Arbery: Drama and Fiction, Old and New

"Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned to him and said: ‘Derrick, could you believe I fancied I saw a—-‘ As I laid my hand upon his breast, he trembled violently, and said, ‘O Lord yes sir! A dead man beckoning!’"

Who is the dead man? And why is he haunting the narrator? A forgotten ghost story from the master of nineteenth century literature, Charles Dickens. Abridged by Martin Foreman and read by Alistair Wales. 

Scroll down our previous podcasts to see the wide range of audio entertainment that we produce.

"I had seen her not as the living and breathing Berenice, but as the Berenice of a dream; not as a being of the earth, earthy, but as the abstraction of such a being; not as a thing to admire, but to analyse; not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation."

It's Hallowe'en. Close your eyes and listen very carefully to this story of obsession from Edgar Allan Poe. And if your lust for not the macabre is still not sated, scroll down our podcasts to find H P Lovecraft's The Outsider and Martin Foreman's Smoke. Wilkie Collins' A Terribly Strange Bed will also send a shiver down your spine. 

Thanks to 5518studios.com for library image.

"Once upon a time, in a land so far away that no one has ever been there in the whole history of story-telling, there lived a little boy. His name was Tusitala and he looked like every other poor boy you know from stories - not all of them true - who live in lands where the sun is hot and there are chickens to steal and oranges to pick when farmers aren’t looking."

A story of friendship, doves and disappointment by David Evans.

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"Everyone took the game very seriously. To them each hand and every card in that hand had its individuality and lived its own life. Hands were Iiked or disliked, lucky or unlucky. The cards always combined differently and these combinations were subject to no analysis or laws. The players used them for their own ends and the cards did their share, as if animated by their own wishes and caprices."

A story from the nineteenth-century Russian author and playwright, Leonid Andreyev. 

Sarah Schlesinger is a multilingual US actor and voiceover artist. Her previous podcast for Arbery was The Outsider, from the master of horror, H P Lovecraft. sarahschlesingervoiceovers.com

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"She was tired and her headache was getting worse. All she wanted to do was sit down somewhere in the shade and relax. She looked down to the end of the street; the square seemed far, far away."

A hot day, a woman alone in a foreign city . . .

Martin Foreman's work - comic, serious, challenging, entertaining - features regularly on Arbery Podcasts.

Elizabeth McNally is a professional Scottish actress, based in London, with a diverse experience of playing a variety of roles in both theatre and film.

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"That is why I never went down on bended knee, never uttered the spell and opened the magic box to reveal the enchanted ring that would transform our lives forever. I was afraid of revealing the last part of myself, afraid of embarrassment rising in your eyes, afraid of rejection in your voice."

After a year apart, a man returns to the woman he loves.

Martin Foreman's fiction ranges from the real to the fantastic, deeply serious to slyly comic, sensitive to offensive. From Now Until Eternity  is adapted from Cold Silence in Martin's collection First and Fiftieth and other stories, which is available on Amazon and from arberybooks.co.uk. Scroll down for podcasts of other stories by this author and see more of his work on martinforeman.com. 

Andrew Fettes is a multifaceted, actor and voice artist, comedy performer, writer and director, he lives in London with too many books and ukuleles. His previous podcast for Arbery was the acerbic, sexually explicit and, to some ears highly offensive, Homophobia, Darling.

"I have known and loved you for years, for centuries, for millenia. I have known and loved you since before knowledge and love, since before sight, before sound, before touch, before memory. I have known and loved you with every cell that has ever birthed and died in my body. I have known and loved you since you were me and we were one."

Love comes in many forms and may last for aeons . . . 

Story first published in First and Fiftieth and other stories, available from arberybooks.co.uk/

"Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb diamond necklace, and her heart began to beat with uncontrolled desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it around her neck, over her high-necked dress, and stood lost in ecstasy as she looked at herself."

Guy de Maupassant's classic story read by Scottish actor / voiceover artist Wendy Lap. 

Music: Johann Strauss's Auf Ferienreisen, Polka Schnell, Op. 133 performed by the Wiener Philharmoniker.

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"It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, and desolation; the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation; the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide."

Who or what - and where - is the Outsider? This classic intense story from the pen of H P Lovecraft demands to be heard several times to allow the full horror of the situation to unfold.

Lovecraft (1890-1937) is one of the best-known, most prolific and talented writers of horror and gothic fiction. Lovecraft on Wikipedia.

Sarah Schlesinger is a multilingual US actor and voiceover artist. sarahschlesingervoiceovers.com 

Image: adapted from wall.alphacoders.com

SFX: adapted from classiccat.net / fesliyanstudios.com / sound-image.com

If you enjoy this story, subscribe to hear our weekly episodes - and scroll down our previous podcasts to see the wide range of audio entertainment that we produce

An out, proud gay man condemns homophobia in his workplace.  WARNING: A sexually explicit story using very strong language and with subject matter that some listeners may find offensive.

Martin Foreman's fiction ranges from real to fantastic, deeply serious to slyly comic, sensitive to offensive. See more of his work on martinforeman.com. 

Andrew Fettes is a multifaceted, actor and voice artist, comedy performer, writer and director, he lives in London with too many books and ukuleles.