The Audio Drama Show

To celebrate the centennial of the 20th century’s most seminal poem this is our 2017 recording, re-issued for a limited time only.

Its aural landscape highlights and enhances the themes, imagery, and allusiveness contained in the fractured consciousness of Eliot and Ezra Pound’s work, without gimmickry or radical “re-interpretation”. 

Included are minor additions to the published version from Eliot’s original pre-Pound poem, to add clarity and complexity. At its heart (as it is at the centre of the work) is the male/female character and multiple voices of Tiresias - the words and sounds. Available to listen to and/or download from July 15 to November 15, 2022. The poem's broadcast is by kind permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.  

Talking humanity creeps into the chance encounter at the Women's Institute between uptight Lydia and the educated but impoverished itinerant Colin. Then external reality arrives: the WI guest speaker cannot make it. Shakespeare's words provide the platform for a replacement speaker and hope to emerge, before tragedy strikes.

Episode 2 of 2

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Taking shelter from the rain in a village hall somewhere in England, an educated, homeless man is confronted by Lydia, a "formidable" member of the local Women's Institute. Under threat of expulsion, he engages with the lady as she tries to organise the evening's meeting events. Mutual personal revelations follow. But will he be allowed to stay?

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In this final part of the series, called "His Wonderful End", our waitering hero Mr Christopher returns - and he is a worried man. He has successfully sold the stories discovered in Somebody's luggage to a publisher. Now he waits in fear lest the author should show up and claim them as his rightful own.  A new guest does arrive; the fateful Room 24B is mentioned; the tension mounts. Is he Somebody? Will Mr Christopher's livelihood and reputation survive if it is him?  Dickens keeps him and us hanging on almost to the very enjoyable end.

Episode 7 of 7

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In the second and final part of "The Tale of the Obliging Mr Blorage" (discovered in His Hatbox), Dick Blorage is still not on board with the revelatory properties of Lady Verita's magical Chair of Truth. There is a harsh lesson to be learned from her, before Dick grows a pair, deals with those who exploit his niceness, and finds his true partner for life. 

Episode 6 of 7  

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"The Tale of the Obliging Mr Blorage" is the amusing contribution of female Victorian writer Julia Cecilia Stretton to Dickens' "Somebody's Luggage" short story compendium.

In two parts, Part 1 (discovered in His Portmanteau) introduces the listener to Mr Richard Blorage - probably the nicest man ever to succeed in business: a quality which, sadly, does not translate into a happy love life.  Desperate - and a bit tipsy - he invokes the spirit world for help, and gets more than he bargained for...

Episode 5 of 7

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"The Story of the Fine Artist" (discovered in His Brown Paper Parcel)
 
Thomas is not just an artist, but a Fine Artist in Victorian London. He is a riddler. He is highly strung. He has a friend who is quickly lost. He acquires a girlfriend who decides to leave him. Both object to his attitude to the work of other artists. Why? What is the truth about Thomas, the Fine Artist?

Episode 4 of 7

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This is the third of our short-story adaptations from Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers" and his first Yuletide supernatural tale.  It tells of Gabriel Grub, a morose, lonely and drunken gravedigger who hates people, particularly during the festive season.  

One Christmas Eve, while at work in the graveyard, he encounters a startlingly scary Goblin Queen (and her many subjects), who terrorises and whisks him away to her underworld lair where Grub is shown the true human values of the season.

Dickens was to return triumphantly to this theme seven years later with "A Christmas Carol".

Remastered version.

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Having seen off the first ghost, Scrooge's education in the current lives of others during the festive season  proceeds to the houses of the Cratchit family and his nephew, courtesy of a jolly Ghost of Christmas Present.  

With a grim parting from him, the final, mysterious spectre appears to show Scrooge a series of visions for life after death, in which his focus on money and gain "leave not a wrack behind".

Now fully chastened, the miser's spirit breaks - into something much more human.

Episode 2 of 2.

Remastered version.

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Charles Dickens' classic Yuletide tale is presented in a two-part adaptation that gives you more of the story, focusing particularly on the corrosive effects of early Victorian capitalism.

In Part 1, we see Scrooge in all his business and money-focused selfishness - until Jacob Marley and the Ghost of Christmas Past show up, confronting him with long-forgotten events that end with violent consequences.

Episode 1 of 2.

Remastered version

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