tsvetayeva"| | Marina Tsvetayeva| | Diana Quick| Based on the life of the Russian poet Marina Tsvetayeva, who went into exile after the Revolution.
Following her return to Russia in 1939, her husband was shot, and she killed herself in 1941.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Jagged Prayer"| – | Jagged Prayer
(Four-part crime series)| | Cheryl Campbell and Timothy Spall| Comedy drama combining crime, convents, police and perdition.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Zero Tolerance"| | Zero Tolerance| | Nicky Henson, Ronald Pickup and Tom George| With trade advantages, increased tax revenue, and a handy mathematical superiority over the Pope's insistence on Roman numerals, should the doge of Venice declare war on the Vatican, particularly considering the doge's interest in his mathematician's wife?| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Small Parts"| | Small Parts [51] | | Patricia Hodge| Seduced by the theatre, Mattie Potter joins a repertory company in Wales where she finds that the quick-change artistry of bit parts is a kind of preparation for life.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Three Chickens"| | Three Chickens| | Anton Lesser, Valerie Braddell and Suzanna Hamilton| On a magic island in Brazil, the Englishman William Marlow is seduced by tales of witchcraft.
In a story about three chickens, he finds uncanny and uncomfortable echoes of a life he thought he had left behind him.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="A Slight Ache"| | | | Harold Pinter and Jill Johnson| A husband and wife encounter a strange, mute matchseller. They each see something different in him. | BBC Radio 4|- id="Dr. Ibsen's Ghosts"| | Dr. Ibsen's Ghosts| | Paul Scofield, Morag Hood, Edna Doré and Michael N. Harbour| The story of the illegitimate son and the forgotten mother of the great Norwegian poet and playwright Henrik Ibsen.| BBC Radio 3|- id="Into the Ether"| | Into the Ether| | John Sharian and Holley Chant| At the height of the Cold War, American and Russian scientists lined up their psychics and telepaths in the service of the military.
Ballistic missiles pale beside the power of the human mind at the beginning of the 90s, in this chilling drama.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Man in Snow"| | Man in Snow [52] | | Israel Horovitz, Marcia Warren, Dick Vosburgh and Burt Kwouk| As a climber escorts a group of honeymooners up Alaska's highest mountain he recalls his relationship with his dead son.
2001 Bronze Sony Award for Drama [53] | BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="The Tunnel Under the World"| | |
dramatised by | William Hope, Bob Sherman, Laurel Lefkow and Beth Chalmers| Guy wakes each morning from the same terrifying dream, but each day it is soothed away by special offers and an abundance of consumer goods.
Then, one day, he begins to recall a little more.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="The Man Who Came to Dinner"| | | and
adapted for radio by | Simon Callow, Elizabeth McGovern, Conleth Hill, Cheryl Campbell and John Sessions| A broken leg turns a visiting celebrity into a tyrannical house guest who mercilessly abuses a family's hospitality, in this classic 30s comedy.| BBC Radio 4|- id="The Polish Soldier"| | | | Jeremy Northam, Teresa Gallagher, Jillie Mears and Tom George| James, a man haunted by the disturbing image of a figure in an old-fashioned military uniform, is struggling to break the walls he has built around himself, but he must confront the pain and mystery of what happened in his childhood.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Feng Shui and Me"| | Feng Shui and Me| | Phillip Joseph, Janet Maw, Jimmy Yuill and Gordon Reid| Chanting seems to help, but not even a Buddhist romance can quite quell Mick's craving for alcohol.| BBC Radio 4
The Saturday Play|- id="I'll be George"| | I'll be George| | Jane Lapotaire, Simon Callow, Federay Holmes, Jennie Stoller, Jasmine Hyde, Jonathan Keeble and Gordon Reid| George Sand was one of literature's freest spirits, and when she is evoked in present-day Paris by an Australian tour guide the result is a bawdy fantasia of mother and daughter relationships. With an incarnated Charles Dickens, the 19th century and 21st century collide in a turbulent and gritty morality tale.| BBC Radio 4
Friday Play|- id="A Dangerous Game"| | | | Suzanna Hamilton, Ray Lonnen, Roger May and Terence Edmond| When a paroled murderer kills after his release, all new paroles are frozen by the Home Office.
A prisoner caught in this freeze on new paroles challenges the ruling and demands a psychological profile from a hardline psychiatrist – with explosive results.| BBC Radio 4
Saturday Play|- id="The Marseilles Trilogy: Marius"| | : Marius|
adapted by from a translation by | Richard Johnson, Simon Scardifield, Monica Dolan and Andrew Sachs| Marius, son of César, feels the pull of the sea, and is prepared to sacrifice his family and his love for beautiful Fanny to fulfil his dreams.| BBC Radio 4
The Saturday Play|- id="The Marseilles Trilogy: Fanny"| | : Fanny|
adapted by from a translation by | Monica Dolan, Richard Johnson, Andrew Sachs and Simon Scardifield| The story of a lovely young woman abandoned by César's son Marius, who is unaware she is pregnant.| BBC Radio 4
The Saturday Play|- id="The Marseilles Trilogy: César"| | : César|
adapted by from a translation by | Richard Johnson, Simon Scardifield, Monica Dolan, Andrew Sachs, Tam Williams, Steve Hodson, Stephen Thorne, Struan Rodger, Phillip Joseph and Sean Baker| Twenty years after the events of the first play, the sad comedy of lost love is touched by a rich comedy of death and disclosure. A mother's secrets send her son off in search of a father he never knew.| BBC Radio 4
The Saturday Play|- id="Free Gift"| | Free Gift| | Maureen Lipman, Sophie Okonedo and Daniel Anthony| An Englishwoman in New York finds the most wonderful free gift when a child was left on her doorstep, but she lives in fear that the gift might be taken away.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Groupie"| | Groupie| | Barbara Windsor and Timothy West| Matty reads the memoirs of a well-known artist from the East End, and she writes to him. He is down on his luck, living as a recluse, and has no work. Eventually, they meet, a few illusions are shattered and things develop in a way they had not foreseen.| BBC Radio 4|- id="The Gold Bug"| | [54] |
dramatised by | Clarke Peters, John Sharian, Rhashan Stone and William Hootkins| Set in 1838, this is Poe's story of piracy, slavery and a treasure hunt, with a critical overhaul to excise the 19th-century casual racism from this compelling tale of obsession.| BBC Radio 4
The Saturday Play|- id="Hecuba"| | Hecuba| Euripides
translated and adapted by | Olympia Dukakis, Timothy West, Emma Fielding, Greg Hicks and Nicholas Woodeson| Greek tragedy| BBC Radio 3|- id="It's a Wonderful Divorce"| | It's a Wonderful Divorce| | David Bamber and Sarah Paul| The love of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life could become grounds for divorce as the season of goodwill approaches.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Damned If I Do"| | Damned If I Do|,, and | | Mini-musical. New songs from songwriter Connie are laid out as a trap for her best friend Zoe.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Who Goes There?"| | Who Goes There? [55] [56] |
dramatised by | Liam Brennan, Ioan Meredith, Cyril Nri, Christopher Godwin, Harry Myers and Colin Adrian| Six men are trapped by a vicious snowstorm in an Antarctic research station.| BBC Radio 4
Chillers|- id="Swan Song"| | Swan Song|
dramatised by | Maria Friedman, Emily Woof, Sylvester Morand and Ray Lonnen| As if from nowhere, a soprano has emerged to become the Tosca of our day – but like Tosca she carries in her heart a terrible need for revenge.| BBC Radio 4|- id="I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"| | I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream [55] |
dramatised by | David Soul, Harlan Ellison, Abi Eniola, Ewan Bailey, David Timson and Jason O'Mara| After a computer wins mankind's last war, there is a final battle still to come, between it and the five surviving humans.| BBC Radio 4
Chillers|- id="Magnolia Blossom"| | Magnolia Blossom [57] |
dramatised by | Emilia Fox, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Alex Jennings and Ewan Bailey| A woman's place is definitely not in the luxury home created for her by her financier husband. But in times of trouble a woman's loyalty can challenge the presumption of men – and infidelity can be a small crime compared to others.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Delta Sly Honey"| | Delta Sly Honey [55] |
dramatised by | Corey Johnson, Robert Petkoff, Sam Douglas and Ben Onwukwe| A country boy exorcises his demons in Vietnam by making late-night broadcasts to phantom military units – until one of them answers his call.| BBC Radio 4
Chillers|- id="Corona"| | Corona [55] [56] |
dramatised by | Josie Kook-Clarke, Walter Lewis, Doña Croll, John Moraitis, William Roberts and Bill Bailey| When a telepathic girl and a damaged young man are hospitalised, their two minds become entwined as the nightmares of his brutal past draw her in.| BBC Radio 4
Chillers|- id="The Titanic Inquiry – Part One"| | | | Kenneth Haigh, Nickolas Grace, Jill Johnson, John Sharian, Conrad Nelson, Ben Crowe, Barbara Barnes, Bob Sherman, Peter Marinker and Tom George| When the Titanic sank the owners of the White Star Line made every effort to return straight to England. An inquiry set up by the United States Senate held the surviving witnesses ashore in New York until questions could be answered.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="The Titanic Inquiry – Part Two"| | | | Kenneth Haigh, John Sessions, John Sharian, Peter Marinker, Conrad Nelson, Ben Crowe, Tom George and Barbara Barnes| Testimony from the archives of the United States Senate investigation into the sinking of the Titanic moves on to an early confrontation with cheque book journalism in 1912. The inventor of the wireless, Guglielmo Marconi, takes the stand.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="In Extremis"| | In Extremis| | Sheila Hancock and Corin Redgrave| It is March 1895, and Oscar Wilde consults a palm reader to help him with a momentous decision.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Meet Mr. Mulliner: Honeysuckle Cottage"| | Meet Mr. Mulliner: Honeysuckle Cottage|
dramatised by | Richard Griffiths, Matilda Ziegler, Peter Acre, Martin Hyder, David Timson and Tom George| An engaging new series that brings one of Wodehouse's most entertaining characters to radio begins with one of the best loved of the tales. Richard Griffiths stars as the storytelling Mr Mulliner whose narratives enlist the regular tipplers of the Angler's Rest as participants. One of the Mulliner clan writes tough detective stories, but when he inherits the cottage of another family author he finds it haunted by the spirit of all her cloying romantic fiction. Marital bliss seems inevitable.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Meet Mr. Mulliner: A Slice of Life"| | Meet Mr. Mulliner: |
dramatised by | Richard Griffiths, Matilda Ziegler, Peter Acre, Martin Hyder, David Timson and Tom George| A gothic comedy of beauty preparations, thwarted love, a spooky old house, and a determined suitor. The regulars of the Angler's Rest parlour bar step into yet another of Mr Mulliner's quirky stories.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Meet Mr. Mulliner: The Smile that Wins"| | Meet Mr. Mulliner: |
dramatised by | Richard Griffiths, Matilda Ziegler, Peter Acre, Martin Hyder, David Timson and Carl Prekopp| In the bar parlour of the Angler's Rest, the regulars are drawn into another of Mr Mulliner's peculiar tales. When a dyspeptic detective member of the Mulliner family receives a doctor's prescription to smile, the frightening knowingness of his grin spreads terror throughout the titled classes.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Meet Mr. Mulliner: Open House"| | Meet Mr. Mulliner: Open House|
dramatised by | Richard Griffiths, Matilda Ziegler, Peter Acre, Martin Hyder, David Timson and Marlene Sidaway| Never more Wodehousian than when faced with frightening aunts, terrifying ingenues and resourceful butlers, Mr Mulliner's tale today touches on a Mulliner whose callous dismissal of one young woman opens the door to vengeful neighbours, animal cruelty – and exile.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Meet Mr. Mulliner: Came The Dawn"| | Meet Mr. Mulliner: Came The Dawn|
dramatised by | Richard Griffiths, Matilda Ziegler, Peter Acre, Martin Hyder, David Timson and Tom George| A transparent visage is the striking feature of Mr Mulliner's relative Lancelot in today's tale of indomitable love, poetry, parental obstruction and unexpected opportunities. Mr Mulliner stretches the credulity of his captive fellow tipplers in the Angler's Rest parlour bar, but as ever they are drawn into his story where the glitter of silent movies proves irresistible.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Meet Mr. Mulliner: Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo"| | Meet Mr. Mulliner: Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo|
dramatised by | Richard Griffiths, Matilda Ziegler, Peter Acre, Martin Hyder, David Timson, Carl Prekopp, Tom George and Sandra Clark| Pale young curates are rapidly going out of fashion. Augustine Mulliner, in particular, is transformed overnight into a tiger of a churchman when his aunt sends some of Uncle Wilfred's latest invention, a tonic called Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo.| BBC Radio 4|- id="The Doctor's House"| | | | | A spectre is said to haunt a small Somerset village. Gerald's circumstances make him particularly vulnerable – but what is the real secret of the Doctor's House?| BBC Radio 4|- id="Coriolanus"| | Coriolanus [58] | adapted by | Samuel West, Adrian Dunbar, Susannah York and Kenneth Haigh | Shakespeare's powerful Roman play The Tragedy of Coriolanus| BBC Radio 3
Drama on 3 [59] |- id="The Crucible in History"| – | | | Read by Arthur Miller| An account of the postwar anti-Communist paranoia which gripped America at the height of McCarthyism.| BBC Radio 4
Book of the Week|- id="Evaristo's Epitaph"| | Evaristo's Epitaph|, based on a true story.| Jasmine Hyde, Geoffrey Hutchings, Seun Shote, Diana Berriman, Samantha Robinson and Ben Crowe| The inscription on a tombstone in a Cornish churchyard tells the tale of a remarkable friendship between a master and an African slave. Unravelling the historical mystery of the genuine epitaph, Patrick Carroll's play is an inspired and tender re-creation of a remarkable true story.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="My Life as Me"| – | My Life as Me| | Read by Barry Humphries| Barry Humphries casts off his Dame Edna Everage mantle to read from his hilarious autobiography in his own voice.| BBC Radio 4
Book of the Week|- id="A Man's Head"| | [60] |
dramatised by | Nicholas Le Prevost, Julian Barnes, Ron Cook, Paul Birchard, Beth Chalmers, Philip Fox, Ifan Meredith, Tom George, Jane Whittenshaw and Ben Crowe| Maigret bends the rules to investigate a double murder in a Paris suburb.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="The Bar on the Seine"| | [61] |
dramatised by | Nicholas Le Prevost, Julian Barnes, Ron Cook, Timothy Watson, Sylvester Morand, Jonathan Tafler, Tracy Wiles, Rebecca Egan, Martin Hyder, Richard Firth, Scott Brooksbank, Emma Woolliams and Laura Doddington| Maigret puts his holiday on hold to tackle an unsolved murder.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"| – | Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(Three episodes)|
dramatised by | Mark Caven, Christopher Jacot, Martin Roach, Kay Hawtrey and Sandy Webster| The classic tale following Huck and the runaway slave Jim on their journey down the Mississippi on a raft.
A Joint BBC/CBC Production with an all-Canadian cast, it was produced at CBC's Toronto studios.| BBC Radio 4
Classic Serial [62] |- id="My Friend Maigret"| | My Friend Maigret [63] |
dramatised by | Nicholas Le Prevost, Julian Barnes, Neil Dudgeon, Jonathan Keeble, Jilly Bond, Maggie McCarthy, Bunny Reed, Ewan Bailey, Martin Hyder, Richard Firth, Emma Woolliams, Simon Donaldson and Carla Simpson| On the seductive island of Porquerolles, a man is murdered when he claims the friendship of Chief Inspector Maigret. With a Scotland Yard detective in tow, Maigret is sent from Paris to investigate the death, and finds a dangerous and tempting dissolution – and some old acquaintances.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="The Five of Us"| | | | Phil Davis, Nicholas Deal, Claire Rushbrook, Steven Diggory, Annabelle Apsion, Tony Rohr and Michael N. Harbour| Sex and drugs and rock and roll are the illusory dreams of Bruce in his mid-life crisis.
But he forgets that he is also the older man, and finds that a ménage à trois can easily become an extended family.| BBC Radio 4
Friday Play|- id="Madame Maigret's Own Case"| | Madame Maigret's Own Case [64] |
dramatised by | Nicholas Le Prevost Julian Barnes, Ron Cook, Julie Legrand, Paul Sirr, Victoria Carling, Nicholas Boulton, Carl Prekopp and Martin Hyder| Maigret's wife finds herself entangled in a case of murder when two human teeth are found in a bookbinder's furnace. | BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="The Piano Player"| | | | Karl Johnson, Christopher Kelham, Kate Dudley, Philip Jackson, Paul Downing, Stephen Critchlow, Carolyn Backhouse and Martin Hyder| A pianist's marathon performance in a seaside town provides the evocative soundtrack for a tale of young love and first heartache. The music that conjures up a week in the 1950s still has the potency to bring back pain.| BBC Radio 4|- id="In a Glass Darkly"| | In a Glass Darkly [65] |
dramatised by | Neil Dudgeon and Rebecca Egan| In a mirror, a man witnesses a murderous attack on a young woman just before he meets the woman and falls in love with her.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Righteous Brothers"| | Righteous Brothers| | John Woodvine, Clive Swift, Tom George, Ioan Meredith, David Timson, Peter Luke Kenny and Carolyn Jones| Harmony is the joyful noise that Brother Caradoc wishes to offer to the Lord. He dreams of taking his fellow monks to a higher musical plane with him.| BBC Radio 4|- id="The Dressmaker's Doll"| | [66] |
dramatised by | Juliet Aubrey, Beth Chalmers, Stephen Critchlow, Gemma Saunders, Emma Woolliams and Connie Gurie| When a doll with a mind of its own comes into your life, it might be worth finding out what it wants.
Agatha Christie for the 21st century is no less chilling for moving to the driving rhythms of London's catwalks in the cut-throat world of today's fashion.| BBC Radio 4|- id="One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"| | One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich [67] |
dramatised by | Neil Dudgeon, Philip Jackson, Paul Chan, Jonathan Tafler, Ben Onwukwe, Bruce Purchase, Matthew Morgan, Marty Rea, Stephen Critchlow, Ben Crowe, Seun Shote and Peter Darney| When Solzhenitsyn's shattering picture of Stalin's prison camps became an international bestseller in 1962, it seemed to signal a thaw in the Cold War. But Solzhenitsyn was a prophet about to be dishonoured in his own land, and the uncensored version of the novel did not appear until 1991 – the year after Solzhenitsyn's citizenship was restored in Russia. Following the routine of a single day in the camps, the story is a dynamic demonstration of human resilience.| BBC Radio 4
The Saturday Play|- id="Swan-song for the Nightingale"| | Swan-song for the Nightingale [68] | | Sorcha Cusack, Marty Rea, James Ellis, John Rogan, Stephen Hogan, James Greene and Norma Sheahan| The sound of country music rings alarm bells for young Kevin, when it means that his 'has-been alcoholic' mother hits the comeback trail in Ireland, and wants to take him along.
But he has a lot to learn about his mother, and other stars of yesteryear.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Speaking Well of the Dead"| | Speaking Well of the Dead| | Jill Clayburgh, Lily Rabe and Israel Horovitz| Penelope speaks well of her husband, who was killed at the World Trade Center, and her daughter, Willa, wants to speak the truth. It would mean killing her father again.| BBC Radio 4
Friday Play|- id="The Chicken Woman"| | | [69] | Eryl Maynard, Jean Heywood, Fine Time Fontayne and Matilda Ziegler| Chickens first come into the Chicken Woman's life while she and her husband strive for children.
Defending her 'girls' against the Fox; nursing them into health, and comforting them in her bed, she is adamantly not obsessed.
But the neighbours have another view.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="A Bullet at Balmain's"| | [70] | | Malcolm Sinclair, Eleanor Bron, Tam Williams, Linda Marlowe, Susy Kane, Jaimi Barbakof, William Hootkins and Frances Jeater| Noël Coward is in post-liberation Paris, 1948, to play the lead, in French, in his own play "Present Laughter". But the murder of a promiscuous mannequin provides him with a crime to solve | BBC Radio 4|- id="Dead-Heading the Roses"| | Dead-Heading the Roses [71] [72] [73] | | Jill Balcon, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cheryl Campbell, Graham Crowden and William Hootkins| Ariadne, a naval officer's wife, has become the benign queen of death, arranging tasteful memorial services – which will include her husband's. But before his departure he has plotted a final fling. | BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="A Kind of Home – James Baldwin in Paris"| | – James Baldwin in Paris [74] | | Ricky Fearon, Ronald Pickup, Tom Silburn, Alibe Parsons, Declan Wilson, Lydia Leonard, Jaimi Barbakoff, Damian Lynch, Lisa Davina Phillip, Ryan McCluskey, Roger May, Timothy Morand, Bob Sherman, Rachel Atkins and Chris Moran| Covers the period from the war's end to the publication of Go Tell It on the Mountain.| BBC Radio 4
Friday Play|- id="More Mr. Mulliner: The Bishop's Move"| | More Mr. Mulliner: |
dramatised by | Richard Griffiths, Matilda Ziegler, Tom George, David Timson, Martin Hyder and Peter Acre| Mr Mulliner returns to the Angler's Rest public house, where the regulars are once again ready to be transported into the roles of the characters in his fabulous stories. It is their urging that brings him back to the massively potent tonic, Buck-U-Uppo, which can transform a timid cleric into a tiger, and is even more dangerous when a bishop imbibes it.| BBC Radio 4|- id="More Mr. Mulliner: The Ordeal of Osbert Mulliner"| | More Mr. Mulliner: |
dramatised by | Richard Griffiths, Peter Darney, Matilda Ziegler, David Timson, Martin Hyder, Peter Acre and Stephen Critchlow| This time, it is the timid Osbert Mulliner whose trials and tribulations begin when he falls in love, putting him at risk from a ferocious explorer and an even more ferocious uncle of the damsel. Rarely can a man have been so grateful for burglars.| BBC Radio 4|- id="More Mr. Mulliner: The Knightly Quest of Mervyn"| | More Mr. Mulliner: |
dramatised by | Richard Griffiths, Matilda Ziegler, Tom George, Martin Hyder, David Timson, Peter Acre, Joanna McCallum and Gbemisola Ikemelo| Only one of Mr Mulliner's many relatives appears to be a 'chump', young Mervyn Mulliner who demands a knightly quest to prove his love to the glamorous Clarice. It is December, in the 1920s, and she craves strawberries.| BBC Radio 4|- id="More Mr. Mulliner: The Truth About George"| | More Mr. Mulliner: |
dramatised by | Richard Griffiths, Matilda Ziegler, Peter Darney, Martin Hyder, David Timson, Peter Acre, Damian Lynch and Lydia Leonard| Mr Mulliner's final tale to the regulars at the Angler's Rest public house is about his crossword obsessed nephew, George, and his attempt to be as fluent in his speech to his beloved as he is in a crossword puzzle. Once again, the regulars fall into the story in a crazed journey across the English countryside, pursued by lunatics and farmers.| BBC Radio 4|- id="Skin"| | Skin| | Patricia Hodge| Mattie's road to liberation and success sees her shedding her clothes on a naturist beach only to be asked for her autograph; but the sun also has its shadows. A wry and powerfully affecting tale of sun, flesh, naturism and mortality.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Maigret and the Burglar's Wife"| | Maigret and the Burglar's Wife [75] |
dramatised by | Nicholas Le Prevost, Julian Barnes, Julie Legrand, Rachel Atkins, Jill Johnson, Philip Franks, Tom George, Scott Brooksbank, Jennie Stoller, Philip Fox and Alice Hart| A thief's wife comes back from the detective's past.
Chief Inspector Maigret last met Ernestine when he was a young policeman, and she refused to put her clothes on so he could arrest her.
But now he must choose to believe her story about a murdered woman discovered by her burglar husband, or believe the respectable dentist who denies there ever was a burglary.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="The Yellow Dog"| | [76] |
dramatised by | Nicholas Le Prevost, Julian Barnes, Cherie Taylor, Chris Moran, Phillip Joseph, Philip Fox, Michael Fenton Stevens, Ioan Meredith, Joe Dunlop, Steven Diggory, Damian Lynch, Francis Jeater and Rachel Atkins| The Yellow Dog finds Maigret away from his Paris patch, in a sordid tale set in Brittany where one of the town worthies has been shot – through a letter box – and a wandering dog spreads panic among the citizens.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Inspector Cadaver"| | Inspector Cadaver [77] |
dramatised by | Nicholas Le Prevost, Julian Barnes, Michael N. Harbour, David Bannerman, Karen Archer, Philip Fox, John Rowe, Alice Hart, Joanna McCallum and Scott Brooksbank| It was only as a favour to his inspecting magistrate that Chief Inspector Maigret agreed to investigate rumours about a death in the village of St Aubin.
But when he arrives he finds his investigation undermined by an old adversary, the disgraced Inspector 'Cadaver'.
Baulked by a town united in silence, Maigret is determined to uncover the truth – however ugly.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Maigret's Little Joke"| | Maigret's Little Joke [78] |
dramatised by | Nicholas Le Prevost, Julian Barnes, Julie Legrand, Phillip Joseph, Philip Fox, Harry Myers, Jaimi Barbakoff, Cherie Taylor-Battiste, Chris Moran, Rachel Atkins and Ioan Meredith| When a particularly sensational murder takes place in Paris, Chief Inspector Maigret is on holiday and must follow the investigation like any member of the public, through newspapers and news flashes.
How can he keep his promise to Mme Maigret and let Inspector Janvier get on with solving the crime when he is haunted by the question: why the devil was the murdered woman naked?| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Stan"| | Stan| | Tom Courtenay, Ewan Bailey, Ed Bishop and Barbara Barnes| As death finally threatens to separates the greatest double-act in film comedy, Stan Laurel tries to say the things which have been left unsaid, in a poignant and powerful farewell to Oliver Hardy.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="The Coast of Maine: Miss Tempy's Watchers"| | : Miss Tempy's Watchers|
dramatised by | Joanna McCallum, Sheila Allen and Susan Jameson| Miss Tempy's Watchers sees two estranged friends finding their old bonds of affection as they watch over the body of a beloved friend the night before her funeral.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="The Coast of Maine: The Queen's Twin"| | : |
dramatised by | Susannah York, Nathan Osgood, Joanna McCallum and Brian Flaherty| Mrs Abby Martin, a woman born at exactly the same moment as Queen Victoria (allowing for the time difference between England and New England), tells the tale of their parallel lives.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="The Coast of Maine: Captain Littlepage"| | : Captain Littlepage|
dramatised by | Alec McCowen, Jon Glover, Tam White, Joanna McCallum and Barbara Barnes| A sea captain with a memory to share of meeting an ancient Scots mariner who sailed into uncharted waters, and discovered a strange land with no place for the living.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="The Coast of Maine: Miss Esther's Guest"| | : Miss Esther's Guest|
dramatised by | Susan Engel, Joanna McCallum, Jon Glover and Nancy Crane| Seeing it as a duty to provide a country break for a city-dwelling church member, Miss Esther offers to take in a guest from Boston. The visitor is not the old lady she expects.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="The Coast of Maine: The Town Poor"| | : |
dramatised by | Angela Pleasence, Carolyn Jones, Joanna McCallum, Alice Hart, Jennifer Hilary and Eve Pearce| Having fallen on hard times, the Bray sisters have been placed out of sight on a remote farm where they won't disturb the town's conscience. A chance visit by two old friends puts their lives in shocking contrast.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="Hippomania"| | Hippomania [79] | | Anthony Calf, Anastasia Hille, Patricia Leventon, Andrew Woodall, Victoria Woodward, Ian Masters, Owen Sharpe, Katherine Igoe, Stephen Hogan, Renee Weldon, Aoife McMahon, Gerard Murphy, John Rogan, Nicholas Boulton, Jimmy Akingbola, Ndidi del Fatti, Andrew Scott, Tam Williams, Snoo Wilson, Alex Tregear, Emily Wachter, Jason Chan, Robert Hastie and Stuart McLoughlin| With Laurence Olivier preparing to film the patriotic epic Henry V in neutral Ireland during the Second World War, and the poet John Betjeman attracting the suspicious attention of the IRA, it is a heady time in Dublin.
Snoo Wilson's astonishing fantasia, which springs from real events in Betjeman's life, conjures up Nazis, assassins and fairies as the poet wanders blithely through seats of power, pubs and a cemetery.| BBC Radio 3
Drama on 3|- id="The Two of Us – My Life with John Thaw"| – | – My Life with John Thaw
(Five episodes)| | Read by Sheila Hancock| Sheila Hancock reads from her enthralling new book about her deep and passionate partnership with her late husband, John Thaw.| BBC Radio 4
Book of the Week|- id="Death at the Desert Inn"| | Death at the Desert Inn [80] | | Malcolm Sinclair, Eleanor Bron, Tam Williams, Belinda Lang, Jake Broder, Meredith MacNeil, Peter Swander, Nathan Osgood and William Hootkins| Three hundred thousand dollars are left in a satchel in Noël Coward's Las Vegas suite.
Coward sets off on his unexpected posthumous career as a detective.
The Desert Inn, scene of one of his greatest cabaret triumphs, is the setting for a murder mystery complete with Judy Garland, a showgirl, a Broadway agent, an unlikely croupier and a US Congressman, with half of Hollywood in the audience.| BBC Radio 4
The Saturday Play|- id="The Salamander Letter"| | | | Glenn Conroy, Adam Sims and Jason Chan| Drama about crooked antiques dealer Mark Hofmann, who nearly succeeded in rewriting American history and bringing down the LDS Church when his forgeries fooled experts around the world.| BBC Radio 4
The Saturday Play|- id="Something Cool"| | Something Cool| | Linda Marlowe, Jim Norton, Alyson Coote, Bruno Lastra and Claudio Rojas| In a Spanish bar, far out of the tourist season, Rose sits and waits for something to happen.
As the happy hour draws to a close, two strangers appear and the scene is set for an intense and unexpected confrontation.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Scenes of Seduction"| | Scenes of Seduction [81] | | Michael Maloney, Jasmine Hyde and Harriet Walter| Five-scene drama involving courting couples in various stages of life. The scene entitled Summer rewrites the wooing scene of Shakespeare's Henry V. | BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Hotel Cristobel"| | Hotel Cristobel [82] [83] | | Rosemary Harris, Michael Potts and Stephen Spinella| Caribbean independence is re-imagined in a struggle for control of a fading hotel on a small and beautiful island.
The English woman who has always managed and owned Hotel Cristobel cannot accept that her era is over and that her servant John and the mysterious visitor Mr Schultz from New York might take her hotel away.
The play, recorded in New York, is a gripping drama of power, and perhaps love.| BBC Radio 3
Drama on 3|- id="Claw Marks on the Curtain: The Lumber Room"| | Claw Marks on the Curtain: | Saki
dramatised by | Susan Engel, Ben Tibber and Alex Tregear| When young Nicholas is punished by his aunt, he seeks refuge in the magical lumber-room; but when his aunt seeks him in the garden, he can exact retribution.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="Claw Marks on the Curtain: The Schartz-Metterklume Method"| | Claw Marks on the Curtain: | Saki
dramatised by | Philip Fox, Emily Wachter, Timothy Morand, Jennie Stoller and Jemma Churchill| When Lady Carlotta is mistaken for Miss Hope, the new governess, she takes up the job with relish, applying a freshly invented technique of child-rearing to her new charges.
The ensuing chaos is all too modern for the parents.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="Claw Marks on the Curtain: Fur"| | Claw Marks on the Curtain: Fur| Saki
dramatised by | Bertie Carvel, Helen Longworth, Lydia Leonard and Alex Tregear| Eleanor and Suzanne are best friends, but not for much longer.
Suzanne knows she can get her rich cousin Bertram to buy her a fur in the sales, but she has to entrust the job to Eleanor, who has her own plans.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="Claw Marks on the Curtain: The Toys of Peace"| | Claw Marks on the Curtain: | Saki
dramatised by | Anton Rice, Ben Tibber, Anthony Calf, Beth Chalmers and Alex Tregear| Harvey is encouraged by his right-thinking sister to give her two sons toys that cannot be used for war.
Of course children, in a Saki tale, are immensely inventive.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="Claw Marks on the Curtain: The Open Window"| | Claw Marks on the Curtain: | Saki
dramatised by | Susan Jameson, Paul Brooke, Michael Kilgarriff, Joanna McCallum and Emily Chenery| Packed off around Britain in a search for a cure for his nerves, Framton Nuttel arrives at the Sappletons' house with a letter of introduction from his sister.
It little prepares him for the tale of terror he is about to hear| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="The Miracle of Reason"| | [84] [85] | | Frances Tomelty and Jasper Britton| A menacing drama about a dirty weekend that spirals into abject terror.| BBC Radio 3
The Wire [86] |- id="Grief"| | Grief| | Abigail Thaw, Michael Pennington, Isla Blair and Michael N. Harbour| Simon's despair at the sudden death of his wife, Sarah, is only too clear to everyone.
Their perfect marriage was legendary, but their best friend Nick is tormented by his sense of loss, and there is no one he can share it with.
Especially not with his partner, Isabel.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="I Enjoyed Myself Today"| | I Enjoyed Myself Today| [69] | Alex Tregear and Samantha Bond| Freya's diaries reflect the world around her in the 1960s: the Vietnam War, whether to dye her hair.
But when her menopausal self discovers them, lyrical with hormonal pubescence, she has things to say in return.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="Voices"| | Voices [87] [88] | Text: Harold Pinter
Music: James Clarke| Harry Burton, Anastasia Hille, Andy de la Tour, Douglas Hodge, Gabrielle Hamilton, Roger Lloyd Pack, Gawn Grainger, Harold Pinter and Indira Varma| An experimental collage of voice and sound.| BBC Radio 3|- id="The Lost Love of Phoebe Myers"| | [89] [90]
aka Lost Love of Phoebe Miles [91] | | Tracy-Ann Oberman, David de Keyser, Heather Coombs, Qarie Marshall, Lucy Middleweek and Miranda Keeling| Bernard Kops's new play evokes the resilience and passions of wartime London and embarks on a journey through heartache and abandonment, while offering a promise of ultimate contentment and the exorcism of ghosts.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="A House to Let"| – | |, and dramatised by | Marcia Warren and Alec McCowen| Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Elizabeth Gaskell's Victorian tale of a woman worried about an unsettling sign of life in a derelict house.| BBC Radio 4
Woman's Hour Drama|- id="Needle"| | Needle [92] | | Peter Marinker, Jade Williams, Meg Davies, Kate Williams, Liz Sutherland, Liza Sadovy and Ben Onwukwe| Creating the Bayeux Tapestry for their Norman conquerors is a bitter task for the women of Canterbury.| BBC Radio 4
Afternoon Play|- id="A Long Way from Home"| | [93] [94] | | O-T Fagbenle, Kerry Shale, Alibe Parson, Rhea Bailey, Rachel Atkins, Damian Lynch, Ben Onwukwe and Major Wiley| Caryl Phillips' original drama imagines the conflicting forces in the iconic singer Marvin Gaye's life, including family, stardom, love, sex and drugs.The story focuses on his final years, when he was offered a lifeline in the unlikely setting of Ostend in Belgium, where he composed the song Sexual Healing before he returned America and was murdered by his own father.| BBC Radio 3
Drama on 3|- id="Bora Bora"| | Bora Bora [95] | | Derek Jacobi, Corin Redgrave, Cheryl Campbell, Adrian Bower, Eve Pearce, Jill Johnson, Stephen Critchlow and Rachel Atkins| Art historian Alec, the brother of a famous actor, has lived his life in the shadows following a traumatic event in his childhood.
When a biographer joins a painting holiday organised by Alec, his arrival disturbs the calm.
Alec must face a terrible truth about his life and about the nature of forgiveness.| BBC Radio 4
The Saturday Play|- id="Hyde Park-on-Hudson"| | Hyde Park-on-Hudson [96] | | Barbara Jefford, Emma Fielding, Tim Pigott-Smith, Nancy Crane, Julia Swift, Sylvia Syms, John Chancer, Corin Redgrave, Kika Markham and Jamie Newall| No reigning British monarch had ever been to the United States before George VI's visit in 1939, just on the cusp of a new world war.
History was in the making when the King and Queen arrived at President Roosevelt's upstate New York home, with a promise of politics, a picnic and hot dogs.
But the private life of the President provided a whole new dimension to an epochal moment, at least in the memory of his lover.| BBC Radio 3
Drama on 3|}Notes:
Sources: