Many thanks to John H and Peter P for their contributions to this Page.

Troy. By Andrew Rissik. "Anyone who doubts the right of Radio 3 to exist - low listening figures, large budget, elitist agenda - should be locked in a darkened room for an afternoon with tapes of Troy. He will emerge sadder, wiser and in a state of cathartic enchantment, for Jeremy Mortimer's production of Andrew Rissik's trilogy is probably the greatest radio drama he could ever hear. In these plays, passionate love, bloody revenge and furious argument with the whimsical gods are expressed in language that is spare, poetic, beautiful. Now and again it zooms forward into our century - as when Hekabe complains that her baby son Hektor would be less inhibited if his father spent more time with him, or when the full-grown Hektor is described as fighting 'sitting on his arse'. Sometimes it slips into the sonorous rhythms of iambic pentameter: 'Should I pretend to have no mind, no thoughts, for fear of hurting or offending you?'
More often it reaches for elemental imagery - when Helen remembers making love to Paris in an open boat during a tempest, while 'god-light arched across the bay and the clouds split open', or the grieving Andromache longs for quietus: 'For me, death will be like the moment when, at last, the storm blows itself out, and the sky clears, and the light is clean.'
But words on the page are only half the story. This production was broad and spacious, uncluttered by effects -- save for a wave washing on the shore as Achilles broods or the wind forcing itself through cracks in Agamemnon's palace. And besides, you had to hear Emma Fielding's whispering, tragic Andromache, or Paul Scofield's lofty, wise, world-weary Hermes, or Julian Glover's dignified, heart-broken Priam, gazing down at the mangled body of his son. 'This it is to father children', he says quietly; 'to love them without reservation, to keep them at the centre of every thought, every dream, then to see them lying in the earth before their time. Does anything survive?' Distant thunder rumbles and a woman, far away, keens in harsh anguish. In the end, lovely Helen, the excuse for it all, lives on, disfigured, into old age, and the mighty, belligerent cities, beggared and depopulated by warfare, return to sand. 'Legends', says Hermes 'are like dreams: they tell us what we need to know.' The wheel turns and humanity moves on." (Sue Gaisford, The Independent On Sunday). More Greco and Roman drama can be found here. 

Part 1 of this play had been edited incorrectly if you have downloaded a copy prior to 22nd Dec 2011, please re-download.
The Odyssey. By Homer. A full-cast production of Homer's epic seafaring adventure, dramatised by award-winning poet Simon Armitage, and starring Tim McInnerny and Amanda Redman 'My fame is written in the heavens, and my fate too...' So speaks Odysseus as he starts to recount his struggles to sail home to Ithaca, in one of the greatest pieces of storytelling in Western literature. "The Odyssey" is his incredible traveller's tale - and also the story of his faithful wife, Penelope who waits for him, besieged by suitors, and their son, Telemachus who has a quest of his own. In a twenty-year journey, fabulous fantasy mixes with extraordinary reality as Odysseus encounters enchantresses, nymphs, monsters, prophets and ghosts. From the temptations of the lotus flowers and the Sirens' song to the horrors of the Cyclops' cave and the Land of the Dead, the story of his encounters is riveting. We hear of Circe, who turned his men into swine; Calypso, who held Odysseus prisoner for seven years; and tthe dreadful six-headed monster Scylla who devoured some of his crew. And we hear of the Gods, who have a vital role to play...;Dramatised by major contemporary poet Simon Armitage to celebrate the return of the Olympics to Athens, this full-cast production brings Odysseus's adventures to vivid life, conveying all the excitement, suspense and poetry of the original. A stunning aural rollercoaster ride, "The Odyssey" will have your heart in your mouth and stir your soul.
Troy and The Odyssey are my personal favorites and played together as a single play is as good as it gets. More Greco and Roman drama can be found here. 

Dionysos. By Andrew Rissik. A strong king who rules by the sword is forced to consider the big questions in Dionysos. An unwelcome visitor, the charismatic Dionysos, self-proclaimed 'incarnate son of God', argues that 'there is no power or wealth which will endure: there is only truth. King Pentheus (Toby Stephens) replies angrily: 'What is truth? A word as light as the feathers of a duck.' The play is loosely based on the story told by Euripides in the Bacchae. When Dionysos arrives in Thebes he soon has everyone under his spell, including the king's mother Agave (Dame Diana Rigg) and his grandfather Kadmos (Paul Scofield), but Pentheus is enraged at this decadent new cult and vows to assert his authority. This drama is one that has added resonance in the light of recent law and order crises in Iraq. (Stephanie Billen, The Observer)
"A stunning and provocative new play ... set in ancient Thebes ...dramatised the clash between a Christ-like Dionysos and the autocratic King Pentheus. The all-star cast included Diana Rigg, Toby Stephens and Paul Scofield, who gave one of the outstanding performances of his career. Yet Dionysos was largely ignored. Why? Because it was a radio play. Welcome to the strange, self-effacing world of British radio drama." (Adam Thorpe, The Guardian, Jul 03) More Greco and Roman drama can be found here. 

Medea. By Euripides. The play tells the story of the revenge of a woman betrayed by her husband. All of the action of the play is at Corinth, where Jason has brought Medea after the adventures of the Golden Fleece. He has now left her in order to marry Glauce, the daughter of King Creon. (Glauce is also known in Latin works as Creusa. The play opens with Medea grieving over her loss and with her elderly nurse fearing what she might do to herself or her children. Creon, also fearing what Medea might do, arrives determined to send Medea into exile. Medea pleads for one day's delay. In the next scene Jason arrives to confront her and explain himself. He believes he could not pass up the opportunity to marry a royal princess, as Medea is only a barbarian woman, but hopes to someday join the two families and keep Medea as his mistress. More Greco and Roman drama can be found here. 

Oedipus The King. By Sophocles. The protagonist of the tragedy is the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes. After Laius learns from an oracle that "he is doomed to perish by the hand of his own son", he tightly binds the feet of the infant Oedipus together with a pin and orders Jocasta to kill the infant. Hesitant to do so, she orders a servant to commit the act for her. Instead, the servant takes baby Oedipus to a mountain top to die from exposure. A shepherd rescues the infant and names him Oedipus (or "swollen feet"). The shepherd carries the baby with him to Corinth, where Oedipus is taken in and raised in the court of the childless King Polybus of Corinth as if he were his own. As a young man in Corinth, Oedipus hears a rumour that he is not the biological son of Polybus and his wife Merope. When Oedipus questions the King and Queen, they deny it, but, still suspicious, he asks the Delphic Oracle who his parents really are. The Oracle seems to ignore this question, telling him instead that he is destined to "Mate with [his] own mother, and shed/With [his] own hands the blood of [his] own sire". Desperate to avoid his foretold fate, Oedipus leaves Corinth in the belief that Polybus and Merope are indeed his true parents and that, once away from them, he will never harm them. More Greco and Roman drama can be found here. 

The Carhullan Army. By Sarah Hall. A serious political novel that convincingly explores the mindset of fascism, and a haunting story of how far we will go to be free, it's also a kind of Cumbrian western, peopled with heroic personalities out of an all-female version of "The Iliad". It's a blistering achievement: darkly violent, funny, tender and gripping, "The Carhullan Army" is like nothing else. In an unspecified near-future, life in Britain has become unrecognisable: the floodwaters have risen, food and fuel are scarce, and the country is run by the sinister Authority. All women are forced to wear contraceptive devices. Sister, as the book's narrator calls herself, escapes this repressive world and heads for a mysterious, quasi-mythical commune of women high in the Cumbrian fells, led by the legendary Jackie Nixon. The journey is a challenge but arrival is only the beginning of Sister's struggle.

Bird Cloud. (R) By Annie Proulx. Pulitzer prize-winning writer, Annie Proulx, sets out to build her perfect home in a remote corner of Wyoming. Proulx's first work of non-fiction in twenty years tells a personal story of designing and constructing a house in harmony with her interests, work and personality. Having lived a peripatetic life, Annie Proulx decides to build a house where she can end her days. It does not quite work out that way when she falls in love with a 640 acre of remote Nature Conservancy land in Wyoming.

Chronicles Of Ait. By Michael Butt. From The Turn of the Screw to Torchwood, spooky children have long been used to add menace to many an eerie tale, and Michael Butt's unsettling drama about a young girl's visions of future events is a fine addition to the casebook. Openminded Dr Linus Scott is pitted against sceptical child psychologist Alice Pyper-think The X-Files in East Anglia-as they try to puzzle out the strangely disturbed behaviour of nine-year-old Linny Custer. But what could be nothing more than an effective spine-tingler soon morphs into a deftly handled meditation on loss and family as motivations and background histories rise to the surface in the mysterious coastal community of Ait where the regular rules of science and memory appear not to apply. (Radio Times)

Chronicles Of Ait-Echo Beach. By Michael Butt.The remote east coast settlement of Ait is reckoned to have siren-like powers to entrap and enthral its visitors - and that, at least, is how it appears to disaffected writer Linus Scott when he arrives from London in search of oblivion, for his first encounter is with a mermaid emerging from the North Sea. Actually Alice Pyper isn't strictly speaking a mermaid, just a lovely local woman taking a cold swim, but Scott is captivated by her beauty and, on a later meeting, with other paraphernalia of enchantment, for she insists on telling him a local story of passionate concern to her, a legend-like narrative of unexplained tragedy and loss on nearby Echo Beach. Scott's dormant writer's appetite is awakened and, rather against his will, he finds himself caught up in both a beguiling story of family treachery, and a tantalising love affair.
Echo Beach is the second story from the Chronicles of Ait to come to BBC Radio 4, connected to the first tale only by the location and the names of its two main characters.

The Conspiracy of the Illuminati. By Nigel Baldwin. A historical mystery set in Arras in the lead up to the French Revolution, looking into the suggestion that the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati were behind some of the key figures of the time.

To a Mountain in Tibet. (R) By Colin Thubron. "By trekkers' standards our party is small and swift: a guide, a cook, a horse-man, myself. We move scattered above the river, while loan traders pass us the other way, leading their stocky horse and mule-trains between lonely villages. They look fierce and open, and laughingly meet your eyes. The delicacy of the plains has gone..." Renowned travel writer Colin Thubron is about to climb Mount Kailis in Tibet, one of the holiest places in the world and hardly visited by westerners. Its slopes are rugged, glacial, and peopled by the toughest types alive. Its slopes are also full of stories

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. By Ian Fleming. An eccentric professor invents wacky machinery, but can't seem to make ends meet. When he invents a revolutionary car, a foreign government becomes interested in it, and resorts to skulduggery to get their hands on it.

Anna of the Five Towns. Arnold Bennett's powerful story of love, tyranny and rebellion set against the vitality and harshness of life in the Staffordshire Potteries in the late nineteenth century, dramatised by Helen Edmundson. Brought up in the repressive tradition of Methodism by her miserly father, Anna Tellwright dreams of independence and freedom. On coming of age she learns that she is to inherit a fortune and realises that she is loved by the charismatic Henry Mynors. But with the money comes responsibility and a growing bond with one of her tenants William Price.

Show Boat. By Edna Ferber. No little girl had a more enchanted childhood than Magnolia Hawks. Her daughter Kim, a famous actress, begins to tell the tale to a journalist from 'The New Yorker'. Andy Hawks, Magnolia's father, a river boat captain, buys the Cotton Blossom Floating Palace Theatre, much to the dismay of Parthenia, his wife. Parthy doesn't approve of the stage but Magnolia loves the actors and actresses who play to the audiences each night on a glittering show boat which proceeds up and down the Mississippi River. For Magnolia the Show Boat is a magical place full of wonderful company members. There's the beautiful and talented Julie, kind Schultzy and Jo, a black member of the crew, who plays the banjo and has the most amazing soulful voice that seems to seep up from the river itself when he sings 'Deep River'. Magnolia is destined to become a performer and before long her name is famous up and down the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri Rivers. Then the handsome and charming Gaylord Ravenal joins the company. Gaylord is actually a riverboat gambler and on the run from debts but he manages to bluff his way onto the boat by pretending to be an actor. But does anyone know his secret?

The Mauritius Command. Patrick O'Brian's naval epic set in 1809, dramatised in three parts by Roger Danes. Starring David Robb as Captain Jack Aubrey and Richard Dillane as Doctor Stephen Maturin. Following his adventures in HMS Surprise, Jack Aubrey has been kicking his heels at home when his old friend, Stephen Maturin, comes knocking at his door with welcome news. Jack is promoted to Commodore, and is to lead a squadron of English ships, charged with taking the Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius and Réunion from the French. In the course of the novel Jack must succeed against superior odds at sea and on land. Yet, in his new role as Commodore, Jack will need subtlety and subterfuge to win over the crews and subordinate captains of his own fleet. Based on a naval campaign in 1809-10 when Britain and France were bitterly engaged in protecting their trade routes around the southern tip of Africa.

Spring Storm. By Tennessee Williams. With Inroduction from director Laurie Sansom. A radio adaptation of the Royal and Derngate, Northampton production, broadcast to mark the centenary of the playwright's birth. Heavenly Critchfield has almost everything a young woman could desire, but when she's forced to decide between respectable suitor Arthur and handsome, wild lover Dick, her actions cause a chain of consequences that tear their lives apart.

Wuthering Heights. A new adaptation by Jonathan Holloway of Emily Bronte's great novel of violent obsession. Heathcliff and Catherine have entered the world's imagination as great lovers. Yet they kiss once only. Dante Gabriel Rossetti described the story: 'A fiend of a book. The action is laid in Hell - only it seems places and people have English names there.' There is extraordinary cruelty and madness in the story and yet its extremes grip us and each generation since the book was first published in 1847 has made what it will of the lovers and their disasters.
This contempary play contains strong language and some racist terms. Another version of Wuthering Heights on Page 11. 

The Devil in Amber. By Mark Gatiss. Dandy secret agent Lucifer Box investigates who's behind dodgy, drug-related dealings in 1920s Manhattan. Read by the author.





Pilgrim. Sebastian Baczkiewicz. Sebastian Baczkiewicz's epic fantasy Pilgrim concerns one William Palmer who, in 1185, is making a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Unknown to him, his fellow pilgrim was the Lord of Faerie and, when Palmer claims the Church will wipe out all the old superstitions of the faerie world, he is condemned by the Faerie Lord to walk for ever between his own world (the Hotbloods) and that of the faeries (the Greyfolk). Which seems a bit harsh. Fast forward to modern-day Britain and Palmer, now called Pilgrim, has spent the intervening 900 years doing good and helping to prevent humanity and the faeries from clashing. As a result, the more malevolent sprites and spirits have it in for him.
This is a little like a cross between 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Dracula'; the plays conjure up powerful images, and the plots are exciting.

Series 1
1. He Who Would Valiant Be. Pilgrim is summoned to help retrieve an egg stolen from a huge, powerful dragon.
2. Then Fancies Flee Away. Travelling through Yorkshire, Pilgrim meets a woman whose son has been in a strange coma for the past seven years.
3. No Foes Shall Stay His Might. He's recently captured that rarest of things - a young girl who is also a werewolf.
4. 'gainst All Disaster. Pilgrim must try to save Joseph of Arimethea, who is being held captive by a malevolent angel bent on the destruction of the Greyfolk.

Series 2
1. The Drowned Church. Pilgrim comes to Skaymer, a seaside town in Norfolk, to investigate the strange appearance of a young man believed drowned in the great flood of 1757.
2. The Lost Hotel.  In this latest adventure, Pilgrim has to return a changeling child - Ray Norris - to his rightful father, the King of the Greyfolk. Ray, meanwhile, is beginning to feel the benefits of his faerie lineage, with remarkable success on the stock market.
3. The Lady in the Lake. In search of runaway ward, Freya, Pilgrim goes to Hollisale Well and discovers a small community dedicated to the memory of a woman lured into the water seven years ago by a magical being.
4. Hope Springs. Pilgrim is the most reluctant father of the bride. He struggles to balance the prospect of being the quarry in a savage hunt forever and a day with seeing his daughter Doris condemned to an eternity married to Puck.

Series 3
1. Crowsfall Wood.  Pilgrim is called upon to help an old friend who is possessed by a deadly forest spirit. The first of four new dark fantasy adventures featuring the immortal William Palmer.
2. Sookey Hill. When Pilgrim investigates a story about a man being turned into a hare, he meets a dangerous new enemy. The second in a new series of dark fantasy adventures.
3. Aisley Bridge. Following the mysterious absence of a local girl, Pilgrim is drawn into the strange world of the lanes, and the immortal children who live there.
4. Lindie Island. In exchange for a precious bargaining chip in his negotiations with the King, Pilgrim is asked to sacrifice a man he has kept safe for centuries.