Drama of the Week

Episodes

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  Gulliver's Travels 30.10.2026 58m

  A new two-part adaptation by Ian Billings, celebrating the 300th anniversary of Jonathan Swift’s satire.Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon with a sensible English mind and an ambition for greatness, is shipwrecked and wakes on a strange shore, pinned to the ground by a crowd of people no bigger than his hand. In Lilliput he is a marvel and a potential weapon, taken up by a court that treats its own quarrels with enormous seriousness. But his travels are only beginning, and the further he goes, the harder it becomes to see home in quite the same way.Published in 1726, Swift's book has spent three centuries being read both as a children's adventure and as one of the sharpest satires on human vanity in English.Swift was writing about the politicians and courtiers of Georgian England. Three hundred years later, the joke still lands.Lemuel Gulliver.....Graham Dickson General Clefen-Marsi/ King of Brobdingnag.....David Holt King of Lilliput/ Jester.....Jack Nuttall Glumdalclitch.....Lucie Shorthouse Limtoc/ Queen of Brobdingnag.....Joanna Neary Flimnap/ Farmer.....Sunil Patel Queen of Lilliput/ Mother.....Debbie Korley King's Father/ Yokel.....Ian BillingsWritten by Jonathan Swift Adapted by Ian Billings Directed by Lorna Newman Sound design by Sharon Hughes Production Coordinator: Sara Benaim Studio Production Coordinator: Jonathan Powell Technical Producers: Andy Garratt, Neva Missirian and Kira GolightlyA BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4.
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  Out Of Time: Episode 1 Pan-pan 23.10.2026 28m

  Following an Arctic storm, the crew of the research vessel Coralith Epsilon find themselves stranded in thick pack ice. Cut off from the outside world and running low on supplies, hope arrives in the form of a mysterious Morse code message.But the ship that comes to the rescue is not what they expected. Trapped together in a frozen limbo, two crews separated by a century must survive starvation, the elements, and paranoia to get home.A chilling five-part supernatural thriller that blends claustrophobic survivalism, cosmic sci-fi and environmental geopolitics, set in one of the most hostile places on Earth - the Arctic tundra. Written by the writers of the award-winning drama podcast 'Up In Smoke', Cambria Bailey-Jones and Guy Larsen.MARIA.....Raffey Cassidy TIMOTHY.....Sacha Dhawan FRED.....Tanya Moodie LAURA.....Tiffany SmithWriters: Cambria Bailey-Jones and Guy Larsen Director: Nadia Molinari Sound Designer and Technical Producer: Sharon Hughes Technical Producer: Sam Dickinson Production Co-ordinator : Pippa Day Series Script Editor: Lorna Newman Casting Manager: Alex CurranSeries Scientific Consultant: Prof. James Lea from the University of Liverpool Weather Consultant: Andy Cutcher Arctic Historian Consultant: Peter Martin Army Consultant: Alec Heron Ship Navigation Consultants: Martha Armitage & James ButtersA BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4.