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The complete series one and two of the historical comic sitcom about an embattled Victorian publishing company.


London, 1853, and the sedate religious publishing house of Spavin and Spavin is about to experience a radical shake-up. Vivacious actress Cordelia is on the hunt for her next husband and has her eye on Gerald, one of the firm's partners, while her son, Primus, has ambitions to take over the firm. And when he does, it'll be out with the Bibles and in with the best sellers - starting with Charlotte Bront?'s latest blockbuster....


Full of grand plans, he sets about wooing a wealth of other writers, including explorer Richard Burton, Charlotte Bront? and struggling novelist Wilkie Collins (who takes quite a shine to Cordelia). He even hires an assistant, Simeon, to manage publicity, and attempts to win a literary award by fair means or foul. But Primus' enthusiasm doesn't go down too well with Gerald's mother Edith (the firm's other partner), who is strongly opposed to the company publishing fiction. Worse, his willingness to spend the company's money has pushed Spavin and Spavin to the edge of bankruptcy....


Hoping for salvation from financial ruin, Primus turns to luminaries such as Prince Albert and Charles Dickens - but could the crock of gold he's searching for be right under his nose?


Primus ...... Michael Cochrane
Cordelia ...... Maggie Steed
Gerald ...... David Horovitch
Edith ...... Elizabeth Spriggs
Reverend Bront? / Prosser ...... Geoffrey Whitehead
Charlotte Bront? ...... Sarah Jane Holm
Mrs Gaskell / Emily Bront? / Katie Joiner / Mrs Prosser ...... Frances Jeater
Equity / Waiter / George Eliot / Thackeray ...... David Antrobus
Richard Burton ...... Norman Rodway
Wilkie Collins ...... David Timson
Simeon ...... Charles Simpson
Prince Albert / Smiles / Trollope ...... Ioan Meredith
John / Rossetti / Cab driver ...... Stephen Critchlow
Mrs Quirk ...... Joan Sims
Lizzie Siddal ...... Becky Hindley
Mrs Beeton ...... Rachel Atkins
Beeton ...... Gerard McDermott


Written by Martyn Wade
Directed by Cherry Cookson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 1998

1. Bronte Country, London (26.1Mb)
2. Gone for a Burton (26.1Mb)
3. The Man in White (25.7Mb)
4. The Prosser Prize (26.2Mb)
5. Self Help (26.2Mb)
6. Great Expectations (26.2Mb)
7. Terminal Journals (26.2Mb)
8. Merger Most Foul (26.1Mb)

MP3 files hosted by archive.org.