Charles Dickens

Barnaby Rudge, pathetic and half-witted son of a murderer, and his raven Grip play unwitting parts in the Gordon riots of 1780 and in the family feud of the Haredale and Chester families.

This is Dickens at his best. A book full of characters, twists and turns, with a deep understanding of human nature. It is both tragic and romantic at the same time.

Ebenezer Scrooge is a heartless old miser who doesn't enjoy Christmas and doesn't think anyone else should, either. But, one Christmas Eve, some ghostly visitors take Scrooge on a journey that changes his mind for ever.

After reading Christmas Carol, the notoriously reculsive Thomas Carlyle was "seized with a perfect convulsion of hospitality" and threw not one but two Christmas dinner parties. The impact of the story may not always have been so dramatic but, along with Dickens other Christmas writings, it has had a lasting and significant influence upon our ideas about the Christmas spirit, and about the season as a time for celebration, charity, and memory.

After suffering at the hands of a tyrannical step-father, bullying at boarding school and menial employment in London, life changes for David when he runs away to Dover and is taken in by his eccentric aunt, Betsy Trotwood.

Dombey, a widower, is a rich ship-owner with a son, a strange sickly lad, and a daughter he ignores. The boy dies at school, and Dombey is distraught. He gradually loses his fortune and his health and only his daughter can rescue him from desolation.

Pip is brought up by his sister and her husband Joe Gargery, the village blacksmith. At the house of the strange Miss Haversham he falls in love with Estella, and aspires to become a gentleman. When money comes to him from a mysterious source he assumes his benefactor is Miss Haversham.

Thomas Gradgrind sees himself as an exponent of Utilitarianism, and uses the philosophies of facts and statistics to bring up his two children, resulting in unhappy consequences.

The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices was co-written by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins and features two characters (Mr. Goodchild and Mr. Idle) that are stand-ins for these two. It is told over the course of what was originally five issues of Dickens' journal Household Words and depicts an "idle" (but actually quite frantic) vacation, with long walks/hikes and explorations of inns and other places.

For all of her 22 years, Amy Dorrit has lived in Marshalsea prison, trapped with her family because of her father's debts. Her only escape is to work as a seamstress for the kind Mrs Clennam. But when it is unexpectedly discovered that her father is heir to a fortune, some shocking truths emerge and Amy's life changes for ever.

Long convinced that his family are only after his money, Martin Chuzzlewit takes in an orphaned girl - Mary Graham - to be his nursemaid. But when Martin's grandson - young Martin - falls in love with Mary, he is disowned. Cast out, young Martin travels to the American West to build his fortune. However, his journey has unforeseen consequences.

Dickens' final novel, left unfinished at his death, is a tale of mystery whose fast-paced action takes place in an ancient cathedral city and in some of the darkest places in nineteenth century London. David Madden renders the greatest homage he can to the great author by creating an ending as faithful to Dickens' written intentions as possible.

Through a mist of decay and opium, Dickens weaves a tale of murder and mystery in this, his last novel. Set in the fictional cathedral town of Cloisterham, John Jasper, the choir-master, takes an obsessive interest in his nephew Edwin Drood and his fiancée Rosa Bud. But when young Edwin disappears on Christmas Eve, has Jasper killed him? Alas, we’ll never know as Dickens died before completing the novel.

April, 1870. Bone-weary, sick, and struggling with a hidden guilt, Charles Dickens is grappling with what will be his final book - The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Two months later, he is dead, and the novel remains unfinished: only 6 of the 12 planned instalments had been completed. Centring around the title character, whose sudden disappearance throws the town of Cloisterham into a panic, the story introduces us to a host of potential suspects who could have caused him harm. Edwin's fiancée, Rosa Bud, was having second thoughts about their engagement; his uncle, John Jasper, was known to be jealous of him; and orphan twins Neville and Helena Landless had both tangled with Edwin too. Rumours of murder abound, but his fate is left unanswered...

Set in a phantasmagorical, drug-fuelled landscape where nobody is who or what they claim to be, and motives are more tangled than the alleyways of the nightmare city where the action unfolds, this compelling mystery is one of the greatest puzzles of literature. In this new, fast-moving and impressionistic retelling, we track Dickens as he works on the novel in the weeks before his death, and follow his daughter Kate as she strives to solve the mystery of who killed Drood - and understand the demon that drove her father to fatal exhaustion. Also included is a bonus documentary, The Mystery of the Mystery of Edwin Drood, in which Frances Fyfield uses her crime-writer's insights to try and find out what really happened to Dickens' eponymous hero.

Nicholas and Kate, left penniless by the death of their father, appeal in vain to their wealthy Uncle Ralph. Nicholas' misfortunes continue when he is sent to work at Dotheboys Hall, a school for urchins run by the bullying Mr Squeers.

Little Nell and her feckless grandfather are forced to leave their magical shop of curiosities in London. They are pursued across the English countryside by the grotesquely evil dwarf Quilp. They escape – but at what cost?

In the classic story of the Victorian underworld, orphaned Oliver runs away from the workhouse and falls into the clutches of Fagin, Bill Sykes and the Artful Dodger.

This is the last completed novel by Charles Dickens. A story of love, inheritance and the power of money. Also of a society fallen prey to the dawning of commercialism.

In this first novel by Dickens we follow Mr Pickwick and Sam Weller, his sharp-tongued cockney servant, travelling around England with their friends in search of adventure and knowledge. Brilliantly comic scenes at the Eatanswill election and the trial of Mrs Bardell vs Pickwick contrast with the horrors of the debtor’s prison.

In 1844, Charles Dickens took a break from novel writing to travel through Italy for almost a year, and here he presents an account of his experiences there. Italy's most famous sights are all to be found here - St Peter's in Rome, Naples with Vesuvius smouldering in the background, the fairytale buildings and canals of Venice - but Dickens's chronicle is not simply that of a tourist. Combining compelling travelogue with piercing social commentary, he portrays a nation of great contrasts: between grandiose buildings and squalid poverty, ancient monuments and everyday life, past and present.

Slices of 19th-century London life from the pen of Charles Dickens. Here are ten gloriously comic stories from Sketches by Boz, Charles Dickens' earliest collection of short pieces in which he honed his literary genius. Each tale is dramatised by Dr Stephen Wyatt with a full cast.

Ayeesha Menon's reworking of Charles Dickens' iconic story of love, revolution and redemption, updated to modern-day London and war-torn Syria

2011, Syria. The Arab Spring is underway, and after a wave of peaceful protests, President Assad agrees to a release of political prisoners. Freed after 30 years, Dr Mahmoud is taken in by Taghreed and Emad Daffar, and brought to England by his old friend Jarvis Lorry and the daughter he has never met, foreign correspondent Lina. But his years of suffering have left him a broken man.

Back in London, Jarvis convinces his nephew Sid Carton, a feckless but brilliant barrister, to defend a young Syrian émigré doctor, Shwan Dahkurdi, against charges of supporting terrorism. Lina and Shwan fall in love, only for his dark family secret to tear them apart... Meanwhile, convinced that only Lina gives his life meaning, Sid confesses his unrequited love, promising to do anything for her and those she loves.

As the city of Aleppo turns into a battleground, Taghreed becomes increasingly involved with the rebels of the Free Syrian Army. Her desire for justice - and her obsessive thirst for vengeance - will have devastating repercussions...

A powerful portrayal of personal sacrifice set against the turbulent backdrop of political change, Dickens' classic novel is as resonant today as when it was written. The redemption of flawed humanity is at the heart of award-winning writer Ayeesha Menon's riveting reimagining, spanning five years and with a seamlessly shifting perspective between Aleppo and London. Provocative, powerful and moving, this drama won a BBC Drama Audio Award for Best Adaptation, and stars Fatima Adoum, Lara Sawalha, Phil Davis, Khalid Abdalla, Shaun Parkes and Nadim Sawalha.


Production credits
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, adapted for radio by Ayeesha Menon
Development concept written by Silas Parry
Produced by Gill Parry
Directed by Polly Thomas
Producer for Goldhawk Productions: Emma Hearn
Executive Producer: John Dryden
Broadcast Assistant: Jan Shepherd
Sound design by Eloise Whitmore
A Goldhawk Production for BBC Radio 4

Cast
Taghreed - Fatima Adoum
Lina - Lara Sawalha
Jarvis - Phil Davis
Shwan Dahkurdi - Khalid Abdalla
Sid - Shaun Parkes
Dr Mahmoud - Nadim Sawalha
Cameraman/Jerry/Driver - Shiv Grewal
Emad - Raad Rawi
Yakub/General- George Georgiou
Samia - Nathalie Armin
Syrian Protestor - Ahmed Aziz
Fadi/Guard/Local Doctor - Ammar Haj Ahmad
Secretary - Jan Shepard

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 20 May-3 June 2018

Set in Paris and London in the French revolution. Dr Manette has recently been released from the Bastille after 18 years as a political prisoner. Brought to England he begins to recover his sanity. Charles Darnay also arrives, and falls in love with Manette's daughter, Lucie.  In the Terror he returns to Paris to rescue a servant, but is caught. He is only saved when barrister Sydney Carton, also in love with Lucie, takes his place on the scaffold.