Banned Books: A BBC Radio Drama Collection - James Joyce, Radclyffe Hall, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell Audiobook

Written by James Joyce, Radclyffe Hall, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell
Read by Andrew Scott, Niamh Cusack, Valerie Edmond, Jonathan Coy, Anton Lesser, Tim Piggott-Smith, Pippa Nixon, Christopher Eccleston, Henry Goodman, Stephen Rea, Justin Salinger, full cast
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 128 Kbps
Dramatization

Banned Books: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
Four Full-Cast Dramatisations of Modern Classics
By: James Joyce, Radclyffe Hall, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell
Narrated by: Andrew Scott, Niamh Cusack, Valerie Edmond, Jonathan Coy, Anton Lesser, Tim Piggott-Smith, Pippa Nixon, Christopher Eccleston, Henry Goodman, Stephen Rea, Justin Salinger, full cast
Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
Radio/TV Program
Release date: 26-09-2024
Language: English
Publisher: BBC Audio

Four modern masterpieces that dared to push boundaries and disrupt the status quo

Deviant. Depraved. Dangerous. Denounced for their transgressive themes and inflammatory ideas, these 20th-century classics have all been considered so seditious that they had to be suppressed. Find out what made these iconic works so threatening to governments worldwide in these superlative dramatisations, featuring stellar casts and specially composed music.

Ulysses – Prosecuted for obscenity in the UK and US, James Joyce’s seminal novel tells the combined stories of Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, as they wander through Dublin on one ordinary day: 16th June 1904.

The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall’s groundbreaking tale of lesbian love was judged as obscene soon after its publication in 1928, and banned in the UK for over 20 years. It centres around Stephen, a baby girl born to well-to-do parents who grows up feeling ‘different’ and knows she will never be attracted to a man. But will she always be an outcast?

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley’s visionary dystopian fable, banned in Ireland and Australia when it first appeared in 1932, portrays a corrupt future society where promiscuity is the norm, eugenics a respectable science and the drug soma is the opiate of the people. Token dissidents Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson long to be free – but it is an outsider, John ‘the Savage’, who shows them the true meaning of rebellion.

Nineteen Eighty-Four – London, chief city of Airstrip One. Big Brother stares out from every poster, the Thought Police uncover every act of betrayal. When Ministry of Truth employee Winston Smith finds love with Julia, the duo begin to question the Party – but for enemies of the state, Room 101 awaits… George Orwell’s classic tale, banned in the Soviet Union until 1988 and still one of the most-challenged books in the USA today.

The star-studded casts of these dramatisations include Andrew Scott, Henry Goodman, Niamh Cusack, Stephen Rea, Valerie Edmond, Amanda Root, Justin Salinger, John Coy, Milton Lopes, Christopher Eccleston, Pippa Nixon and Tim Pigott-Smith.

First published 1918 (Ulysses), 1928 (The Well of Loneliness), 1932 (Brave New World), 1949 (Nineteen Eighty-Four)