A new re-imagining of The Wind in the Willows told from the margins. Set in a timeless, Kenneth Grahame-inspired England, the drama looks up from weasel-height at class, home and who gets to belong when the Wild Wood is being carved up by developers. Narrated by Penelope Wilton, it blends the familiar riverbank world with the pressures of eviction, empty grand houses and power concentrated in a few determined hands.Kit, a young weasel, is watching her family slide into precarity as the scrubland around their burrow is sold off and the criminal Chief Weasel tightens his grip. With her best friends - Portly the otter and Radar the bat - Kit’s world collides with Mole, Ratty, Badger and other classic characters, while a grand house standing empty becomes a magnet for grievance and opportunity. What follows is a fight not for glory but for a place to live: shifting alliances, contested territory and small acts of care that build a community where suspicion says it cannot exist. A story about who gets to stay, what makes a home, and how belonging is made on the riverbank.Dramatist Tom Morton-Smith is a playwright and screenwriter best known for the RSC’s Oppenheimer and the multi-award-winning stage adaptation of My Neighbour Totoro.Cast:Narrator . . . . . Penelope Wilton
Kit . . . . . Claire Morgan
Portly . . . . . Harriet Carmichael
Radar . . . . . Kathryn Drysdale
Magpie, Chief, Ratty, Badger, Toad . . . . . Ed Gaughan
Ma-Weasel . . . . . Jasmine Hyde
Mole . . . . . Django Bevan
Otter . . . . . Clive HaywardWritten by Tom Morton-SmithProduction co-ordinator: Luke MacGregor
Casting Manager: Alex Curran
Technical producers: Keith Graham, Sam Dickinson
Sound designer: Sharon Hughes
Director: Sasha YevtushenkoA BBC Studios production
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Murder on the Mars
Mars, 2048. The first settlers, a mix of international workers and the super-rich. And the first unexplained death.When a body turns up in the corridor between a scrappy warehouse and a half-built luxury hotel, no-nonsense Harbourmaster Rita Siddiqui finds herself in charge. With Earth temporarily out of contact and no official law enforcement on Mars, she ropes in Vice Captain Jaz Hickson, a wide-eyed young pilot who’s only just landed.But murder's not their only problem. Atmospheric tests have triggered a dangerous storm. Paranoia grows as the power fails. Lights, gravity, oxygen: everything is at risk.Rita and Jaz must navigate a growing list of suspects, a dwindling supply of patience, and a killer who’s not finished yet.Because even 140 million miles from Earth, people still have secrets. And someone’s willing to kill to keep them.Written by Tim FoleyCAST
RITA SIDDIQUI ..... NISHA NAYAR
JAZ HICKSON ..... LUKE NEWBERRY
KAYA ..... SASHA MCABE
DAN ..... JOANA BORJA
POWELL ..... JASON BARNETT
DR LI ..... CRYSTAL YU
WARD ..... STEFFAN RHODRI
NILS ..... DAVID MENKIN
MAX ..... SIDHANT ANANDSound: Sharon Hughes, Keith Graham and Neva Missirian
Production Co-ordinator: Luke MacGregor
Director: Anne Isger
Casting Manager: Alex CurranA BBC Studios Production for BBC Radio 4
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Tipping Point
Written by Hannah KhalilIn 2040, a Middle Eastern nation is struggling to survive rising temperatures and rolling power cuts. Architect Noura Halim has devoted her life to designing a new kind of city, one that could protect people from the worsening climate and keep her country alive. But as construction begins, the project drains the nation’s fragile resources, workers are pushed to breaking point, and her teenage daughter Amal begins to question everything her mother believes in.As tensions rise at home and across the country, Noura must confront the cost of her own ambition and the possibility that her dream of salvation could destroy the very place she’s trying to save.Tipping Point was developed through OKRE Experimental Stories supported by Wellcome in consultation with Dr Robert Hughes of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Dr Candice Howarth of the London School of Economics.Cast:Noura . . . . . Nadia Albina
Amal . . . . . Eleanor Nawal
Steve . . . . . Clive Hayward
Mr Felix . . . . . Angus Wright
Jamila . . . . . Tanvi Virmani
TV Presenter . . . . . Jasmine Hyde
Noura's Assistant . . . . . Sasha McCabeProduction co-ordinators: Sara Benaim and Emma Donald
Sound design: Sharon Hughes
Director: Sasha Yevtushenko
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The Dagenham Porkchop
Ronny Moffat aka The Dagenham Porkchop, a once superstar wrestler is living on crumbs, working the holiday camp circuit. When his past body-slams back into his life, Ronny has to wrestle with more than just a 20 stone athlete in a leotard.CASTRonny 'The Dagenham Porkchop' Moffat - Robert GlenisterTerry 'The Pharaoh' - Ron CookVirginia 'Vampire' Dawson - Lisa PalfreyLorraine - Holli DempseyRay 'Elvis' Evans - Dean RehmanTom - Dean CoulsonDickie Davies, Kent Walton, The Holidaymaker - Dick BradnumProduction Coordinator: Lindsay ReesSound Design: Nigel LewisProducer: John NortonA BBC Audio Wales Production
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Samhain
By Ben Lewis.Soulful drama infused with storytelling and song, inspired by the myths and rituals surrounding the Pagan festival of Samhain.Claire and her husband David are staying in a isolated old house on the remote Scottish island of Jura.
It’s the end of October. Of all the nights of the year, this is the one when the veil between this world and the next is said to be at its thinnest. Claire’s past is about to reach out into her present...Cast in Order of Appearance :Chloe Pirrie
Emun Elliot
Bryan DickMusic performed by Anna Massie
Sound Design by Kris McConnachieProduction Co-ordinator: Rosalind Gibson
Studio Production: Keith GrahamDirected by Kirsty Williams
Every Friday we bring you a new drama from BBC Radio 4 or Radio 3. Exercise your imagination with some of the best writers and actors on radio. Storytelling at its very best.
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