Episodes
| Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Journal Of The Plague Year | 20160717 | 20170527 (R4) | As part of BBC Radio 4's Defoe season, Ben Miles stars as the chameleon writer, businessman, debtor and hack, Daniel Defoe. In 1722, hoping to keep his creditors at bay, Defoe begins his fictional 'journal' of the Great Plague of 1665. But he soon comes to be haunted by the people he is conjuring. Dramatised by Michael Butt Directed by Emma Harding. Ben Miles stars as Daniel Defoe, writing his fictional documentary of the Great Plague. Through documentary and drama, Radio 4 put a spotlight on 18th-century writer Daniel Defoe As part of BBC Radio 4's Defoe season, Ben Miles stars as the chameleon writer, businessman, debtor and hack, Daniel Defoe. In 1722, hoping to keep his creditors at bay, Defoe begins his fictional 'journal' of the Great Plague of 1665. But he soon comes to be haunted by the people he is conjuring. Dramatised by Michael Butt Directed by Emma Harding. Ben Miles stars as Daniel Defoe, writing his fictional documentary of the Great Plague. Through documentary and drama, Radio 4 put a spotlight on 18th-century writer Daniel Defoe |
| Defoe: Merchant, Writer, Convict, Spy | 20160708 | Throughout his life Daniel Defoe was never far from trouble and died hiding from creditors. Philip Palmer's biographical drama tells the story of a man trying to survive in an extremely hard world; of how he wrote his way out of trouble in prison, came to the attention of one of the most powerful men in England, and became a spy for the government in the lead up to the Act of Union.
Director: Sasha Yevtushenko.
Philip Palmer's mostly true story of Daniel Defoe, the great 18th-century writer. Through documentary and drama, Radio 4 put a spotlight on 18th-century writer Daniel Defoe | |
| Defoe: The Facts and the Fictions | 20160714 | Mark Lawson presents a documentary exploring the far-reaching influence of Daniel Defoe. Bookshops have separate sections for Fiction, Non-Fiction, Autobiography, Travel Writing, Journalism, Economics and Politics. But all of these different forms of writing were more or less created by one author - Daniel Defoe. Defoe also pioneered, three hundred years ago, what has become one of the most fashionable literary tactics of the 21st century: "faction", which blurs history and story.
Although now considered foundations of the realistic English novel, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1721) were initially published with only the names of their narrators on the cover, and were sold and bought as memoirs. Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), an account of the bubonic epidemic, is still often read as reportage, but was "faction" based on extensive research. His book, A Tour Through the Whole Isles of Great Britain (1724), can be seen as one of the beginnings of travel writing and The Complete English Tradesman (1726) is one of the first business or economic texts. As the author of more than 500 pamphlets, Defoe is also a forefather of British journalism.
In the company of writers, biographers, critics, and cartoonists, Mark Lawson tells the story of the man who never stopped telling stories.
Mark Lawson presents a documentary exploring the far-reaching influence of Daniel Defoe. Through documentary and drama, Radio 4 put a spotlight on 18th-century writer Daniel Defoe |