AuthorShelagh Delaney
NarratorVarious
Duration6h 39m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Plays and Dramatisations
PublisherBBC Audio
VersionUnabridged
A collection of plays by the trailblazing dramatist Shelagh Delaney
Shelagh Delaney was just 19 when her debut play, A Taste of Honey, premiered in 1958. One of the great 'kitchen sink dramas', it was ground-breaking in its portrayal of working-class Northern women, gay and Black men, and influenced popular culture from The Smiths to Coronation Street. A huge hit in the West End and on Broadway, it was made into a BAFTA-winning film starring Rita Tushingham.
This collection opens with a 2004 radio production of A Taste of Honey, starring Beth Squires as the pregnant teenager trading insults and repartee with her mother (Siobhan Finneran). It is followed by seven dramas specially written for BBC Radio, all showcasing Delaney's extraordinary gift for depicting the experiences and emotions of ordinary women and children.
In the trilogy Sweetly Sings the Donkey, Tell Me a Film and Baloney Said Salome, we follow the friendship of four women across the decades, from their childhood meeting in a Blackpool convalescent home to their 60th birthday reunion, and their fond farewell to one of their number. Beth Squires, Barbara Marten, Kay Purcell, Susan Twist and Eileen O' Brien star in these funny, moving plays.
Country Life and its sequel, Whoopi Goldberg's Country Life, centre around Rose, whose peaceful life on a remote Yorkshire smallholding is disrupted by her moody nephew, her film-star brother and her embittered ex-sister-in law. This witty, poignant double bill about parenting, rural life and family ties stars Barbara Marten as Rose.
Starring Daniel Hanbridge and Brooke Vincent, the rite-of-passage drama Out of the Pirate's Playhouse sees five eleven-year-olds celebrating the start of the holidays by going to their favourite activity centre: only to be told they are too old to play there. Our final play, So Does the Nightingale, is set during another period of transition, as middle-aged Alice prepares for her father's impending death – and reveals her shocking plans for a new, independent life... Linda Polan stars, with a cast including Barbara Laurenson and Margot Boyd.
Production credits
Text copyright © Shelagh Delaney 1959 (A Taste of Honey),1980 (So Does the Nightingale), 2000(Sweetly Sings the Donkey), 2003 (Tell Me a Film, Out of the Pirate's Playhouse), 2004 (Baloney Said Salome), 2007 (Country Life), 2010 (Whoopi Goldberg's Country Life)
All rights reserved
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 20 Nov 1980, 18 Dec 2000, 6 Mar 2003, 22 Jul 2004, 7 Nov 2004, 22 Mar 2007, 18 Oct 2010,
© 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd
Author: Dorothy L. Sayers
Author Dorothy L. Sayers
Narrator Full Cast
Duration 2h 20m
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Author: William Shakespeare
Author William Shakespeare
Narrator Various
Duration 2h 1m
Foretold he will become King of Scotland and spurred on by his wife, Macbeth commits deadly treason to seize the throne. Once crowned, guilt and mistrust of all around him leads Macbeth to embark on a trail of bloodshed and murder to stay in power. But under the yoke of his brutal reign, civil war breaks out and a rebellious army gathers to overthr...
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Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Author Arthur Conan Doyle
Narrator Various
Duration 2h 33m
London, 1907; Journalist Edward Malone, rejected by the woman he loves because he is too prosaic, decides to go in search of adventure and fame to prove himself worthy of her. Soon after, he meets Professor George Challenger, a controversial scientist who claims to have discovered a 'lost world' populated by pterodactyls and other prehistoric monst...
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Lilies For Ladies and Other Stories
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Author Donald Stuart
Narrator William Franklyn
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Author Various
Narrator Various
Duration 6h 18m
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Author Smith Alexander Mccall
Narrator Full Cast
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Narrator Full Cast
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Narrator Various
Duration 42m
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Author Donald Stuart
Narrator Various
Duration 30m
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Author Tony Kushner
Narrator Full Cast
Duration 6h 53m
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