Fourble

Dame Hilary Mary Mantel was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, Every Day Is Mother's Day, was released in 1985. She went on to write 12 novels, two collections of short stories, a personal memoir, and numerous articles and opinion pieces.


Mantel twice won the Booker Prize: the first was for her 2009 novel Wolf Hall, a fictional account of Thomas Cromwell's rise to power in the court of Henry VIII, and the second was for its 2012 sequel Bring Up the Bodies.


Collected here are BBC Radio dramatisations of a number of her most famous works, along with readings of some of her short stories.


Beyond Black
Alison Hart is a professional medium, an awkward, obese, disorganised woman, but with a gift for empathy and a good platform technique. Her familiar spirits are figures from her chaotic childhood, principal among them a small, foul-mouthed circus performer with disgusting personal habits called Morris who is her unpleasant and bitter spirit guide. To try and create some order in her messy existence she has taken on an assistant, the highly efficient but essentially heartless Colette, who, although she is a regular witness to Alison's gift, is nevertheless a profoundly sceptical companion. The two of them are bound together by a need that neither wants to recognise.
Alison ...... Alison Steadman
Colette ...... Rosie Cavaliero
Morris ...... Bill Wallis
Gavin ...... Mark Meadows
Natasha/Renee ...... Adrienne O'Sullivan
Emmie ...... Katharine Rogers
Keith ...... Simon Armstrong
Mrs McGibbet ...... Sheila Hannon
Mrs Etchells ...... June Barrie
Dramatised by Caroline Harrington.
Director: Sara Davies
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2010


Eight Months on Ghazzah Street
Frances Shore is a cartographer by trade, but when her husband's work takes them to Saudi Arabia she finds herself unable to map either the ever changing landscape or the Kingdom's heavily veiled ways of working. Confined in her flat, she finds her sense of self-beginning to dissolve. She hears footsteps, sounds of distress from the supposedly empty flat above. She has only constantly changing rumours to hang on to, and no-one with whom to share her creeping unease.
Read by Anna Maxwell Martin.
Abridged by Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2016


Sorry to Disturb
In Hilary Mantel's short story, a married woman is dealing with unwanted advances from a Muslim man who has intentions of marrying her.
Read by Jane Carr
Producer Karl Miller
First broadcast in September 2014


Terminus
In Hilary Mantel's short story, a young man attempts to track down the ghost of his father on a train, only to realize that in the end, no matter where people travel, or what they do in life, everyone is heading for a terminus of some kind, with the ultimate terminal being death.
Read by Jane Carr
Producer Karl Miller
First broadcast in September 2014


Offences Against the Person
In Hilary Mantel's short story, the consequences of an illicit affair play out. At a Manchester solicitor's office Vicky, a precocious but conflicted junior clerk is observing: "I guessed why Nicolette had moved across the Square. It was more discreet for a senior partner to keep an affair extra-mural."
Read by Rebekah Staton
Abridged by Jules Wilkinson
Producer Simon Richardson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in Jan 2015


Comma
In Hilary Mantel's short story, two children discover a deformed child and learn how appearances are not always as they seem.
Read by Jane Carr
Producer Karl Miller
First broadcast in September 2014


Winter Break
In Hilary Mantel's short story, a married couple unwittingly become a party to a murder. They cover up the crime because they don't want its occurrence to ruin their vacation.
Read by Jane Carr
Producer Karl Miller
First broadcast in September 2014


Harley Street
In Hilary Mantel's short story, a receptionist who likes to know about all the happenings in a doctor's office cannot see that all of the patients are vampires.
Read by Jane Carr
Producer Karl Miller
First broadcast in September 2014


The Heart Fails Without Warning
In Hilary Mantel's short story, a girl suffering from anorexia dies of a weakened heart, and serves as a metaphor for her own family, which is weakening from a metaphorical heart.
Read by Jane Carr
Producer Karl Miller
First broadcast in September 2014


The Mirror and the Light
Following the beheading of Anne Boleyn in 1536, The Mirror and the Light describes Cromwell's ascent to the pinnacle of his riches and power, followed by his fall from royal favour and his public execution at Tower Hill in 1540.
Abridged by Katrin Williams.
Read by Anton Lesser
Producer: Justine Willett
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2020


How Shall I Know You?
In Hilary Mantel's short story, an over-the-hill writer condescendingly and cruelly leaves a twenty-pound tip for a deformed teenage girl who works at the inn where she is staying, only to have to the favour returned months later, leaving the writer wondering which of her flaws elicited the cruel gesture.
Read by Jane Carr
Producer Karl Miller
First broadcast in September 2014


Giving Up the Ghost
In her frank and unflinching portrait of her early years in Derbyshire, and later her adolescence and early 20s, Hilary Mantel moved from writing fiction to seizing the copyright of her own narrative.
Read by Patience Tomlinson
Abridged and produced by Jill Waters
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2022

No MP3s found. The MP3 files used by this podcast appear to be missing. They may have been removed permanently from their source location.

1. Beyond Black (0Mb)
2. Eight Months on Ghazzah Street (0Mb)
3. Sorry to Disturb (0Mb)
4. Terminus (0Mb)
5. Offences Against the Person (0Mb)
6. Comma (0Mb)
7. Winter Break (0Mb)
8. Harley Street (0Mb)
9. The Heart Fails Without Warning (0Mb)
10. The Mirror and the Light (0Mb)
11. How Shall I Know You (0Mb)
12. Giving Up the Ghost (0Mb)

MP3 files hosted by archive.org.