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Thornton Wilder: Our Town, The Bridge of San Luis Rey & More
- A BBC Radio Full-Cast Drama Collection
- Narrated by: Full Cast, Robert Glenister, Annette Badland, Tom Goodman-Hill, Barbara Barnes, Helen McCrory, Robert Hardy, Sean Barrett, Elizabeth Proud
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
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Publisher's summary
Four of Thornton Wilder's most acclaimed works, adapted for BBC Radio - plus bonus material exploring his life and career
Thornton Wilder is one of America's most important literary figures. He won the Pulitzer Prize three times - for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and the plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth - and is the only person to be awarded the Pulitzer for both fiction and drama. Included here are four of his key works, set in different times and places, but sharing the same fundamental motifs - the universality of human experience and our search for life's meaning.
Our Town, his timeless tale of love, marriage, birth and death in a small American community, stars Ed Bishop, William Roberts and Liza Ross. It is preceded by a 10-minute introductory extract from Free Thinking, in which presenter Anne McElvoy and actor/director David Cromer discuss the play's themes and techniques.
Wilder's masterpiece, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, tells the story of the five victims of a bridge collapse, and the eyewitness who sets out to understand why they were fated to die. A poignant philosophical fable, it features a stellar cast including Annette Badland, Robert Glenister, Tom Goodman-Hill and Helen McCrory.
Adapted from the play by Jerome Kilty, The Ides of March is based on Wilder's epistolary novel centred around the last days of the Roman republic, and stars Robert Hardy as Julius Caesar. Next, Ed Bishop reads from Heaven's My Destination, the comic tale of an amateur philosopher who leaves a trail of chaos wherever he goes.
Finally, in a fascinating episode of Front Row, Mark Lawson, theatre director David Lan and New York Times theatre critic Mel Gussow discuss how Wilder became a literary icon, and launched a quiet revolution in American theatre.
Cast and credits
Written by Thornton Wilder
Copyright © by The Wilder Family LLC 1927 (The Bridge of San Luis Rey), 1935 (Heaven's My Destination), 1938 (Our Town), 1948 (The Ides of March)
Free Thinking
Presented by Anne McElvoy
With David Cromer
Produced by Zahid Warley
First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 16 October 2014
Our Town
Stage Manager - Ed Bishop
Dr Gibbs - William Roberts
Mrs Gibbs - Liza Ross
George Gibbs - Ben Fairman
Rebecca Gibbs - Teresa Gallagher
Mr Webb - Garrick Hagon
Mrs Webb/Dead Woman - Shelley Thompson
Emily Webb - Barbara Barnes
Joe Crowell/Si Crowell - Tom Bevan
With Vincent Marzello, Peter Whitman, John Evitts and Frances Jeater
Directed by David Hitchinson
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 1 July 1995
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Madre Maria del Pilar - Annette Badland
Uncle Pio - Michael Feast
Jaime/Boy - Frederick Forge
Brother Juniper/Captain Alvarado - Robert Glenister
Esteban/Manuel - Tom Goodman-Hill
Pepita/Dona Clara - Jasmine Hyde
Camila, la Perichole - Helen McCrory
Marquesa de Montemayor - Sian Phillips
Dramatised by Judith Adams
Directed by Gaynor MacFarlane
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 12 May 2002
The Ides of March
Narrator - Patrick Tull
Caesar - Robert Hardy
Brutus - Sean Barrett
Clodia - Margaret Robertson
Cleopatra - Elizabeth Proud
Pompeia, Caesar's wife - Patricia Gallimore
Julia, Caesar's aunt - Betty Hardy
Clodius - Nigel Lambert
Catullus - David Spenser
Adapted for radio by Nesta Pain from the play by Jerome Kilty
Produced by Nesta Pain
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 17 August 1970
Heaven's My Destination
Read by Ed Bishop
First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 17 April 1997
Front Row
Presented by Mark Lawson
With David Lan and Mel Gussow
Produced by Nicki Paxman
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 4 March 2004
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J. B. Priestley was one of Britain's most significant writers. His output was prodigious: in his lifetime, he penned 26 novels, 39 plays and hundreds of essays. He enjoyed great success on stage, notably with Dangerous Corner, Time and the Conways and An Inspector Calls, which experimented with narrative structure and unorthodox theories of time. Included here are some of his most esteemed works, adapted for radio and brought together in one statement collection.
By: J. B. Priestley
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Theophilus North
- A Novel
- By: Thornton Wilder
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The last of Thornton Wilder’s works published during his lifetime, Theophilus North is part autobiographical and part the imagined adventures of Wilder’s twin brother who died at birth. Setting out to see the world in the summer of 1926, Theophilus North gets as far as Newport, Rhode Island, before his car breaks down. To support himself, Theophilus takes jobs in the elegant mansions along Ocean Drive, just as Wilder himself did in the same decade.
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I loved this novel
- By Page on 12-19-22
By: Thornton Wilder
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The Bridge of San Luis Rey
- By: Thornton Wilder
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 3 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In eighteenth-century Peru, a rope bridge collapses, dropping five people to tragic deaths in the gorge below. In the aftermath, Brother Juniper, a Franciscan friar and a witness to the disaster, strives to comprehend why these five people were fated to die in this way. Was it, he wonders, some form of divine Providence, or was it arbitrary and unrelated to the manner in which these people had led their lives?
By: Thornton Wilder
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Aldous Huxley: A BBC Radio Collection
- Including Brave New World, Antic Hay, The Devils & More
- By: Aldous Huxley
- Narrated by: Peter Bowles, Jonathan Coy, Justin Salinger, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Original Recording
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Philosopher, pacifist, psychonaut and prophet Aldous Huxley was one of the 20th century’s pre-eminent intellectuals and writers. The author of over 50 books, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize nine times, and elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962, a year before his death. Known for his mordant satire and visionary ideas, Huxley spanned the period from post-First World War disillusionment to mid-century mysticism, and the works in this collection reflect his literary evolution.
By: Aldous Huxley
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Robert Louis Stevenson: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and More
- By: Robert Louis Stevenson
- Narrated by: David Tennant, Wally K. Daly, Jack Lowden, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Original Recording
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Robert Louis Stevenson was a novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer, and created some of the most famous and influential characters in modern literature. From Long John Silver and David Balfour to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, his figures swiftly became the shorthand for piracy, monstrous medicine, and the slave trade in America. A master of atmosphere and an enthusiast of foreign travel, Stevenson wrote countless stories which have been enjoyed in film, television and theatre adaptations throughout the years.
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David Edgar: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- 17 Full-Cast Productions Including The Shape of the Table, Pentecost & Maydays
- By: David Edgar
- Narrated by: Andy Serkis, Charles Dance, Damian Lewis, and others
- Length: 25 hrs and 45 mins
- Original Recording
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David Edgar is among the UK’s leading contemporary dramatists, well known for his powerful plays chronicling Britain's changing political landscape over the past 50 years. More than 60 of his original plays, adaptations and translations have been performed around the world, and in 2023 he was honoured with a Writers’ Guild Outstanding Contribution award for his service to British playwriting. This radio anthology contains some of his most notable work.
By: David Edgar
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The Edith Wharton BBC Radio Drama Collection
- By: Edith Wharton
- Narrated by: Anna Massey, Ben Miles, Eleanor Bron, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Original Recording
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A BBC radio collection of full-cast dramatisations, bringing together Edith Wharton’s most popular and best-loved works.
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Superb cast and presentation!
- By Robin on 05-07-23
By: Edith Wharton
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Life and Intrigue in Tudor Britain
- A Collection of BBC Radio Historical Docu Dramas
- By: Alison Plowden
- Narrated by: Haydn Jones, Nigel Lambert, Pauline Letts, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Original Recording
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Passion, power, sex and suspicious deaths – the Tudor story is one of drama and dysfunction, and it has kept us enthralled for over 400 years. In these six dramatised documentaries, we take a behind-the-scenes look at Tudor England and get to know the key characters we have grown to love and hate, such as Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. Compiled from contemporary sources by Alison Plowman and featuring first-hand accounts and letters, these thrilling, historically accurate retellings bring this tumultuous era to vivid life.
By: Alison Plowden
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The Bridge of San Luis Rey
- By: Thornton Wilder
- Narrated by: Sam Waterston
- Length: 3 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Wilder's stories consistently explored the connections between the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, always returning to fundamental questions about the meaning of life. This Pulitzer Prize-winning tale concerns the lives of five people who fall to their deaths from a Peruvian rope bridge in 1714. A humble Franciscan, Brother Juniper, witnesses the accident and determines to learn about the lives of the victims in order to find out whether this accident happened by chance or by plan.
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Excellent Story, But Poor Audiobook Technically
- By RKL on 11-15-13
By: Thornton Wilder
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Trapped
- Ten Full-Cast BBC Radio Dark Comedies
- By: Mark Maier, Daniel Maier
- Narrated by: Olivia Colman, Mark Maier, Chris Pavlo, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Original Recording
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In these ten witty, dark and disturbing episodes some of Britain’s best comedians come together to perform simultaneously hilarious and unsettling stories that will have you gripped. Sticky situations on ski slopes, placating an unruly ghost, a boy stuck at the bottom of well and an unusual adventure weekend with romantic overtones - are just some of the scenarios from comedy writers Mark Maier and Daniel Maier (a long term collaborator of Charlie Brooker and Harry Hill).
By: Mark Maier, and others