A BBC collection of 16 Full-Cast Dramas & 5 short stories from the award-winning novelist, Rose Tremain

Rose Tremain is one of the UK’s premiere literary authors. She was one of only six women to be listed in Granta’s inaugural list of 20 Best of Young British Novelists in 1983 and has since won countless prizes including the 1999 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award (for Music and Silence), the 2008 Orange Prize (for The Road Home) and the 1989 Sunday Express Book of the Year Award (for Restoration, which was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize). In 2007, she was awarded a CBE, and in 2020 was made a Dame for services to writing.

Although best known for her novels, she has also written numerous original plays and dramatisations for radio, 16 of which are included in this collection. Ranging from the historical to the contemporary, and the humorous to the heartbreaking, they demonstrate her extraordinary ability to inhabit the minds of her characters and show us the world through their eyes. Alongside the Giles Cooper Award-winning Temporary Shelter and the Sony Award-winning: Who Was Emily Davison?, they comprise: The End of Love, One Night in Winter, The Birdcage, The Wisest Fool, Dark Green, Blossom, Don’t Be Cruel, Down the Hill, Half Time, Mother’s Day, Hell and McLafferty, Will and Lou’s Boy, The Kite Flyer and The Jester of Astapovo.

All feature a full cast of distinguished actors including David Suchet, Miriam Margolyes, Rory Kinnear, Kenneth Cranham, Barbara Flynn, Michael Cochrane, Samantha Bond, Sylvia Coleridge, Eric Allan and Rosemary Leach.

Also included are five captivating short stories. In ‘Tropical Fish’ (read by Maggie Steed), we hear the reflections of a dying farmer and his son, in ’Ice Dancing’ (read by Harry Towb), a retired architect recounts his life with his wife and in ‘John-Jin’ (read by Siriol Jenkins), we hear a tale of Spanish dancing, a young boy’s stunted growth and a girder in a pier pavilion. ‘The Stack’ (read by Jim Norton) follows a middle-aged man whose upcoming birthday is no cause for celebration, and ‘The Crossing of Herald Mountjoy’ (read by Trevor Nichols) explores the public and private anguish of a young French herald caught up in the Battle of Agincourt. Poignant, powerful and evocative, these tales of love, loss, desire and grief represent the very best of Tremain’s short fiction.

Cast and credits
Written by Rose Tremain

Dramatisations

Temporary Shelter

Who Was Emily Davison?

The End of Love

One Night in Winter

The Birdcage

The Wisest Fool

Dark Green

Blossom

Don’t Be Cruel

Down the Hill

Half Time

Mother’s Day

Hell and McLafferty

Will and Lou’s Boy

The Kite Flyer

The Jester of Astapovo

Short Stories

Tropical Fish

Ice Dancing

John-Jin

The Stack

The Crossing of Herald Mountjoy

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