Audio Drama Based on Historic Events
Historic Audio Drama
Historic audio drama. Queens, heroes, revolutionaries, poets and pirates. Whether you’re a full on history buff, or just enjoy a good story, our collection of audio dramatisations of historic events will keep you informed and entertained for hours. Understand Oscar Wilde’s experience of prison in the Ballad of C3.3, Learn more about the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture in four part drama Black Spartacus, and experience Chastelard’s obsession with Mary Queen of Scots in Redder Than Roses.
Redder than Roses is an intense intimate drama based on the lives of Mary Queen of Scots and the French poet Chastelard. No British monarch was more glamorous than Mary Queen of Scots. No one was more spellbound by her than the Pierre de Boscol de Chastelard. But as he yearns for an intimacy impossible given Mary’s position – especially under the watchful eye of the puritanical Earl of Moray – Chastelard is driven to ever more desperate measures. Celebrity stalker? Poet uncompromising in quest of beauty? Decide for yourself, in an intimate drama with all the intensity of Renaissance tragedy recorded live at the Lee Wood Hotel as part of the Buxton Festival.
Twenty Six Miles’ is a compelling and amusing drama about Dorando Pietri, the Italian marathon runner, who in the 1908 London Olympics, collapsed as he came into the stadium and was helped over the line. Though deprived of his medal, on appeal by the Americans, Queen Alexandra was so taken by his efforts that she had a special cup made for him.
A Gentleman of My Own Making is based on the true story of Michael Dillon, born Laura Dillon, who gave herself over to the first gender reassignment surgery, becoming Michael, and changing the world. An inspirational story from the ‘couples Who Changed the World’ season performed and recorded live at the Edinburgh Festival.
Black Spartacus from Thee Black Swan tells the story of Toussaint L’Ouverture, the most prominent leader of the Haitian Revolution. In episode one of four, not everything is as it is appears on the seemingly tranquil Breda Plantation in the French Caribbean colony of St. Domingue (Haiti).
The story of the infamous 19th Century Scottish Grave-robbers who weren’t Scottish and didn’t rob graves. They were Irish and as robbing graves to supply the needs of Edinburgh’s anatomists proved to be rather hard work, took to murdering people – usually their neighbours – for profit. In collaboration with their common-law wives they set about supplying corpses for Dr John Knox, an eminent Scottish surgeon, with considerable enthusiasm and gusto. Black Comedy. Offensive Language.
1936. The rising danger of fascism is setting Europe ablaze. In England the policy is to keep the peace at all costs. But not everyone believes this is either wise or safe. One such man, Clair, returns home to the midlands with a dark and terrible secret; a secret he cannot keep quiet for long; a secret that becomes a growing danger to himself, his family, and the country he loves. A coming of age drama full of intrigue, power, passion, and deception.
Set in late-Victorian England, this drama explores the tragic effects of Victorian attitudes to homosexuality, and how it affected politicians and artists. These including Oscar Wilde, his lover Bosie and Bosie’s brother Francis, personal secretary and rumoured lover to Lord Rosebery and son of the Marquis of Queensberry.
Two students, Arnold Nugent Strode Strode-Jackson and Philip John Noel-Baker, became lifelong friends when they were unexpectedly chosen to represent Britain at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. One became a war hero, awarded the DSO and three Bars and becoming the youngest Brigadier-General in the British Army. The other created the Friends Ambulance Unit, served in WW1 and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The intense and shocking life of perhaps Spain’s greatest modern poet, Federico Garcia Lorca, assassinated by General Franco’s facist regime. With music from world renowned guitarist Esteban Antonio, based on research by Ian Gibson. Written by Avi Nassa.
The Ballad of C3.3. Oscar Wilde was incarcerated in Reading after being convicted of homosexual offences in 1895 and sentenced to two years’ hard labour. During his imprisonment, he wrote the poem ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ which was published by Leonard Smithers in 1898 under the name C.3.3 which stood for cell block C, landing 3, cell 3. This ensured that Wilde’s name – by then notorious – did not appear on the poem’s front cover. It was not commonly known, until the 7th printing in June 1899, that C.3.3 was actually Wilde.
Carina Rodney’s swashbuckling tale of real-life pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny. This fantastic podcast explores the love affair between the two, and their adventurous lives. Directed by Kate Saxon.
A fascinating selection of historic letters from the national archives featuring Karl Marx, Jack the Ripper, Idi Amin and Nelson Mandela. Read by narrators including Arthur Smith and Miriam Margolyes.
