Summary

Lucy has been appointed to the chair of the Widmerpool Prize for Fiction. She is determined to find the very best novel amid the mountain of submissions. But as pressures – both literary and personal – grow, pulling her one way then another, can her high ideals hold out against dreaded compromise?

Stars

• Roger Allam – Gervase
• Geraldine James – Lucy
• Robert Bathurst – Adrian/Josh
• Richard Katz – Hugo/Paul
• Colleen Prendergast – Miranda/Millie

Production info.

Written by Joan Bakewell and directed by Peter Kavanagh.

It’s all aboard for a journey in the time machine.

Preview clip

Summary

Emily, an orphan who lives with Uncle Martin, an avid inventor, has her life disrupted by the arrival of her Aunt Charity and Uncle Lucas and her cousin Clara. Unbeknownst to her uncle Martin, Emily is bullied and mistreated until one night she witnesses a violent and cruel episode. Desperate to escape she hides in Uncle Martin’s latest invention: a Time Machine.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Martin/Bill/Nigel/Chatterton-Brown/Droid 3

Production info.

Adapted by Alan Ayckbourn. Music written and performed by Denis King. Produced and directed by Bruce Hyman.

Take nothing on its looks, take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.

Summary

Young Pip is an orphan living with his shrewish sister and her kindly blacksmith husband. One Christmas Eve, he is surprised by a convict and forced to steal for him. This single good deed of Pip’s leads him to the pursuit of expectations of wealth, a better position in life, and happiness; but he has many hard lessons to learn before he achieves that.

Stars

Roger Allam as Mr Jaggers, a prominent London lawyer who represents the interests of diverse clients, both criminal and civil (including Pip’s benefactor and Miss Havisham). By the end of the story, his law practice links many of the characters.

Production info.

Dramatised by Martyn Wade from the novel by Charles Dickens. Music by Harvey Brough. Produced and directed by Marilyn Imrie.

Sleep is death in a place like this…

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Summary

Landowner Brekhunov sets off with his man Nikita to close his purchase of a neighbouring coppice. The pair hit an impenetrable blizzard; their sledge is stuck. Can they survive a night in this cold and is either ready to meet his Maker?

Dramatic and atmospheric, this is an excellent adaptation of Tolstoy’s parable of the journey from life, and its associated concerns, towards death, the great leveller which makes no distinction between ‘master’ (Allam) and ‘man’ (Hill).

Stars

• Roger Allam – Vasilii Andreich
• Conleth Hill – Nikita

Production info.

Dramatised from Leo Tolstoy’s original story by Jonathan Holloway. Produced and directed by Anastasia Tolstoy.

Well, I suppose the question is, where does anything start? At the beginning?

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Summary

Paul is young, rich and in love. So why does he lock himself in the library and refuse to open the door to anyone? But he cannot lock everyone out, and his strange and disconcerting nocturnal visitors help him to make the most important decision of his life.

A compelling and surprisingly amusing philosophical piece that demands more than one listen

Stars

• Roger Allam – Fermat (shown in the image)
• Daniel Evans – Paul Wolfskehl
• Emma Fielding – Infinity

Production info.

Written by Robert Thorogood and directed by Ellen Dryden.

The life of the mind, the life of the body- I certainly have little of the latter and a great deal of the former. This is my fate. It isn’t at all tragic, but perhaps it makes other things possible?

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 Summary

D.H. Lawrence’s controversial tale of the steamy affair between an aristocrat’s wife and a gamekeeper.

At its heart, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a story about the invisible bonds between lovers, companions, husbands and wives. Against this backdrop, Lawrence also explores the relationship between physical desire and spiritual fulfillment, often using sensual and explicitly sexual language.

A sympathetic adaptation in which the characters’ inner lives and motivations are explored to a pleasing extent with frequent voiced streams-of-consciousness.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Lord Clifford Chatterley
• Lia Williams – Lady Constance Chatterley
• Robert Glenister – Mellers
• Julian Rhind-Tutt – Duncan Forbes

Production info.

Dramatised from the novel by D.H. Lawrence by Michelene Wandor. Musicians Melanie Pappenheim and Harvey Brough. Produced and directed by Marilyn Imrie.

It’s those little touches that lift adultery out the moral arena and make it a matter of style.

Preview clip (the play within the play)

 Summary

Henry is a successful playwright married to Charlotte, who has the lead role in his latest play about adultery. Her co-star Max is married to another actress, Annie. Annie and Henry are madly in love, but is it any more real than the subjects of Henry’s play?

The Real Thing examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality.

Introduced on BBC radio as ‘a frank examination of marriage and adultery,’ The Real Thing is a thought provoking and funny examination of the nature of relationships, love and fidelity, both in real life and in fiction.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Max
• Alex Jennings – Henry
• Imogen Stubbs – Annie
• Harriet Walter – Charlotte

Production info.

Tom Stoppard’s play produced by Bruce Hyman and directed by Trevor Nunn.

Not everyone can be rich, not everyone can be strong or clever, not everyone can be beautiful, but we can all be brave. Courage is just there for the taking.

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Summary

Marketed as the ‘official sequel’ to J. M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy, the book from which the radio play is adapted continues the story of the Lost Boys, the Darling family, and Peter Pan, set in 1926 during the reign of George V and following World War I.

Now adults with families of their own and the tragedies of the First World War recent in their memories, Wendy and her companions return to the land of their childhood imaginings, fearing that something is rotten in the state of Neverland.

We too are transported back to a land that was once familiar, but, as is always the case as we progress from innocence into experience, things are murkier than we remember and nothing is as it seems…

Stars

• Roger Allam – Ravello, a woolly circus proprietor (“he was a full grown man, or a very tall cardigan.”)
• Robert Glenister – Narrator
• Daniel Mays – Peter Pan
• Kate Maberly – Wendy

Production info.

Dramatised for radio by Nick Warburton. Produced and directed by Celia de Wolff.

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I feed too much on the inward sources; I live too much with the dead.

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 Summary

The idealistic Dorothea Brooke has decided to marry the passionless Edward Casaubon, believing that he will help her live a life of ideals and good thoughts and deeds. And then Mr Lydgate arrives in Middlemarch full of new ideas and determination to help the poor of the town.

Stars

• Roger Allam as Sir James Chettam and Mr Vincy
• Caroline Martin – Dorothea Brooke
• Robert Glenister – Casaubon
• Tom Goodman-Hill – Mr Lydgate

Production info.

Dramatised by Judith Adams from the novel by George Eliot. Produced and directed by Gaynor Macfarlane. Pianist James Moriarty.

We are afflicted, you and I, afflicted by ambition.

Preview Clip

Summary

In Bohemian Paris in the 19th century, an artist’s model comes under the spell of the original ‘Svengali’, an extraordinary man with strange healing powers, who can transform even the tone-deaf Trilby into someone with a remarkable voice. Based on the novel by George du Maurier.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Svengali
• Alison Pettitt – Trilby
• Bertie Carvel – Billee
• Harry Myers – Laird
• Stephen Hogan – Gecko

Production info.

Dramatised from George du Maurier’s novel by Melissa Murray. Music by David Pickvance. Directed by Cherry Cookson.

Review

“Svengali (Roger Allam) was complex, powerful, unexpectedly moving.” (The Telegraph, 2005)

Being young you underestimate the allure of wealth, the recognition, the ability to obtain a table at even the most exclusive and fully booked restaurant.

“But you hate those things.”

Yes. But I’d be nothing without them.

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Summary

This radio play explores the personal demons that tormented Gilbert Harding, the outspoken, irascible but much-loved broadcaster of the fifties who became famous for his unpredictable appearances on panel games such as Twenty Questions, Round Britain Quiz and What’s My Line?

Stars

• Roger Allam – Gilbert Harding
• Ben Crowe – Derek,
• Jenny Funnell – Nancy Spain
• Carl Prekopp – Philip,
• Keith Drinkel – Roger
• Ian Masters – the psychiatrist

Production info.

Written by Stephen Wyatt. Director Martin Jenkins.

Review

The character of Gilbert Harding is a terribly interesting and complex one. Outwardly he was always seen as a curmudgeon, indeed a somewhat self confessed one, with a rough and sometimes abrasive personality.

He was never afraid to speak openly, something used to full effect in certain scenes in the play, and which was rather unusual in the often homey and civil atmosphere of 1950s broadcasting. It was shown by friends of Harding after his death to be at odds with the person they knew as warm and generous; Wyatt shows this perfectly in part with scenes with an old friend Nancy Spain but in particular with Philip.

Allam does a wonderful job portraying Harding’s loneliness as well as the disdain he had not only for his job but also for the fame and ‘adoring fans’ that came with it, the scenes about which naturally parallel today’s culture – Daisy

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Here was the appalling discovery, never suspected before, that my father was not as God. He does not know everything.

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Summary

Edmund Gosse (shown in the picture with his father in 1857) was raised in the strictly non-conformist Plymouth Brethren. Tender, comic and lyrical, this is his account of a spiritual struggle.

Lonely Edmund is baptised at the age of ten. But as he grows, he’s torn between love for his devout charismatic father and the terrible secret in his heart.

Poignant and brilliantly acted, this is the story of a boy’s often troubled relationship with his father, his religion and his own divided self.

Stars

• Derek Jacobi – Edmund Gosse
• Roger Allam – his father Philip Henry Gosse

Production info.

Edmund Gosse’s memoir dramatised by Nick Warburton. Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting.

Summary

A bank manager is travelling to an important meeting when he encounters God on the train. He’s told he can have the answer to a single question. A thought-provoking story about the consequences of failing to see life’s bigger picture.

Read by

Roger Allam

Production info.

Written by Zoran Zivkovic and produced by Gemma Jenkins.

… and there was laughter in the dark. It was her, you see, Frieda. She was laughing at all of us.

Preview clip

Summary

Set in Berlin, in a period moving inexorably towards the Second World War, this is the story of the downfall of a middle-aged married man who becomes infatuated with a young woman he meets in the cinema. She uses him with startling callousness and ultimately destroys him.

This darkly erotic dramatisation comes to vivid life as events unfold in the mind of a man who can only guess at the gross betrayals inflicted on him by a younger and more ruthless generation.

Similarly to the Nabokov’s novel, the play begins with an exposition of the entire plotline: “There lived in Berlin a man called Albert Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy. One day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress. He loved, was not loved, and his life ended in disaster.”

The anticipation doesn’t make the story developments any less unsettling, and listeners are dragged through the play’s escalating tension until its devastating end.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Albert Albinus
• Claire Price – Margot Peters
• Alan Cox – Axel Rex
• Geraldine Alexander – Elizabeth
• Lauren Bird – Irma
• Sarah Badel – Frieda
• Dale Rapley – Otto
• Ewan Bailey – Karl Schwarz
• David Shaw-Parker – Doctor
• Tracy Wiles – Chambermaid

Production info.

By Vladimir Nabokov; dramatised by Craig Higginson. Music composed by Howard Davidson. Produced by Catherine Bailey and directed by Maria Aitken.

Awards

Sony Gold Award (2005) Judging panel comment: “Maria Aitken’s beautifully crafted and paced production of this lesser-known Nabokov tale drew a brilliant performance from Roger Allam, strongly supported by every member of the cast. The atmosphere of cruelty, sleaze and menace was almost palpable, making this a gripping listen.” (source)

Stew, stew, it is something terrible for me.

Summary

A dismembered corpse scattered over a railway network and an unemotional confession leads a police interrogator to try and understand a woman’s life and marriage in a provincial French town.

Stars

• Roger Allam – The Interrogator
• Juliet Stevenson – Claire
• Peter Bowles – Pierre

Production info.

Original story by Marguerite Duras (pictured). Translated from the French by Barbara Bray and adapted for radio by Bryony Lavery. Directed by Annie Castledine.

Guardian review

“Very French and very creepy…” (source)

Summary

Ovid’s Amores were one of the scandalous literary successes of ancient Rome. But why was the poet suddenly banished – and how did his banishment affect his writing?

Readings by

Roger Allam and Mark Evans.

Production info.

Introduced by Don Taylor and Jonathan Dryden Taylor. Directed by Ellen Dryden.

Summary

Dionysos is the leader of a charismatic religion which, by its belief in an ecstatic god of boundless power and goodness, makes no distinction between rich or poor, male or female, slave or free, and thereby threatens to destabilise the rule of King Pentheus.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Lykurgos
• Chiwetel Ejlofor – Dionysos
• Toby Stephens – Pentheus
• Paul Scofield – Kadmos, his grandfather
• Diana Rigg – Agave, his mother
• Pip Donaghy – Kritias
• Bruce Purchase – Polybos
• Jeffery Kissoon – Tiresias

Production info.

The first of three plays by Andrew Rissik that examine the conflict between religion and state. Music by Mia Soteriou. Directed by Jeremy Mortimer.

Summary

Maddie has it all worked out- her perfect family Christmas is organised down to the very last detail. Then her mother burns down her house, her husband gets drunk at the office party and comes home late, Valerie arrives and causes quite a stir and the children behave like all teenagers should. And despite her best intentions, Maddie has forgotten the turkey.

Mrs Henderson’s Christmas party comes not a moment too soon as at last she realises that happiness comes in many different guises.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Paul
• Jan Ravens – Maddie
• Elizabeth Kelly – Mum
• Jane Whittenshaw – Valerie
• Ella Vise – Ellie
• Anne Reid – Mrs Henderson
• Jacinta Mulcahy – Laura

Production info.

Episode 4, ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,’ written by Alexandra Campbell.

Summary

On the 9th November 1953, fifty years to the day before this radio play first aired
Dylan Thomas died in New York after collapsing in the Chelsea Hotel. The play examines the lies and legends of this unique poet through the critical eye of the Chelsea, infamous home both to wild excesses and inspired creativity.

Stars

• Roger Allam – the Chelsea Hotel (pictured)
• Richard Lynch – Dylan Thomas
• Penny Downie – Caitlin
• Dorien Thomas – DJ
• Manon Edwards – Mam
• Beth Robert – Nancy
• Brendan Charieson – Edgar Lee Masters
• Sarah Hill – Liz

Production info.

Written by DJ Britton. Music composed by Paula Gardiner. Musicians: Lee Goodall, Gethin Liddington, Huw Warren and Ian Williams. Directed by Alison Hindell.

Our relationship will have to be pondered…

Preview clip

Summary

When the father of Existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard, falls in love with the unlikely Regina Olsen , he is too busy deconstructing the nature of the emotion he is experiencing to notice that he is breaking the poor girl’s heart… with calamitous results.

For an extremely intelligent man, it would appear that Kierkegaard was a bit of an idiot. In this play- funny, frequently poignant and altogether ludicrous (even more so for the fact it was based on real events), the philosopher takes ‘overthinking things’ to a whole new level.

His objection to marrying the girl he loves? “If we got married I’d be much too happy.” Says it all, really.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Kierkegaard
• Georgie Alexander – Regina
• John McAndrew – Hans Christian Andersen
• John Wood – Kierkegaard the elder

Production info.

Written by David Pownall and directed by Eoin O’Callaghan.

For most of us, for almost all of us, truth can be attained, if at all, only in silence. It is in silence that the human spirit touches the divine.

Summary

Part 1: Struggling young writer Jake Donaghue wanders through London accompanied by philosophers, starlets, singers, bookmakers, his Irish drinking companion, Finn, and a kidnapped dog.

Part 2: Jake’s attempts to gain money from the dognapping of Mister Mars, the canine superstar, fail, and his love life becomes yet more complicated. Jake loses the girl, gets the dog and ponders the wonders of the world.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Dave
• Simon Day – Jake
• Lloyd Hutchinson – Finn
• Janie Dee – Madge
• Sarah Badel – Mrs Tinck
• Issy Van Rendwyck – Anna
• Catherine McCormack – Sadie
• Hugh Bonneville – Hugo
• Corin Redgrave – Sammy
• Adrian Scarborough – Lefty
• David Shaw-Parker – Barman
• Tom George – Daniel
• Clare Clifford – Barmaid

Production info.

Dramatised by Nick Fisher from the novel by Iris Murdoch. Music by Howard Davidson. Directed by Maria Aitken.

Can you break a tenner?
For you, I’ll break into a song.

Summary

Max and Shirley bicker all day long in their north-London deli. Max believes the customers love their bantering but Shirley has had enough. There must be more to life than this.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Max
• Prunella Scales – Shirley
• Rebecca Front – Roszinka
• Rosle Fellner – Girl
• Uza Sadovy – Marcy

Production info.

‘The Anniversary Waltz,’ written by Jeremy Front. Produced and directed by Peter Kavanagh.

Summary

Peter the Great drove thousands to death to create his dream city, St Petersburg.

Great violence and haunting beauty have marked the metropolis ever since. On the 300th anniversary of its foundation, writer Kevin Jackson questions the legacy of the Tsar’s enlightened despotism.

Contributions from

Count Nikolai Tolstoy (a descendant of one of Peter’s ambassadors), the curator of the Hermitage
Aleksei Leporc, and travel writer Colin Thubron.

Readers

Eleanor Bron and Roger Allam

Production info.

Produced by Kate Bolton.

Summary

When gastronomes, Kate and Oliver embark on a ‘cold turkey’ detox, they little imagine that a few bodily improvements may be a poor reward for a deeply turbulent relationship.

Stars

• Samantha Bond – Kate
• Roger Allam – Oliver
• Rebecca Front – Chloe
• Helen Atkinson-Wood – Lucy
• Hugh Ross – Robert

Production info.

Written by Rebecca Saire and directed by Eoin O’Callaghan.

Summary

A creature presents itself to immigration at Swansea. Customs cannot determine for sure its origins, its identity, or even its gender. But one thing is clear. It is a human being.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Gonad
• Paul Bhattacharjee – Doctor
• Steven Meo – Williams
• Joanna Monro – Miss Hughes
• Jasmine Hyde – Nurse Tessa

Production info.

Written by David Pownall and directed by Peter Kavanagh.

He was dispos’d to mirth; but on the sudden
A Roman thought hath struck him.

Summary

Antony and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare ‘s last great tragedy, is set against the political backdrop of the Roman Empire and the centre of Egyptian culture, Alexandria. But at the heart of the play is the story of what happens when two people fall in love.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Enobarbus
• Frances Barber – Cleopatra
• David Harewood – Antony
• Colin Tiemey – Octavius Caesar
• Ewan Hooper – Lipidus / Clown
• Garry Cooper – Pompey / Sentry
• Paul Hilton – Eros / Varrius
• Ben Onwukwe – Scarus / Alexas
• Martin Hyder – Decretes / Thidias / Taurus
• Gerard McDermott – Philo / Canidius /  Dolabella
• Sean Baker – Maecenas / Demetrius
• Peter Marinker – Agrippa
• Ben Crowe – Ventidius / Proculeius
• Jonny Phillips – Menas / Seleucus
• Ian Masters – Ambassador / Soothsayer
• Peter Damey – Mardian / Menecrates / Gallus
• Amanda Root – Octavia
• Claire Rushbrook – Charmian
• Helen Longworth – Iras
• Cad Prekopp – Diomedes

Production info.

Music by Sylvia Hallett. Directed by Mary Peate and David Harewood.

Only idiots are happy. But then, maybe not- you’ve a mournful look about you at times.

Preview clip

 Summary

In one of his most famous and personal novels, Dostoyevsky portrays the vivid inner life of Prince Myshkin, who has returned from years abroad spent trying to treat his epilepsy. On the long train journey home, he first learns the story of a woman who will dominate his life from now on.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Rogozhin
• Paul Rhys – Prince Myshkin
• Alex Jennings – Ganya
• Lia Williams – Nastasya
• David Swift – Gen Yepanchin
• Stephen Moore – Gen Ivolgin
• Gerard McDermott – Lebedev
• Paula Jacobs – Mrs Yepanchin
• Carl Prekopp – Kolya
• Jemma Churchill – Verya
• Martin Hyder – Concierge

Production info.

Dramatised by Melissa Murray from the novel by Fydor Dostoyevsky. Directed by Cherry Cookson.

Review

“I keep trying to steel my heart against him. I say to myself, it is inexcusable to be that trusting, that innocent. And not only is it inexcusable it is downright dangerous.”

The words above are uttered by Kolya, the youngest and most clear-headed character, used at times in this play to be the audience’s ‘every-man’ guide to the happenings.

Themes of innocence, religion, love, friendship, health and society abound, each of them explored from multiple angles, as is the case above with the first of this list. Here we are to shed all monochromatic Romantic preconceptions of ‘innocence’ being good and ‘experience’ bad- as Kolya states, here such simplicity is inexcusable.

With a novel as complex as The Idiot is, it’s hardly surprising that the adaptation should contain so many layers of symbolism, and they’re masterfully woven in without heavy handedness. It’s a tribute to both the producers and the actors that one can simultaneously dislike and sympathise with each of the characters in the same moment while at the same time following along with their stories.

This is not an easy listen- just as the novel is not an easy read- but if you have the time to devote to it, you will find that it becomes more rewarding each time you press play – Kayleigh

Summary

Award-winning playwright and reporter Peter Morgan revisits Belgrade for a quizzical look at the aftermath of Milosevic, combining documentary interviews with the confessions of a fictional henchman.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Milan
• With Melanie Walter and Simon Armstrong

Production info.

Written by Peter Morgan and directed by Alison Hindell.

Preview clip

 Summary

A serialised dramatisation of Victor Hugo’s epic story of social injustice and spiritual grace.

In the first episode, Jean Valjean , sentenced to 19 years’ hard labour for stealing a loaf of bread, is finally released from prison.

Given shelter by the kind-hearted Bishop of Digne, he is tempted to one more criminal act. Will it bring about his damnation or his salvation?

Stars

• Roger Allam – Jean Valjean
• Joss Ackland – Victor Hugo
• David Schofield – Javert
• Lucy Whybrow – Cosette
• Jonathan Forbes – Marius
• Henry Goodman – Thenardier
• Patsy Palmer – Eponine
• Peter Darney – Enjolras
• Ewan Bailey – Grantaire
• Leagh Conwell – Gavroche

Production info.

Adapted from Victor Hugo’s novel by Sebastian Baczkiewicz and Lin Coghlan. With music by Dominic Fitzgerald. Director Sally Avens.

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive…

Preview clip

 Summary

During a trip to Italy in 1838, Robert Browning visited Ferrara, home of the Dukes of Este. Inspired by a fresco portrait he saw there and what he learned of the Este family, he wrote his poetic masterpiece, My Last Duchess.

The duke’s first wife, whose portrait the poem vividly described, died young in suspicious circumstances in 1561. Martyn Wade’s dramatisation attempts to solve the mystery of the poem-what happened to the duchess and who did the deed?

Dark and sinister in tone, this adaptation is extremely true to Browning’s dramatic monologue.

Stars

• Roger Allam – The Duke
• Emily Mortimer – The Duchess
• Tim McInnerny – Pandolfi
• Robert Hands – Fabriano
• John Hartley – Madruz
• Jacob Heringman – Musician

Production info.

Dramatised by Martyn Wade, from the poem by Robert Browning.

Athens was such an incredible… idea.

Preview clip

Summary

Part of the Democracy and Language trilogy of plays commissioned by BBC Radio 3.

Writer John Fletcher’s proposal is to find a means of exploring dramatically the idea that the one thing above all others that frees human beings is language. He believes that words free people through the ideas they unleash and inspire free men to act.

This, the first play of the series, is set in Greece. Aeschylus is a young man, witnessing the sacking of Athens by the Persians.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Abronicus
• Julian Rhind-Tutt – Aeschylus
• Robert Glenister – Themistocles
• Matthew Wait – Nicias
• Jeremy Clyde – Aristides
• Leslie Phillips – Sicinnus

Production info.

Written by John Fletcher with music by Nina Humphreys. Directed by Beeban Kidron and produced by Marilyn Imrie.

Review

Greece vs Persia revolves around the battle of Salamis where Persians try to invade Greece and fail. There are deals between Greek cities, generals’ betrayals (perhaps not totally historically accurate), speeches and preparations of battles, and dialogue exchanges that I find hilarious, like this one:
“Gentlemen, our country is about to be utterly destroyed by a foreign enemy. Is there nothing either of you is prepared to do?”
*silence*
“I see. Then I have no option but to declare that when the Greek armies take the field they will be under the command of our Spartan allies”.
“What happened?”
“We’ve lost the Argives”
“Damn!”

An intriguing play for anyone interested in ancient history. Allam’s character gives a detailed and passionate report of the battle of Thermopylae, in which a small group of Greeks managed to hold off Xerxes’s colossal army for a whole week – Anna

Summary

Neil Brand and Michael Eaton’s play with music. It’s Christmas 1863. William Makepeace Thackeray receives a strange visitor who takes him on a journey back in time to the raucous song and supper evenings at the Cave of Harmony, presided over by the inimitable and irrepressible Charles Dickens.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Thackeray (pictured)
• Nickolas Grace – Master of Ceremonies
• Stephen Boxer – Dickens
• Alison Pettitt – Isabella
• David Timson – Newcombe
• Nell Brand – Costigan

Production info.

Music by Neil Brand and Michael Eaton. Directed by Jeremy Mortimer.

Summary

Autumn 1860, and the Featherways family gather to hear the will of their deceased father. As the Madeira flows, the memories become less rosy, and Burrows is summoned to open the mysterious trunk from the attic.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Jasper Featherways
• Theresa Gallagher – Jane Featherways
• Josephine Tewson – Lavinia Featherways
• Roger May – Richard Featherways
• Belinda Sinclair – Harriet Winter
• Andrew Wincott – Edward Valance
• Cathy Sara – Emily Valance
• Christopher Scott – Burrows the butler

Production info.

Written by Noel Coward and adapted by Malcolm McKee. Directed by Sue Wilson.

Summary

Rome, 1853: unable to find any Christmas entertainment for the four children in his charge, William Makepeace Thackeray invents his own fireside pantomime.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Thackeray
• Maureen Lipman – Gruffanuff
• Prunella Scales – Fairy Blackstick
• With Clive Swift, David Mitchell, Julian Morris, Lucy Taylor, Christopher Staines, Charles Edwards, Robin Sebastian, Max Digby and Abigail Thaw

Production info.

By William Makepeace Thackeray, dramatised for radio by Ellen Dryden. Directed by Don Taylor with music by Derek Bourgeois.

Summary

Simone has been exiled from her family since her revelation in a TV programme that she is gay. Now she is seriously ill with leukaemia, and her only hope is a bone marrow transplant from a close relative…

Stars

• Roger Allam – Peter
• Kate Buffery – Simone
• Stella Gonet – Claire
• Carolyn Pickles – Imelda
• Charles Simpson – Derek

Production info.

Written by Melissa Murray and directed by Cherry Cookson.

Summary

In 14th-century Florence, ten young aristocrats escape to the country to avoid the Black Death, telling stories to pass the time.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Boccaccio
• Rebecca Front – Pampinea
• With John Grillo, Helen Atkinson Wood, Max Digby, Abigail Thaw, Lucy Tregear, Roger May, Christopher Staines, Eleanor Tremain , Lucy Taylor, Sara Griffiths, Kate Byers, Jonathan Dryden Taylor, Charles Edwards and Anthony Jackson

Production info.

By Giovanni Boccaccio, adapted in three parts by Don Taylor. Translated by Jonathan Dryden Taylor.

Summary

The secret of the upstairs floor will be revealed if only the riddle of the gaslights can be understood.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Mr Manningham
• Juliet Stevenson – Mrs Manningham
• With Corin Redgrave, Madeline Blakeney and Helen Schlesinger

Production info.

Written by Patrick Hamilton with music by Peter Hayward. Directed by Annie Castledine.

Summary

A two-part play presenting an alternative portrait of ‘The Elephant Man’, Joseph (sometimes referred to as ‘John’) Merrick.

Stars

• Roger Allam – John Merrick
• Tim Pigott-Smith – Frederick Treves
• With Alison Pettitt, Janet Maw, Tracy Ann Oberman, Carolyn Jones, Stephen Critchlow, Jonathan Keeble, Gerard McDermott and Chris Pavlo

Production info.

Written by Peter Wolf and directed by Cherry Cookson.

Summary

The Miles Kington Interviews were a series of fictitious interviews with famous historical figures who reveal insights into their lives and times.

In this instance the interview is with Dr Samuel Johnson, famed poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Dr Samuel Johnson
• Journalist Miles Kington – himself

Production info.

Produced by Viv Black.

Summary

Dramatised in six episodes by Neville Smith. Pepys’s Diary gives a very personal insight into the life of a young man full of ambition and virility.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Charles II
• Oliver Parker – Samuel Pepys
• Charlotte Attenborough – Elizabeth
• Michael Kitchen – James, Duke of York
• Steve Hodson – Lord Sandwich
• Simon Russell Beale – William Coventry
• Ronald Hines – Sir George Carteret
• Terence Rigby – Sir William Batten
• Christopher Douglas – Sir William Penn,
• Christian Rodska – Thomas Hayter
• Peter Acre – Will Hewer
• Toby Jones – Tom Pepys
• Jane Whitten Shaw – Betty Lane

Production info.

Dramatised by Neville Smith from the diaries of Samuel Pepys.

Summary

Manny Draycott-Lai ‘s sequel to A View of the City from Westminster Bridge (1992).

Successful architect Louise has just returned from working abroad, and is asked by her ex-boyfriend to help out on a new and controversial private hospital project.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Isambard Jones
• Suzanna Hamilton – Louise
• Anton Lesser – Tom
• Hugh Ross – Father Damien
• Clarence Smith – Tony
• John Sharian – Francis

Production info.

Written by Manny Draycott-Lai and directed by Cherry Cookson.

Who’d have thought? Somewhere frankly as dull as Epping having its own disease.

Preview clip

 Summary

The Medical Detectives is a series of true stories of pioneering investigations in the field of pathology.

In this episode, it’s strange enough that a quiet Essex suburb should develop its own unique epidemic, but local Medical Officer of Health Dr Ash is more baffled by the fact that all the victims are middle class.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Dr Harry Kopelman
• Bernard Hepton – Dr Isadore Ash
• Julia Watson – Dr Caroline Hallet
• Carole Boyd – Mrs Rusbridger
• John Rapley – Mr Cross

Production info.

Dramatised by Michael Butt from The Ghost Disease and Other Stories by Michael Howell and Peter Ford. Directed by John Taylor.

Review

This is an interesting light mystery about a real life medical case. There’s nothing in this drama to over-tax the mind, which is either a positive or a negative depending on how you approach it.

From the appearance of ‘Chekov’s wholemeal loaf’ a few minutes in onwards, the solution was fairly evident, which was a shame. From then on, everything was so obviously signposted- “No children have been affected, they’re all adults… They all live in pairs, in comfortable, middle-class homes”- that it appears to the listener to be quite a wonder that the medical investigators took so long to reach their (inevitable) conclusions! – Kayleigh

Summary

In the early 1940s, Diana Wentworth’s MP husband, Michael, is reported missing, presumed killed in action. Once over the shock, she builds a new life – taking over Michael’s seat in parliament, and falling in love with a much more suitable man. But on the eve of their wedding, a phone call brings shattering news….

Stars

• Roger Allam – Michael Wentworth
• Diana Quick – Diana Wentworth
• David Collings – Richard Llewelyn
• Frederick Treves – Sir Ernest Foster
• Peter England – Robin Wentworth

Production info.

By Daphne du Maurier (pictured), dramatised by Jill Hyem and directed by Cherry Cookson.

Summary

History, like everything else these days, has become a commodity- and so it happens that a statue of Jeremy, a 17th-century archbishop, is commissioned to adorn a Surrey town square. Surprisingly, however, it is Jeremy who raises his voice loudest in protest.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Dyson
• David Ryall – Jeremy
• Kristin Milward – Stella
• Natasha Pyne – Helen
• Jilly Bond – Norma
• Michael Tudor Barnes – Norris
• Ian Masters – Conrad
• Don McCorkindale – Chairman
• Oliver Senton – Harry
• Derek Waring – The Professor
• Peter Yapp – Inspector Jepp
• Annabel Mullion – Sarah

Production info.

Written by David Pownall and directed by Eoin O’Callaghan.

I bid you welcome to this magic space where human kind confronts its human face.

Preview clip

Summary

Don Quixote, Thomas D’Urfey’s play with music by Purcell, Eccles and others, was first performed in 1694. This radio adaptation by Don Taylor was commissioned to mark the 300th anniversary in 1995 of Purcell’s death.

Its a skilful production, merging D’Urfey’s drama and Purcell’s music, intermingled with asides and interjections. Don Quixote is humourous, frequently irreverent and entirely disregarding the concept of a ‘fourth wall,’ but nevertheless beautiful and moving.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Thomas Betterton
• Paul Scofield – Don Quixote
• Roy Hudd – Sancho Panza
• Douglas Hodge – Henry Purcell
• Bill Wallis – Thomas D’Urfey
• Emma Kirkby (soprano) – Milkmaid
• Eyelyn Tubb (soprano) – Marcella
• David Thomas (bass) – Cardenio
• Douglas Wootton (baritone) – Gines
• Peter Woodward – Ambrosio
• Peter Czajkowski – Carrasco
• Sam Dastor – Duke

Production info.

Music by Blaise Compton, produced by Jeremy Mortimer. Directed by Don Taylor and Anthony Rooley.

Summary

The sixth in a series of dramas that tell the stories behind the songs.

Martyn Wade’s play presents Grimes as a darker and more sinister figure than the hero of Benjamin Britten’s opera (score pictured) set in a Suffolk fishing village in the 19th century.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Peter Grimes
• Ronald Pickup – George Crabbe
• Sean Pertwee – young George Crabbe
• With Elaine Claxton, Tina Gray, Deborah Berlin, Neville Jason and Peter Yapp

Production info.

Written by Martyn Wade as an adaptation of Benjamin Britten’s opera. Music composed by Ilona Sekacz  and performed by Roger Chase, Dave Arch, Simon Chamberlain, Dick Morgan and Hugh Webb. Directed by Cherry Cookson.

Summary

This story won the 1992 Independent Scholastic Story of the Year Competition.

Harry has a secret and his secret is Kevin. Kevin is a special and unusual kind of friend.

Read by

Roger Allam

Production info.

Written by Caroline Pitcher.

Summary

A dramatisation of Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 debut novel. The story focuses on a doctor’s wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Rodolphe Boulanger
• Nicola Pagett – Emma
• Stephen Moore – Charles Bovary
• Clive Swift – Monsieur Homais
• Sam Dastor – Lheureux
• Paul Downing – Leon Dupuis
• Damien Walker – Justin

Production info.

Flaubert’s writing translated by Alan Russell and dramatised by Christopher Reason. With music by Bernard Robertson. Directed by Kay Patrick.

Summary

In 1501 a mariner claims the British beat Columbus to the New World.

Stars

• Roger Allam – De Puebla
• Brian Blessed – Goodland
• Neil Dudgeon – Rosewell
• David Stevens – Newport
• Celia Ryder – Mrs Newport
• Keith Drinkel – Henry VII
• Nick Murchie – Magistrate
• Kate Binchy – Translator
• Terence Edmond – Sir Paul Holt
• David Learner – Baldei

Production info.

Written by Tom Holland and directed by Claire Grove.

Summary

“As I approached the climbing frame, the chanting had already begun. Jan was throwing back retorts.
They were cruel. ‘Bullies!’ I could hear my father’s voice saying that word.”

Read by

Roger Allam

Production info.

Written by Simon Korner and produced by Anne-Marie Cole.

Summary

“I could see Yuri Gagarin in my mind: no face, just a big round helmet reflecting glass at the front, his spacesuit of cleanest white, and I was filled with joy. Patrick said we should be able to see the rocket passing over the garden later.”

Read by

Roger Allam

Production info.

Written by Simon Korner and produced by Anne-Marie Cole.

Summary

In Manny Draycott-Lai’s play, recorded on location in London, Louise, a young idealist ‘architect’, is commissioned to design a huge site development near the Thames. It is a make-or-break career move.

Stars

• Roger Allam – lsambard
• Suzanna Hamilton – Louise
• Ralph Fiennes – Tom
• Hugh Ross – Damien
• Stuart Milligan – Earlham
• Michael Tudor Barnes – Kilmartin
• John Webb – Hennessey
• Melinda Walker – Nancy
• John Church – Politician
• Jonathan Adams – Boardman

Production info.

Written by Manny Draycott-Lai and directed by Cherry Cookson.

Summary

John Webster ‘s classic tragedy of forbidden love, murder and revenge. Recorded on location at Llancaiach Fawr Manor (pictured).

Stars

• Roger Allam – Bosola
• Fiona Shaw – The Duchess
• Adrian Dunbar – Ferdinand
• John Shrapnel – The Cardinal
• Patrick Brennan – Antonio
• Simon Harris – Delio
• Helen Griffin – Julia
• John Webb – Pescara
• Manon Edwards – Cariola
• Peter Gunn – Roderigo
• Robert David – Silvio

Production info.

Music composed by Tim Riley and performed by Vicky Higginson, Lyn Plowman and James Mainwaring. Directed by Alison Hindell.

Summary

The heroine of Daphne du Maurier ‘s classic love story set during the English Civil War is the beautiful Honor Harris, crippled in a riding accident, yet loved for ever by Sir Richard Grenville, the King’s General in the West.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Sir Richard Grenville
• Cathryn Harrison – Honor Harris
• Carolyn Pickles – Matty
• Philip Sully – Robin Harris
• Geraldine Fitzgerald – Gartred
• Gary King – Young Dick
• David Thorpe – Older Dick
• Peter Penry Jones – Jonathan Rashleigh
• Sally Edwards – Mary Rashleigh
• Jonathan Adams – Lord Robartes

Production info.

Written by Daphne du Maurier and dramatised by Michelene Wandor. Directed by Cherry Cookson.

I think the country might deserve a dose of fascism. Severe situations demand severe remedies.

Preview Clip

Summary

In the early 1930s the friendship between Oswald Mosley and Harold Nicolson intensified when the two men joined forces to launch a new political party. But Mosley’s extreme views were to jeopardise both their political and personal alliance…

Stars

• Roger Allam – Oswald Mosley
• Christopher Cazenove – Harold Nicolson
• Kate Buffery – Vita
• Joanna David – Cimmie
• Alan Barker – Christopher
• Paul Maxwell – Beaverbrook
• Brett Usher – Strachey
• Eric Allan – Cheyney
• Charles Millham – Young
• Mark Straker – Salmon
• Ann Windsor – Sarfatti

Production info.

Written by Martyn Wade and directed by Cherry Cookson.

Do you not think my scheme sublime?

Preview clip

Summary

An eight-part adapatation of Choderlos de Laclos’ epistolary novel (illustration pictured) of lust, lies and revenge.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Vicomte de Valmont
• Diana Rigg – Marquise de Merteuil
• Juliet Stevenson – Madame de Tourvel
• Alison Reid – Cecile de Volanges
• Melinda Walker – Madame de Volanges
• Samuel West – Chevalier Danceny
• Gudrun Ure – Madame de Rosemonde

Production info.

Written by Choderlos de Laclos, translated by FWK Stone and abridged by Polly Coles. Directed by Clive Brill.

Summary

Hisashi Inoue’s bawdy comedy charts the rise of a blind minstrel to the top ranks of Japanese society through murder, theft and extortion.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Sugi no Ichi
• John Woodvine – Storyteller
• Mia Soteriou – Oichi

Production info.

Written by Hisashi Inoue with songs by Koichiro Uno and additional music by Mia Soteriou. Translated and adapted by Marguerite Wells. Directed by Ned Chaillet.

Summary

Aunt Ethel thinks that sex is the only bond between Kate and her very much younger husband, and she’s not the only person to look on Kate’s second marriage with disapproval.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Dermot
• Ann Bell – Kate
• Joan Matheson – Aunt Ethel
• Stephen Tompkinson – Tom
• Jo Kendall – Mrs Meacock
• Francesca Buller – Louisa
• Philip Sully – Fr Blizzstf
• Norman Bird – Sir Alfred
• Anna Cropper – Edwina
• Cara Kelly – Ignazia
• Margot Boyd – Gertrude
• Susannah Harker – Araminta
• Geoffrey Whitehead – Charles

Production info.

Written by Elizabeth Taylor and adapted by Elspeth Sandys. Directed by Jane Morgan.

You were a stranger to sorrow: therefore Fate has cursed you. 

Preview clip

Summary

When the gods demand Admetos’ death, his wife Alcestis offers herself in his place  because she wishes not to leave her children fatherless or be bereft of her husband. At the start of the play, she is close to death.

Alcestis is the oldest surviving work by Euripides.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Admetos
• Alison Fiske – his wife Alcestis
• Michael Tudor Barnes – Apollo
• Philip Sully – Death
• Caroline Gruber – the maid
• Struan Rodger – Herakles
• Peter Howell – Pheres
• Michael Graham-Cox – the old servant
• The chorus includes, Christopher Scott, Maggie McCarthy, Jane Clarke and Zelah Knowles.

Production info.

An adaptation of the Greek tragedy by Euripides , translated by William Arrowsmith, with music by Harvey Brough and Jeremy Taylor. Directed by Penny Gold.

Summary

An art lecturer tries to come to terms with the suicide of his girlfriend. It is only since her death that he has begun to realise just how special Julie was and how inadequately he behaved in their relationship. In an attempt to cure his emotional paralysis and to try and understand why she killed herself, he turns to psycho-analysis.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Nick
• Diana Quick – Julie
• Suzanna Hamilton – Jane
• Joan Matheson – Rosemary
• Christopher Scott – the therapist
• Simon Cuff – Rupert
• Bernadette Windsor – the little girl
• With Ken Cumberlidge, Ian Michie and Christopher Scott

Production info.

Written by Nigel Gearing and directed by Cherry Cookson.

Summary

Lord Byron always feared that his children would inherit his club foot but doesn’t seem to have been anxious about more spiritual flaws. In fact, his most malign legacies were his reputation and the bitter humiliation of his wife. Norma Rowen traces the corrosive effects of his influence on the lives of Lady Byron, her daughter Ada, and Medora Leigh, rumoured to be Byron’s daughter by his half-sister Augusta.

Stars

• Anne Louise Lambert – Lady Byron
• Patience Tomllnson – Ada
• lmelda Staunton – Medora
• With Roger Allam, James Kerry and Pauline Siddle

Production info.

Produced by Thomas Sutcliffe.

Summary

The second part of The Beggar’s Opera written by John Gay with original music arranged by David Cain.

The opera relates the adventures of Polly Peachum in the West Indies. Macheath is transported to the West Indies, and becomes a pirate, referring to himself as ‘Morano’. He is in the company of Jenny Diver, the prostitute from the first play who had betrayed him – so Macheath is living bigamously. Polly goes to the West Indies looking for Macheath. The play ends with Macheath being executed, and Polly marrying the Indian prince Cawwawkee, after her period of mourning.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Morano
• Jan Waters – Polly
• Alan Rickman – Cawwawkee
• Ann Beach – Mrs Trapes
• Alan Dudley – Mr Ducat
• John Hollis – Vanderbluff
• Polly James – Jenny Driver
• Dilys Laye – Mrs Ducat
• Brian Sanders – Pohetohee / Mr Rich the Player
• Timothy Bateson – Mr Gay the Poet
• Alex Jennings – Footman.

Production info.

Written by John Gay. Arranged and conducted by David Cain. Directed by Ian Cotterell.

Summary

Francis Barber (‘Frank’) was born a slave in the West Indies, but he was brought to this country and worked for Dr Johnson for 30 years. The few facts that are known about him lead one to ask a number of questions about their extraordinary relationship.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Captain
• Tony Osoba – Frank
• Peter Vaughan – Levet
• Sian Phillips – Miss Williams
• Jill Lidstone – Betsy
• Hugh Dickson – Dr Wright
• Katherine Parr – Sister
• Susan Sheridan – Sam Frank
• Graham Cox – Dr Johnson
• Kathryn Hurlbutt – Abigail
• Jack May – Col Bathurst
• David Banks – Richard Bathurst

Production info.

Written by John Wain and directed by Jane Morgan.

Henry II,
Henry Curtmantle we sometimes called him, with his cloak as short as his need for sleep. His energy was like creation itself.

Summary

Henry II was simple and royal (his nickname of Curtmantle derived from the plain short cloak he wore), direct and paradoxical, compassionate and hard, a man of intellect, a man of action; God-fearing, superstitious, blasphemous, far-seeing, short-sighted, affectionate, lustful, patient, volcanic, humble, overriding. It’s difficult to think of any facet of man which at some time he didn’t demonstrate, except chastity and sloth.

Stars

• Roger Allam – Young Henry
• Brian Cox – Henry II
• Bernard Hepton – Becket
• Barbara Leigh-Hunt – Eleanor
• Norman Rodway – William Marshal
• Gary Cady – John
• Kevin McNally – Roger
• Simon Hewitt – Philip of France
• Katherine Parr – Wife
• Alex Jennings – Juggler

Production info.

Written by Christopher Fry with music by David Firman. Directed by Jane Morgan and Brian Cox.

Summary

An adaptation of Dylan Thomas’ play The Doctor and the Devils based on the true story of the infamous bodysnatchers Burke and Hare, who resorted to murder to make money from the supply of bodies for anatomical research.

Stars

Roger Allam, Simon Malloy, Robert Warner, Gerda Stevenson, Alison Rose, Andy Rashley, Richard Brian and Liz Brielsford.

Production info.

Adapted by Charles Causley with music by Stephen McNeff. Produced by Tony Hawkins and Mark Radcliffe with help from Contact Theatre Company and its Artistic Director Richard Williams. Originally from Piccadilly Radio.