These dramas and stories can be heard time after time and never cease to give enjoyment:

Death and the Dancing Footman…1987
SNT 08.08.87. Dramatized by Alan Downer. A Ngaio Marsh mystery set in a snowbound village.

Death of an Ugly Sister....1994
SNT 10.12.94. Roy Barraclough is excellent as a pantomime actor whose life is unravelling. Oh yes it is!

Lament For A Maker…1988
SNT 31.12.88. A Michael Innes story in which Ranald Guthrie, the laird of a Highland castle, falls from the ramparts on a wild winter night before Christmas. Appleby investigates.

Merlin and Arthur on the Way to Glastonbury from Deptford High Street (Not forgetting whatserface)…1993
SNT 11.12.93. By Nigel Baldwin. A comedy version of the Arthurian story. Arthur is stuck in 20th Century Deptford and Merlyn needs to bring him back.

Billy Bunter's Christmas Party…1986
SNT 13.12.86. The esteemed Bunter enveigles the Famous Five of The Remove into joining him at his Uncle’s country house where ghostly and crooked goings-on ensue.

MR James at Christmas… 2007
24th to 28th December 2007. 5 Stories read by Derek Jacobi.

Christmas Holiday…1986
The Monday Play 28.12.86. By Somerset Maugham. At Christmas 1938 Charley goes to Paris to visit his old schoolfriend Simon. As ignorant of the storm clouds lowering over Europe as he is of any world outside his own comfortable, cultured middle-class English background.

Christmas Day at Kirkby Cottage…2009
BBC Radio 7 25 December 2009. By Anthony Trollope. With Mary Wimbush in one of her last rôles.

The Greek Who Stole Christmas… 2002
BBC Radio 4 Go For It, 8 to 22 December 2002. By Anthony Horowitz, read by Harry Enfield, James Cromwell and Kate Hardie.

Happy Christmas, Jennings…1973
BBC Radio 4 4th Dimension 22 December 1973. It was all due to Jennings that the smooth-running school routine disintegrated into turmoil and confusion on the last day of the Christmas term. Mr Wilkins is played by Anthony Buckeridge and Atkinson by Jeremy Clarkson.

Season's Greetings… 1999
27.12.99. The second of two BBC Radio adaptations of this Alan Ayckbourn play.

Christmas with the Detectives - Father Brown - The Flying Stars… 2011
16-12-11. Read by Tom Conti.

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Christmas Carol…1993
The game spoofs Dickens’ story with a characteristic mix of broad brush humour and knowledgeable mimicry.

The Holly and the Ivy… 1971
BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Theatre 13 December 1971. The magic of Christmas is seen to work in mysterious ways in this classic stage-play - a feel-good, festive treat set in 1947. Written by Wynyard Browne and adapted for radio by Jonathan Hall.

The Masterson Inheritance Christmas Special… 1993
Improvised comedy at its best.

Round The Horne....1966
The Hunchback of Notre Dame,Christmas Day 1966. Kenneth Horne, most unusually, was absent.

A Christmas Carol… 2008
BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime 15th to 26th December 2008. Read by David Jason

Black Hearts in Battersea…2009
BBC Radio 4 Wed 23 & Thu 24 Dec 2009. By Joan Aiken. In the early 19th century, orphaned country boy Simon leaves his home and heads for London. John Rowe plays the Duke.

Just William - The Christmas Truce…1990
BBC Radio 4, 24 December 1990. Read by Martin Jarvis.

Lines from My Grandfather's Forehead Christmas Special...1971
BBC Radio 3 24.12.71.

Markheim…2006
BBC Radio 4, Afternoon Play 01.02.06. By Robert Louis Stevenson. On Christmas Day 1886, with London shrouded in fog, a man shadows a girl across Blackfriars Bridge. His name is Markheim and his intentions are unremittingly dark.

My Favourite New Year Listening:

The Affair at Grover Station....1997
BBC Radio 4 Saturday Playhouse 27.12.97. A classic American ghost tale by Jonathan Holloway, based on a short story by Willa Cather, "Terrapin", and set on New Year’s Eve. John Rowe plays Mr Hammond.

AW, Diversity Website



Sitemap