Kingsley Amis: A BBC Radio Drama Collection

Adaptations of Kingley Amis’s great novels and acclaimed short stories

Novelist, poet and critic Kingsley Amis was one of Britain’s greatest post-war writers. A master of comic fiction, he came to fame in 1954, and won the 1986 Booker Prize for The Old Devils. Included in this collection are dramatisations of seven of his short stories and two novels, all imbued with his characteristic wit and social satire.

We begin with ‘To See the Sun’, a tantalising tale of vampires, a mad Scots librarian, a handsome Englishman and a Countess, set in 1920s Dacia. In ‘Moral Fibre’, a Welsh librarian tangles with a social worker determined to save a young girl from sin, while in ‘All the Blood Within Me’, Alec attends the funeral of the only woman he has ever loved: and faces some uncomfortable truths. Tensions run high in ‘I Spy Strangers’ as a group of soldiers in 1945 hold a mock parliament; poet A E Potter questions the value of his art in ‘Dear Illusions’ and in ‘Affairs of Death’, the confessions of the Scottish King Macbeth trouble the conscience of Pope Leo X.

Set in the late ’60s, I Want It Now centres around ambitious TV personality Ronnie Appleyard, who pursues wealthy Simona Quick for her money, only to fall in love. And recently recovered in the BBC’s Treasure Hunt, ‘Something Strange’ features four inhabitants of a space capsule, who have unusual experiences to report.
Based on Amis’s classic novel Girl, 20 and written by Tony Bilbow, All Free Now is a hilarious observation of the Sixties’ permissive society.

Please note: I Want It Now is an archive dramatisation from 1977, and the language used reflects some of the attitudes of that time. Due to the archive nature of some of the pieces, the sound quality may vary.

Cast and credits
Written by Kingsley Amis
All Free Now written by Tony Bilbow, based on Kingsley Amis’s novel Girl, 20

To See the Sun
Cast: Christopher Cazenove, Gayle Hunnicutt, Graham Crowden, Alan Dudley, Jennifer Piercey, Zelah Clarke
Dramatised by John Scotney
Directed by Jane Morgan

Moral Fibre
Cast: Sion Tudor Owen, Julie Berry, Thelma Whiteley, Victoria Carling, Steve Hodson, Jennifer Piercey, Simon Cuff, Susan Sheridan
Dramatised by John Scotney
Directed by Jane Morgan

All the Blood Within Me
Cast: Tom Watson, David Sinclair, Mia Soteriou, Jonathan Tafler, Caroline Gruber, Jill Lidstone, Alan Dudley, Brian Hewlitt, Kim Hughes
Dramatised by John Scotney
Directed by Jane Morgan
Piano: Mary Nash

I Spy Strangers
Cast: Iain Cuthbertson, Steve Hodson, Anthony Jackson, Philip Fox, Kim Wall, Michael Deacon, Paul Sirr, John Samson
Dramatised by John Scotney
Directed by Jane Morgan

Dear Illusion
Cast: Freddie Jones, Carolyn Pickles, Shaun Prendergast, Brian Hewitt, Alan Dudley, Michael Deacon
Dramatised by John Scotney
Directed by Jane Morgan

Affairs of Death
Cast: Peter Jeffrey, Ken Stott, Olivier Pierre, Kim Wall
Dramatised by John Scotney
Directed by Jane Morgan

I Want It Now
Cast: Nigel Anthony, David March, Irene Sutcliffe, Bruce Beeby, Anna Calder-Marshall, Margaret Robertson, William Fox, Alaric Cotter, Jonathan Scott, Penelope Reynolds, William Eedle, Heather Bell, Harry Towb, Harold Kasket, Rod Beacham, Michael Harbour
Adapted by Frederick Bradnum
Directed by Betty Davies

Something Strange
Cast: Noel Johnson, Garard Green, Nerys Hughes, Olive Gregg, Charlotte Mitchell, Frank Duncan, David Garth, Tom Watson, Brian Wilde and members of the BBC Drama Repertory Company
Produced by Christopher Holme

All Free Now
Cast: Robert Stephens, Christopher Timothy, Eva Stuart, Geoffrey Whitehead, Kim Thomson, Anna Mazzotti, Okon Jones, Michael Graham Cox, Adrian Egan, Richard Pearce, Joan Walker, Michael Dean
Produced by Matthew Walters

Text copyright © The Estate of Kingsley Amis 1958 (‘Moral Fibre’), 1960 (‘Something Strange’), 1962 (‘All the Blood Within Me’, ‘I Spy Strangers’), 1968 (I Want It Now),1972 (‘Dear Illusion’), 1980 (‘To See the Sun’), 1982 (‘Affairs of Death’)
All Free Now copyright © Tony Bilbow 1989

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