Audiobooks narrated by Monica Dolan

Muriel Spark: A BBC Radio Drama Collection: Nine Full Cast Dramatisations including The Girls of Slender Means, The Prime of Miss Brodie and more

"BBC Radio dramatisations of some of Muriel Spark’s best works, plus bonus episode of The Essay: All Miss Brodie’s Girls Muriel Spark was one of Scotland’s brightest and most original literary talents. In a career spanning over 60 years, she published over 20 novels, as well as essays, poems and plays. Her work won her numerous awards and honours, and she was made a Dame in 1993 for her services to literature. These nine radio dramas showcase the breadth and variety of her oeuvre, with tales ranging from the humorous to the macabre, and featuring casts including Celia Imrie, Patricia Hodge, Siân Phillips, Mark Straker, Sorcha Cusack and Maggie Service. In The Girls of Slender Means, it is 1945, and a group of young women are bracing for the future as the world transitions to peace. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie focusses on an inspirational teacher whose illusions are shattered by a tragic betrayal. Based on Spark’s own Edinburgh schooldays in the 1930s, this classic tale was adapted as an Oscar-winning film and chosen as one of the BBC’s 100 ‘Novels That Shaped Our World’. Memento Mori, meanwhile, is a gloriously dark, metaphysical comedy, set among a group of elderly people tormented by an anonymous caller who repeatedly rings with the message ‘Remember, you must die’. The Vital Spark: The Driver’s Seat tells the tense, disturbing story of Lise, an enigmatic young woman travelling alone to a European city in search of ‘the one’, while The Abbess of Crewe is a sparkling satire on the Watergate affair, centred around a rigged election in a Benedictine convent. A Far Cry From Kensington evokes a witty slice of ’50s London life, as we meet the inhabitants of a rooming-house near South Kensington Underground, and the charming gentlemen and ladies of the shabby but genteel world of publishing. The winner of the 1962 Prix Italia, The Ballad of Peckham Rye is a musical version of Muriel Sparks’ magical realist fable, with lyrics by Spark herself and music by pioneering composer Tristram Cary. Also featured are an adaptation of Bang, Bang, You’re Dead, a short crime story set in Africa; and Spark’s first radio play, the ghost story The Party Through the Wall. Capping off the collection is a bonus programme, The Essay: All Miss Brodie’s Girls, presented by Ali Smith and exploring the many glittering facets of Muriel Spark. Cast and credits Written by Muriel Spark First published 1957 (The Party Through the Wall), 1959 (Memento Mori), 1960 (The Ballad of Peckham Rye), 1961 (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), 1963 (The Girls of Slender Means), 1970 (The Driver’s Seat), 1974 (The Abbess of Crewe), 1982 (Bang-Bang You’re Dead), 1988 (A Far Cry from Kensington) Contents The Girls of Slender Means The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Memento Mori The Vital Spark: The Driver’s Seat The Abbess of Crewe A Far Cry from Kensington The Ballad of Peckham Rye Bang, Bang, You’re Dead The Party Through the Wall The Essay: All Miss Brodie’s Girls © 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd"

Muriel Spark (Author), Ann Scott-Jones, Carol Ann Crawford, Celia Imrie, Full Cast, Gerda Stevenson, Jim Norton, Monica Dolan, Patricia Hodge, Sian Phillips, Sorcha Cusack (Narrator)

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Radio Beckett: Five Full Cast BBC Audio Plays by Nobel Prize winning writer Samuel Beckett

"Broadcaster Matthew Sweet presents a sequence of radio plays by Samuel Beckett, with star casts including Stephen Rea and Ian McKellen Samuel Beckett captured the pathos and irony of modern life like no other dramatist. In the decade following the success of Waiting for Godot (1952), he wrote some of his most absorbing work for radio, among them this sequence of short pieces. Suffused with the same musicality as his stage plays, they are increasingly different in tone and conception, giving us insight into the development of Beckett’s style and his approach to sound. With the exception of From an Abandoned Work, they can be heard in binaural surround sound through headphones or earbuds, creating an intimate, immersive audio experience. Matthew Sweet introduces the plays, providing context to the productions. From an Abandoned Work – Developed from the fragments of an unfinished novel, this radio monologue stars Stephen Rea as the unnamed elderly protagonist, who looks back on three days of his youth spent wandering the rural roads in all weather. As he recalls his mother waving him goodbye, the sight of a white horse and a murderous tribe of stoats, he ponders questions of life and death… Rough for Radio 1 – Monica Dolan and Ron Cook star in this debut BBC production of Beckett’s two-hander centred on a taciturn man, his curious female visitor who has ‘come to listen’ and his subsequent frantic phone calls… Abstract and experimental, Rough for Radio 1 utilises music and voices, silence and pauses, to explore themes of isolation, the impossibility of communication and the disconcerting nature of audio technology. Rough for Radio 2 – In this companion piece to Rough for Radio 1, starring Stephen Dillane, Louise Brealey, Brian Protheroe and Nick Underwood, we find ourselves in an interrogation room, where an animator is trying to force his victim, Fox to speak. With them are the stenographer, whose transcription shows that something is fundamentally amiss, and Dick, who has nothing to say… Words and Music – Commanded by the irascible Croak, unwilling collaborators Words and Music (aka Joe and Bob).are forced to improvise on the themes of ‘Love’, ‘Age’ and ‘The Face’ in an attempt to create art. Ian McKellen and Carl Prekopp star in Beckett’s absurdist meditation on the limitations of language. featuring a specially-written score by Roger Goula. Cascando – Story and sound work together once more in Cascando, controlled and conducted by the Opener who turns them on and off like a radio. In tandem, they try to tell the tale of Woburn, struggling to perfect it so they can finish and sleep… Starring Stanley Townsend and David Seddon, with music by Roger Goula, Beckett’s 1961 drama delineates the challenges of composition and the writer’s desperate search for inspiration. Production credits Written by Samuel Beckett From an Abandoned Work Performed by Stephen Rea Rough for Radio 1 He – Ron Cook She – Monica Dolan Rough for Radio 2 Animator – Stephen Dillane Stenographer – Louise Brealey Fox – Brian Protheroe Dick – Nick Underwood Words and Music Croak – Ian McKellen Words – Carl Prekopp Cascando Voice – Stanley Townsend Opener – David Seddon Directed by Gaynor Macfarlane Music composed and directed by Roger Goula Composer's assistant: Jessica Jones Music performed by Kit Downes (piano), Georgia Hannant (violin), Oli Langford (viola), Nicola Baigent (bass clarinet), Michael Liu (flute), Raphael Lang (cello), Jessica Jones (synth) First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 2 October 2016 © 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd"

Samuel Beckett (Author), Brian Protheroe, Carl Prekopp, Ian Mckellen, Louise Brealey, Monica Dolan, Nick Underwood, Ron Cook, Stanley Townsend, Stephen Dillane, Stephen Rea (Narrator)

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The Post Office Scandal and Me: My Extraordinary Fight for Justice - Winner of the 2025 Speakies Audiobook Award for Non-Fiction

"*THE INSPIRATIONAL MEMOIR FROM JO HAMILTON, AND WINNER OF THE SPEAKIES AWARD FOR NON-FICTION* WITH A FOREWORD FROM SIR ALAN BATES 'Jo is an inspiration', Monica Dolan, who played Jo in the ITV drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office 'My first big discrepancy came in the shape of a £2,000 shortfall that just made no sense at all. Of all the things that kept me awake once in the thick of the nightmare that unfolded, it was being stuck in that truly incomprehensible moment where the mere touch of a button suddenly turned £2,000 into £4,000 within three minutes on that cold December night in 2003.' Jo Hamilton was one of more than 700 sub-postmasters prosecuted between 2000 and 2014 based on information from the Post Office's faulty Horizon accounting system. She was told to put right a wrong she hadn't committed and pushed to the very brink of her existence - remortgaging her house, borrowing from anyone she could in order to repay money that she hadn't taken, and questioning her own sanity. Immortalised in ITV smash hit drama, Mr Bates v The Post Office, this is Jo Hamilton's extraordinary first-hand account of how she built a Post Office that was at the very heart of her community and lost it all through no fault of her own. For the first time, beyond the headlines and the corridors of the High Court and the UK's political institutions, we will finally hear Jo's full story and the human side of this scandal as well as the untold struggle she faced during the biggest miscarriages of justice in modern history. Ultimately, this is a story of hope and the strength of community and the ability of a few to fight back against the odds."

Jo Hamilton (Author), Jo Hamilton, Monica Dolan (Narrator)

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The Neapolitan Novels: My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay & The Story of the Lost Child: The Complete BBC Radio Collection

"From one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, The Neapolitan Novels is an exploration of the friendship between Lila and Lena, two bright young girls who grew up in the tough, rough streets of post-war Naples. This is no normal friendship; it's a friendship that loves, hurts, supports and destroys - and yet it is one that lasts a lifetime. These four full-cast BBC adaptations bring the streets of Naples vividly to life. The first novel , My Brilliant Friend, begins in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these streets two girls, Lena and Lila, learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone - or anything. The Story of a New Name sees the two girls striving to make a better life for themselves. They work hard at school but Lila is stopped in her tracks when forced to give up her education to work for the family shoe-making business. It's not long before their worlds are pushed apart. In the third book, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, Lena escapes to Milan but struggles to find the courage to live, parent and write again after her marriage to her increasingly dismissive husband. Lila, meanwhile, also struggles to rise above her social conditions and desperately tries to find a way to better herself in whatever way she can. In the final part of their story, The Story of the Lost Child, Lena returns to Naples with her two children to find Lila has also managed to turn her life around, despite remaining in the claws of violent and mafia-run Naples. Through broken marriages, violent pasts, and the yearning for something more, the two women always turn to each other as their friendship – and the tensions between them – grow ever deeper. Adapted from the books by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein. Dramatised by Timberlake Wertenbaker Directed by Celia de Wolff A Pier production for BBC Radio 4."

Elena Ferrante (Author), Anastasia Hille, Full Cast, Monica Dolan (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Monica Dolan

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