On 4 [Drama]

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Broadcast

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20250817

John Hersey's searing account of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath.

John Hersey's Hiroshima is a ground-breaking piece of journalism that gave voice to the survivors of the 1945 atomic bombing. Written after two weeks spent interviewing citizens in the devastated city, the article was originally published in The New Yorker in 1946 under tight secrecy, due to U.S. suppression of the bomb's long-term effects. It sold out rapidly and helped shift public understanding from triumphalist narratives to the harrowing human cost of nuclear war.

Hailed by New York University as the most important work of journalism in the 20th century, Hiroshima remains a moving testament to the power of bearing witness.

Hersey focuses his account on six of the survivors he interviewed. Miss Toshiko Sasaki; Dr. Masakazu Fujii; Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura; Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge; Dr Terufumi Sasaki; Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto.

In Part Two, the survivors come to terms with the medium and longer term effects of the bombing.

Read by:

Akie Kotabe

Ami Okumura Jones

Dai Tabuchi

Kae Alexander

Mark Edel-Hunt

Matt McCooey

Directed by Anne Isger

Sound by Andy Garratt

Production co-ordination by Sara Benaim and Jon Powell

A BBC Studios Audio Production

Part two of John Hersey's searing account of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath

John Hersey's searing account of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath. The survivors come to terms with the medium and longer term effects of the bombing.

[LISTEN NOW]

20250831

The evolution of Charles Darwin's world-changing study, On the Origin of Species. Darwin enlists the help of his children in experiments that clarify his own thinking on animal collaboration, variation and natural selection. A new drama by Sarah Woods, recorded on location in Darwin's former home, Down House, Kent, by kind permission of English Heritage.

Darwin....Robert Glenister

Emma.....Clare Corbett

Etty.....Madeleine Grey

Parslow/Hooker.....Clive Hayward

Lenny.....Bertie Cresswell

Horace.....Wilbur Connabeare

Production Co-ordinator.....Eleri Sydney McAuliffe

Sound Designer.....Nigel Lewis

Directed by Emma Harding, BBC Audio Wales

Drama about the evolution of Darwin's world-changing study, On the Origin of Species.

Drama about the evolution of Charles Darwin's world-changing study, On the Origin of Species, recorded on location in his former home, Down House, Kent. By Sarah Woods.

[LISTEN NOW]

20251109

by Jane Austen

dramatised by Clara Glynn

Austen's early novel is a coming-of-age narrative and a satire on the 1790s vogue for sensationalist Gothic fiction.

Broadcast to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen.

Part Two

Having spent some weeks in Bath, Catherine has received an invitation from the Tilneys to stay at their home, Northanger Abbey.

In the halls and corridors of this ancient building and fuelled by her love of the Gothic novel, Catherine's imagination runs riot.

Catherine Morland - Madeleine Gray

Henry TIlney - Will Howard

Eleanor Tilney - Scarlett Courtney

General Tilney - John Heffernan

Isabella Thorpe - Cecilia Appiah

Mrs Morland - Jasmine Hyde

James Morland/Captain Tilney - Django Bevan

Directed by Gaynor Macfarlane

Sound by Keith Graham and Sam Dickinson

Production Coordinator - Bethany Woodhead

New adaptation of Jane Austen's first novel, to mark the 250th Anniversary of her birth.

Fuelled by her love of the Gothic novel, the halls and corridors of Northanger Abbey cause Catherine's imagination to run riot.

[LISTEN NOW]

20260211

Autobiographical drama from Gwyneth Lewis, the former National Poet of Wales, about how her experience of chronic migraine led her to seek the companionship of a long-dead writer, Margiad Evans. Evans' outstanding, but largely unknown memoirs, A Ray of Darkness (1952) and The Nightingale Silenced (1954) formed the first serious portrayal of epilepsy since Dostoevsky's The Idiot, and offer an invaluable insight into the condition.

This lyrical drama shows two writers, in different circumstances, making the best of their work, in the shadow of their respective illnesses.

G.....Eiry Thomas

Migraine.....Sharon Morgan

Margiad.....Clare Corbett

Leighton.....Richard Elfyn

Dr Golla.....Sam Dale

Doctor.....Sam Swann

Poems read by Gwyneth Lewis and published by Bloodaxe

Production Co-ordinator.....Eleri McAuliffe

Sound Designer.....Rhys Morris

Directed by Emma Harding for BBC Audio Drama Wales

The lives and imaginations of two writers interweave in this lyric drama by Gwyneth Lewis.

The lives and imaginations of two writers interweave in this lyrical autobiographical drama by Gwyneth Lewis, former National Poet of Wales. Stars Eiry Thomas and Sharon Morgan.

[LISTEN NOW]

20260215

A new dramatisation of Margaret Mitchell's famous and contested novel, set against the epic backdrop of the American Civil War and the collapse of the old Southern order, and centred on the fiercely determined Scarlett O'Hara.

Part of The Story of America, a major collection of dramatisations of milestone American titles marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of the United States. This three-part drama revisits a foundational American story with fresh eyes.

An iconic and stunning tale of love and loss, of a nation divided and a people forever changed.

Atlanta has gone up in flames and Scarlett anxiously waits to see if Rhett can help them escape back to Tara.

Scarlett - Samantha Dakin

Rhett - Jacob Fortune-Lloyd

Ashley - Joseph May

Melanie - Rebekah Murrell

Prissy - Madeline Charlemagne

Gerald - Sam Dale

Suellen - Clare Corbett

Pork - Richard Pepple

Sam - Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong

Frank Kennedy - Finlay Robertson

And the Narrator and Mary - Clare Perkins

Directed by Tracey Neale

Story of America is a major collection of dramatisations of milestone American titles marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of the United States.

Set against the epic backdrop of the American Civil War, Margaret Mitchell's 1936 Pulitzer Prize-winning Gone with the Wind remains an iconic and stunning tale of love and loss, of a nation mortally divided and a people forever changed. It was an instant best seller and has now sold more than 30 million copies worldwide: the screen adaptation of 1939 became the world's biggest box office selling film. As recently as 2014 it was voted the most popular book in America after the Bible and The New York Times describes it as ‘Beyond a doubt one of the most remarkable first novels produced by an American writer. It is also one of the best.

The famous story of the trials of feisty, once-spoiled Scarlett O'Hara as she struggles to adapt to the shattering of her world is both an epic adventure and one of literature's greatest romances. It is about people who fight to the end for their dreams. But it is also about what happens when dreams die. How do you rebuild a life when your world is blasted into rubble? How do you bring lasting peace to a nation that is fundamentally conflicted? What does freedom mean and what does it look like when everything you knew is gone and everyone you loved is dead?

‘War is men's business, not ladies,' the young men of the novel tell themselves as they prepare for battle. And yet Gone with the Wind gives us a young heroine whose spirit and ability to survive outstrips the male world around her. It reminds us that the repercussions of civil war continue to be felt for generations: the past has consequences in the present. This is a major retelling of a story that remains at the heart of the American experience.

Dramatist:

Rachel Joyce is a best-selling author and award winning audio drama writer. Her first novel, The Pilgrimage of Harold Fry has been adapted for both film and stage. Rachel adapted all of the Brontë canon for Radio 4. Her latest novel, The Homemade God, was published in February.

Producer and Director: Tracey Neale

Dramatist: Rachel Joyce

Script Consultant: Beverly Andrews

Sound Design: Keith Graham, Peter Ringrose, Sam Dickinson and Cole Colbert

Production Co-Ordinator: Luke MacGregor and Amy Woods

The American Civil War novel, a stunning tale of love and loss, dramatised by Rachel Joyce

Set against the epic backdrop of the American Civil War, an iconic and stunning tale of love and loss, of a nation divided and a people forever changed. Dramatised by Rachel Joyce.

[LISTEN NOW]

20260331

Hamburg, 1992. A pipe-bomb goes off in a department store at one in the morning, and a ransom note arrives shortly after, demanding a million marks and signed 'Uncle Scrooge'. The police are baffled. The press are delighted. And a nation starts rooting for the wrong side.

A cat-and-mouse thriller based on an extraordinary true story, about a lone eccentric who seems to be running his criminal campaign straight from the pages of a Donald Duck comic book, and the police team who realise the only way to catch him is to make him feel understood.

Warm, witty and surprisingly tender, it might just be unlike any true-crime story you've heard before. Based on real events with imagined scenes.

Narrator . . . . . Clare Corbett

Funke . . . . . Blake Harrison

Daleki . . . . . Ben Crowe

Brockmann . . . . . Amaka Okafor

Springborn . . . . . John Macmillan

Blashke . . . . . Sam Swann

Weber . . . . . Sam Dale

Writer: Simon Scardifield

Sound design: Sharon Hughes

Technical producers: Keith Graham & Jenni Burnett

Casting Manager: Alex Curran

Production co-ordinator: Luke MacGregor

Director: Sasha Yevtushenko

A failed cartoonist turns bomb-maker in a real-life game of cat and mouse.

After a bomb and a ransom note signed 'Uncle Scrooge', Hamburg police are drawn into a cat-and-mouse game with a lone eccentric whose gadgetry keeps leaving them empty-handed.

[LISTEN NOW]

20250629

Simon Scardifield's new dramatization of Muriel Spark's startling portrait of peacetime in London.

Summer, 1945. Victory in Europe has just been announced. A group of young women brace for the future as the shattered world around them is put back into place. Neither they, nor Britain, will ever be the same again.

The intelligent, but plain, Jane Wright is pursuing her dream career in the ‘world of books'. Jane lives at the May of Teck Club, a London hostel for girls of ‘slender means'. Also resident is the dazzling Selina Redwood, who values elegance above everything. And Joanna Childe, an elocution teacher whose poetry recitations keep the world at arm's length. The slimmest girls of the May of Teck like to escape via a small toilet window to sunbathe on the roof. This summer feels full of possibility, novelty and thrill.

But – unbeknownst to all - a danger is lying in wait. And it will threaten to destroy the world as they know it.

We follow Jane, hungry for life and freedom, through the unpredictable, transformative summer months of 1945.

CAST (in order of appearance)

Narrator - Maggie Service

George/Felix - Joseph Kloska

Jane - Rose Basista

Anne - Madeleine Gray

Tilly - Tanvi Virmani

Greggie - Rhiannon Neads

Joanna - Ell Potter

Selina - Cecilia Appiah

Rudi - Mihai Arsene

Nicholas - Barney Fishwick

Dramatist - Simon Scardifield

Director - Anne Isger

Sound - Andrew Garratt, Neva Missirian

Production Co-ordinator - Gaelan Davis-Connolly

A BBC Studios Audio production for BBC Radio 4

1945. London. A group of bright young women brace for the future as the world finds peace

Muriel Spark's startling portrait of 1945. A group of young women brace for the future as the world transitions to peace. Neither they, nor Britain, will ever be the same again.

[LISTEN NOW]

Episodes

First Broadcast	Comments
20250817	John Hersey's searing account of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath. John Hersey's Hiroshima is a ground-breaking piece of journalism that gave voice to the survivors of the 1945 atomic bombing. Written after two weeks spent interviewing citizens in the devastated city, the article was originally published in The New Yorker in 1946 under tight secrecy, due to U.S. suppression of the bomb's long-term effects. It sold out rapidly and helped shift public understanding from triumphalist narratives to the harrowing human cost of nuclear war. Hailed by New York University as the most important work of journalism in the 20th century, Hiroshima remains a moving testament to the power of bearing witness. Hersey focuses his account on six of the survivors he interviewed. Miss Toshiko Sasaki; Dr. Masakazu Fujii; Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura; Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge; Dr Terufumi Sasaki; Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto. In Part Two, the survivors come to terms with the medium and longer term effects of the bombing. Read by: Akie Kotabe Ami Okumura Jones Dai Tabuchi Kae Alexander Mark Edel-Hunt Matt McCooey Directed by Anne Isger Sound by Andy Garratt Production co-ordination by Sara Benaim and Jon Powell A BBC Studios Audio Production Part two of John Hersey's searing account of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath John Hersey's searing account of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath. The survivors come to terms with the medium and longer term effects of the bombing. [LISTEN NOW]
20250831	The evolution of Charles Darwin's world-changing study, On the Origin of Species. Darwin enlists the help of his children in experiments that clarify his own thinking on animal collaboration, variation and natural selection. A new drama by Sarah Woods, recorded on location in Darwin's former home, Down House, Kent, by kind permission of English Heritage. Darwin....Robert Glenister Emma.....Clare Corbett Etty.....Madeleine Grey Parslow/Hooker.....Clive Hayward Lenny.....Bertie Cresswell Horace.....Wilbur Connabeare Production Co-ordinator.....Eleri Sydney McAuliffe Sound Designer.....Nigel Lewis Directed by Emma Harding, BBC Audio Wales Drama about the evolution of Darwin's world-changing study, On the Origin of Species. Drama about the evolution of Charles Darwin's world-changing study, On the Origin of Species, recorded on location in his former home, Down House, Kent. By Sarah Woods. [LISTEN NOW]
20251109	by Jane Austen dramatised by Clara Glynn Austen's early novel is a coming-of-age narrative and a satire on the 1790s vogue for sensationalist Gothic fiction. Broadcast to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen. Part Two Having spent some weeks in Bath, Catherine has received an invitation from the Tilneys to stay at their home, Northanger Abbey. In the halls and corridors of this ancient building and fuelled by her love of the Gothic novel, Catherine's imagination runs riot. Catherine Morland - Madeleine Gray Henry TIlney - Will Howard Eleanor Tilney - Scarlett Courtney General Tilney - John Heffernan Isabella Thorpe - Cecilia Appiah Mrs Morland - Jasmine Hyde James Morland/Captain Tilney - Django Bevan Directed by Gaynor Macfarlane Sound by Keith Graham and Sam Dickinson Production Coordinator - Bethany Woodhead New adaptation of Jane Austen's first novel, to mark the 250th Anniversary of her birth. Fuelled by her love of the Gothic novel, the halls and corridors of Northanger Abbey cause Catherine's imagination to run riot. [LISTEN NOW]
20260211	Autobiographical drama from Gwyneth Lewis, the former National Poet of Wales, about how her experience of chronic migraine led her to seek the companionship of a long-dead writer, Margiad Evans. Evans' outstanding, but largely unknown memoirs, A Ray of Darkness (1952) and The Nightingale Silenced (1954) formed the first serious portrayal of epilepsy since Dostoevsky's The Idiot, and offer an invaluable insight into the condition. This lyrical drama shows two writers, in different circumstances, making the best of their work, in the shadow of their respective illnesses. G.....Eiry Thomas Migraine.....Sharon Morgan Margiad.....Clare Corbett Leighton.....Richard Elfyn Dr Golla.....Sam Dale Doctor.....Sam Swann Poems read by Gwyneth Lewis and published by Bloodaxe Production Co-ordinator.....Eleri McAuliffe Sound Designer.....Rhys Morris Directed by Emma Harding for BBC Audio Drama Wales The lives and imaginations of two writers interweave in this lyric drama by Gwyneth Lewis. The lives and imaginations of two writers interweave in this lyrical autobiographical drama by Gwyneth Lewis, former National Poet of Wales. Stars Eiry Thomas and Sharon Morgan. [LISTEN NOW]
20260215	A new dramatisation of Margaret Mitchell's famous and contested novel, set against the epic backdrop of the American Civil War and the collapse of the old Southern order, and centred on the fiercely determined Scarlett O'Hara. Part of The Story of America, a major collection of dramatisations of milestone American titles marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of the United States. This three-part drama revisits a foundational American story with fresh eyes. An iconic and stunning tale of love and loss, of a nation divided and a people forever changed. Atlanta has gone up in flames and Scarlett anxiously waits to see if Rhett can help them escape back to Tara. Scarlett - Samantha Dakin Rhett - Jacob Fortune-Lloyd Ashley - Joseph May Melanie - Rebekah Murrell Prissy - Madeline Charlemagne Gerald - Sam Dale Suellen - Clare Corbett Pork - Richard Pepple Sam - Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong Frank Kennedy - Finlay Robertson And the Narrator and Mary - Clare Perkins Directed by Tracey Neale Story of America is a major collection of dramatisations of milestone American titles marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of the United States. Set against the epic backdrop of the American Civil War, Margaret Mitchell's 1936 Pulitzer Prize-winning Gone with the Wind remains an iconic and stunning tale of love and loss, of a nation mortally divided and a people forever changed. It was an instant best seller and has now sold more than 30 million copies worldwide: the screen adaptation of 1939 became the world's biggest box office selling film. As recently as 2014 it was voted the most popular book in America after the Bible and The New York Times describes it as ‘Beyond a doubt one of the most remarkable first novels produced by an American writer. It is also one of the best. The famous story of the trials of feisty, once-spoiled Scarlett O'Hara as she struggles to adapt to the shattering of her world is both an epic adventure and one of literature's greatest romances. It is about people who fight to the end for their dreams. But it is also about what happens when dreams die. How do you rebuild a life when your world is blasted into rubble? How do you bring lasting peace to a nation that is fundamentally conflicted? What does freedom mean and what does it look like when everything you knew is gone and everyone you loved is dead? ‘War is men's business, not ladies,' the young men of the novel tell themselves as they prepare for battle. And yet Gone with the Wind gives us a young heroine whose spirit and ability to survive outstrips the male world around her. It reminds us that the repercussions of civil war continue to be felt for generations: the past has consequences in the present. This is a major retelling of a story that remains at the heart of the American experience. Dramatist: Rachel Joyce is a best-selling author and award winning audio drama writer. Her first novel, The Pilgrimage of Harold Fry has been adapted for both film and stage. Rachel adapted all of the Brontë canon for Radio 4. Her latest novel, The Homemade God, was published in February. Producer and Director: Tracey Neale Dramatist: Rachel Joyce Script Consultant: Beverly Andrews Sound Design: Keith Graham, Peter Ringrose, Sam Dickinson and Cole Colbert Production Co-Ordinator: Luke MacGregor and Amy Woods The American Civil War novel, a stunning tale of love and loss, dramatised by Rachel Joyce Set against the epic backdrop of the American Civil War, an iconic and stunning tale of love and loss, of a nation divided and a people forever changed. Dramatised by Rachel Joyce. [LISTEN NOW]
20260331	Hamburg, 1992. A pipe-bomb goes off in a department store at one in the morning, and a ransom note arrives shortly after, demanding a million marks and signed 'Uncle Scrooge'. The police are baffled. The press are delighted. And a nation starts rooting for the wrong side. A cat-and-mouse thriller based on an extraordinary true story, about a lone eccentric who seems to be running his criminal campaign straight from the pages of a Donald Duck comic book, and the police team who realise the only way to catch him is to make him feel understood. Warm, witty and surprisingly tender, it might just be unlike any true-crime story you've heard before. Based on real events with imagined scenes. Narrator . . . . . Clare Corbett Funke . . . . . Blake Harrison Daleki . . . . . Ben Crowe Brockmann . . . . . Amaka Okafor Springborn . . . . . John Macmillan Blashke . . . . . Sam Swann Weber . . . . . Sam Dale Writer: Simon Scardifield Sound design: Sharon Hughes Technical producers: Keith Graham & Jenni Burnett Casting Manager: Alex Curran Production co-ordinator: Luke MacGregor Director: Sasha Yevtushenko A failed cartoonist turns bomb-maker in a real-life game of cat and mouse. After a bomb and a ransom note signed 'Uncle Scrooge', Hamburg police are drawn into a cat-and-mouse game with a lone eccentric whose gadgetry keeps leaving them empty-handed. [LISTEN NOW]
20250629	Simon Scardifield's new dramatization of Muriel Spark's startling portrait of peacetime in London. Summer, 1945. Victory in Europe has just been announced. A group of young women brace for the future as the shattered world around them is put back into place. Neither they, nor Britain, will ever be the same again. The intelligent, but plain, Jane Wright is pursuing her dream career in the ‘world of books'. Jane lives at the May of Teck Club, a London hostel for girls of ‘slender means'. Also resident is the dazzling Selina Redwood, who values elegance above everything. And Joanna Childe, an elocution teacher whose poetry recitations keep the world at arm's length. The slimmest girls of the May of Teck like to escape via a small toilet window to sunbathe on the roof. This summer feels full of possibility, novelty and thrill. But – unbeknownst to all - a danger is lying in wait. And it will threaten to destroy the world as they know it. We follow Jane, hungry for life and freedom, through the unpredictable, transformative summer months of 1945. CAST (in order of appearance) Narrator - Maggie Service George/Felix - Joseph Kloska Jane - Rose Basista Anne - Madeleine Gray Tilly - Tanvi Virmani Greggie - Rhiannon Neads Joanna - Ell Potter Selina - Cecilia Appiah Rudi - Mihai Arsene Nicholas - Barney Fishwick Dramatist - Simon Scardifield Director - Anne Isger Sound - Andrew Garratt, Neva Missirian Production Co-ordinator - Gaelan Davis-Connolly A BBC Studios Audio production for BBC Radio 4 1945. London. A group of bright young women brace for the future as the world finds peace Muriel Spark's startling portrait of 1945. A group of young women brace for the future as the world transitions to peace. Neither they, nor Britain, will ever be the same again. [LISTEN NOW]