“I have made up my mind that I must have money,” says the character Bella Wilfer in Charles Dickens’ last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend – and she is one of many characters in the book for whom “money, money, money, and what money can make of life” is an overriding concern.

Dickens was deeply concerned with the increasing levels of inequality he saw around him in 1860s London, a city at the heart of the largest and richest empire in the world. In Our Mutual Friend he presents characters trapped by their pursuit of money, and who reveal just what they are prepared to give up of their better selves in order to achieve financial gain.

John Yorke is joined by Dickens’ own great-great-great grand-daughter Lucinda Hawksley, novelist and critic Philip Hensher, and Dr Emily Bell from the University of Leeds.

John has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for R4.

Contributors:

Reader: Paul Dodgson

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4