The Audio Drama Show

Having ended Part 1 with his business plan "in the air", Jimmy 'Skiver' McIver at last gets the backing and support of his old school friend and businessman Roger Soul and Denise, Roger's glamorous PA. They launch the dry cleaning business with a fanfare. 

Sadly, the venture has attracted renewed attention from loan shark Mo Greensmith, who has hatched a dastardly plan of deceit and revenge-by-extortion on Roger Soul - with Jimmy as "piggy in the middle"!  As events quickly turn disastrous, and caught between a big rock and a very hard place, 'Skiver' lives up to his name and flees. 

But will it be enough to save his skin?

Part 2 of 2

Jimmy ‘Skiver’ McIver is back! Last heard from in “Ashes to Ashford”* sunning himself on a Caribbean beach, “Crudely, Badly, Cheaply” takes us back 15 years to less lucky times for our feckless Cockney wheeler-dealer. 

In Part 1 of the prequel, Jimmy bumps into old school mate and businessman, the decidedly-successful Roger Soul and pitches a money-making idea for a dry cleaning business to him. But with no stake of his own to put in, Jimmy embarks on a risky road that attracts the possibly dangerous attention of Maureen ‘Mo’ Greensmith, the “formidable” local loan shark. 

With only the support of Fred and Lemmy at the Dog and Duck pub, what could possibly go wrong for ‘Skiver’ this time? 

*(Parts 1 and 2 of “Ashes to Ashford” are available on this podcast)

On a dark, stormy Victorian night atop a Wessex hill, Shepherd and Mrs Fennel are holding a christening party at their cottage for a second-born child. Proceedings are interrupted by the consecutive arrival of three strangers to shelter from the elements. One of these men is not who he seems – but which one is it?

There 's nothing like a good biblical story...and this is NOTHING like a good biblical story!

Mary Poppins jokes aside, this is a short story relating how Pharoah Contraraoh fared whilst trying to Make Egypt Great Again (MEGA). It contains one or two ripe parallels for our 21st century world - delivered with humour.

Talking humanity creeps into the chance encounter at the Women's Institute between uptight Lydia and the educated but impoverished itinerant Colin. Then external reality arrives: the WI guest speaker cannot make it. Shakespeare's words provide the platform for a replacement speaker and hope to emerge, before tragedy strikes.

Episode 2 of 2

Taking shelter from the rain in a village hall somewhere in England, an educated, homeless man is confronted by Lydia, a "formidable" member of the local Women's Institute. Under threat of expulsion, he engages with the lady as she tries to organise the evening's meeting events. Mutual personal revelations follow. But will he be allowed to stay?

Episode 1 of 2

In this final part of the series, called "His Wonderful End", our waitering hero Mr Christopher returns - and he is a worried man. He has successfully sold the stories discovered in Somebody's luggage to a publisher. Now he waits in fear lest the author should show up and claim them as his rightful own.  A new guest does arrive; the fateful Room 24B is mentioned; the tension mounts. Is he Somebody? Will Mr Christopher's livelihood and reputation survive if it is him?  Dickens keeps him and us hanging on almost to the very enjoyable end.

Episode 7 of 7

In the second and final part of "The Tale of the Obliging Mr Blorage" (discovered in His Hatbox), Dick Blorage is still not on board with the revelatory properties of Lady Verita's magical Chair of Truth. There is a harsh lesson to be learned from her, before Dick grows a pair, deals with those who exploit his niceness, and finds his true partner for life. 

Episode 6 of 7  

"The Tale of the Obliging Mr Blorage" is the amusing contribution of female Victorian writer Julia Cecilia Stretton to Dickens' "Somebody's Luggage" short story compendium.

In two parts, Part 1 (discovered in His Portmanteau) introduces the listener to Mr Richard Blorage - probably the nicest man ever to succeed in business: a quality which, sadly, does not translate into a happy love life.  Desperate - and a bit tipsy - he invokes the spirit world for help, and gets more than he bargained for...

Episode 5 of 7

"The Story of the Fine Artist" (discovered in His Brown Paper Parcel)
 
Thomas is not just an artist, but a Fine Artist in Victorian London. He is a riddler. He is highly strung. He has a friend who is quickly lost. He acquires a girlfriend who decides to leave him. Both object to his attitude to the work of other artists. Why? What is the truth about Thomas, the Fine Artist?

Episode 4 of 7

This is the third of our short-story adaptations from Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers" and his first Yuletide supernatural tale.  It tells of Gabriel Grub, a morose, lonely and drunken gravedigger who hates people, particularly during the festive season.  

One Christmas Eve, while at work in the graveyard, he encounters a startlingly scary Goblin Queen (and her many subjects), who terrorises and whisks him away to her underworld lair where Grub is shown the true human values of the season.

Dickens was to return triumphantly to this theme seven years later with "A Christmas Carol".

Remastered version.

Having seen off the first ghost, Scrooge's education in the current lives of others during the festive season  proceeds to the houses of the Cratchit family and his nephew, courtesy of a jolly Ghost of Christmas Present.  

With a grim parting from him, the final, mysterious spectre appears to show Scrooge a series of visions for life after death, in which his focus on money and gain "leave not a wrack behind".

Now fully chastened, the miser's spirit breaks - into something much more human.

Episode 2 of 2.

Remastered version.

Charles Dickens' classic Yuletide tale is presented in a two-part adaptation that gives you more of the story, focusing particularly on the corrosive effects of early Victorian capitalism.

In Part 1, we see Scrooge in all his business and money-focused selfishness - until Jacob Marley and the Ghost of Christmas Past show up, confronting him with long-forgotten events that end with violent consequences.

Episode 1 of 2.

Remastered version

"The Story of the Iceberg Shipwreck" (discovered in His Dressing Case) is an exciting and ironic tale of disaster and derring-do on the high seas. Its narrator Monkhouse tells of the sinking of the good ship Golden Dream around Cape Horn after colliding with a massive iceberg.  Cast onto the iceberg, Monkhouse discovers a group of other passengers as they battle to survive, led by quirky Able Seaman Tom White.  How they interact and finally reach land makes for an entertaining exploration of Victorian class issues.

The tale was written by Arthur Locker (1828-1893), an English novelist and journalist. His other fictional works include Sweet Seventeen (1866), Stephen Scudamore the Younger (1871) and notable translations of the works of Victor Hugo.  

Episode 3 of 7

Discovered by head waiter Mr Christopher in His Boots, “The Story of Mr The Englishman Abroad” tells of Langley, a buttoned-up, hypercritical Englishman living alone in a French town. Estranged from his daughter in England, he takes a journey of self-discovery and reconciliation as he learns what it means to be French.

Episode 2 of 7

Mister Christopher is a Victorian waiter who has many OPINIONS - on what is (and is not) a waiter, good and bad waitering, customers and their foibles, coffee houses, and much more. In this first part of the Somebody's Luggage series, he acquires a set of luggage left behind by an unknown guest ("Somebody")  six years previously: in this is secreted a set of stories written by him.

Somebody's Luggage is the creation of Charles Dickens in collaboration with several other writers of the period. These short stories were all published as part of the 1862 Christmas edition of Dickens' weekly publication "All The Year Round". Ours is a collection of selected tales from Somebody's writings that are all different and distinctive: an entertaining  portmanteau of styles and subject matter. To round off this portmanteau, Mister Christopher (and the eponymous Somebody) will finally meet.

Episode 1 of 7

A bonus story from the life and times of Geoffrey Banks - British teacher, writer, broadcaster, and soap opera actor. Geoffrey goes up to Cambridge University in 1940 - just as World War 2 starts.  Working  as a navigator in a Swordfish spotter airplane over the Atlantic, "Monty" Banks and his two fellow crew members crash land over Ireland in 1944 and encounter some interesting local hosts.

In the French town of Sens, the mystery of Emma Lirriper’s dying benefactor is revealed as, on his deathbed, he opens his eyes. The dastardly Mr Edson is given Christian care by our heroine, and the chance to meet before he dies the unknowing son, Master Jemmy, whom he abandoned with his mother many years before. 

Emma, Major Jackman, and Master Jemmy remain in Sens after his death and warm to the friendliness and joie de vivre of their French holiday hosts. But there is a problem: has Jemmy guessed who his father was?

Episode 3 of 3  

Mrs Emma Lirriper again encounters her arch lodging house rival Miss Wozenham - but in very different circumstances and with a surprisingly new outcome. After an intriguing  visit from the French Consul, Emma learns of an unknown dying man in the town of Sens who has left her a legacy in his will. She, Major Jackman and Master Jemmy set off for France, arriving in Sens via Paris. There she and the Major finally meet, on his death-bed, her strange bequeather: will she find out who he is before it is too late?

Episode 2 of 3

Our favourite Victorian London landlady returns for another series of events and escapades, centred around a legacy that has been left to Emma Lirriper by an unknown person. But before the mystery of this legacy begins, we hear about and witness the strange behaviour of her reprobate brother-in-law Joshua Lirriper, the conflict between Major Jackman and Mr Buffle the tax collector, and excited happenings surrounding a house fire rescue in Norfolk Street, the Strand.

Episode 1 of 3

For this last episode, the meaning of The Longer Road is finally revealed, beginning with a "Fab Four" truth-telling game. In this is the fraught love and child-complex relationship between Rebecca and Dan, and the real importance of a group of disparate outsiders to the closeted, claustrophobic society of 1970s Northern Ireland. Jimmy makes a decision about his future, before fraught psyches bring the melting pot of relationships to an explosive climax.  

But instead of fall-out, different forms of resolution in their lives are achieved by Rebecca, Dan, Jimmy and Elle - their longer roads.

Episode 4 of 4

Dan describes his epiphany of near drowning in the Ballycastle rock pool as Jimmy and American Elle play a sad guessing game around the details of the fraught and tragic relationship with her fiancé.  Rebecca gives Jimmy a potential way out of Belfast and the deafening sound of an army helicopter forces Dan (as Donal) to relive his watery trauma: the secret and potential danger of his double identity is revealed to all.

Episode 3 of 4

Off to Antrim for a music festival final day-out, the “fab four” divert to Ballycastle by the sea amid disagreements about the future of the community centre, openness between group members…and then a fatal collision with a dog. 

Against a backdrop of serious and deadly events in the province, more of their letters reveal Jimmy’s inner conflict about his sexuality, Dan (or is it Donal?) and his plans for the future, and American Elle’s personal Belfast tragedy. 

At the beach, Dan goes swimming – perhaps for the last time?

Episode 2 of 4

It is 1972. In Belfast, Northern Ireland, bombs are exploding and the Rainbow’s End Community Arts Centre’s “fab four” is about to disband. With their last music gig cancelled, Dan, Jimmy, Rebecca, and Elle take off for the countryside to spend a last day together. From a year previous, their letters home set the scene for the ambitions, conflicts, secrets and sadness that will follow. 

Episode 1 of 4 

Two young Irish boys, Shay and Kieran, a gang, boyhood pranks and games to "reach the moon". Shay's uncle Peadar looms into view and he tramps home. The bed-time legend of the Sandman is a precursor to significant events - Shay's tumble into the sea, rescue by two kind neighbours, and revelation about the true nature of adults and relationships.

Rafael wakes early. It is the morning of an important job interview. Even when his rival for the post drops out, he is still interviewed. "They did not ask if I wanted the job" is the precursor to violent and life-changing events for Rafael and his wife Zofia.

In Ireland, grandfather Mr Lannigan - a "true artist" - meets with local priest Father Moylan about a matter-in-hand: ostensibly, his grandson's broken hurling stick. As the conversation develops, the real issue turns out to be something much more cruel and damaging. Resolution achieved, Lannigan's thoughts return again to his art.

Following the tragedy of Mrs Edson's death, Mrs Lirriper and Major Jackman are now her son Little Jemmy's guardians. In this final part of the story, the youngster encounters Miss Wozenham, gets lost in the metropolis, and is educated in a unique fashion by Major Jackman. who finds a new purpose in life once his little namesake has gone away to school.

Episode 3 of 3

Major Jackman's many virtues extolled, he and Mrs Lirriper welcome to the lodging house newly-marrieds Mr and Mrs Edson to stay on the second floor of 81 Norfolk Street, the Strand. What follows is a classic Charles Dickens story of abandonment, heartbreak and ultimate tragedy that leaves our two protagonists much changed by the experience.

Episode 2 of 3

Emma Lirriper is a minor masterpiece of Charles Dickens characterisation.  We are introduced to the world of London lodging houses in the 1860s seen through her eyes, and learn how she entered the business; her views on guests, business rivals like Miss Wozenham ("lower down and over the way"), the girls she employs, Wandering Christians, and stories of amusement and mayhem. This culminates in the arrival of her future friend and confidant Major Jemmy Jackman.

Episode 1 of 3

Drunken hymn-singing from Mason and Scott after Lillian's funeral kicks off this final revelatory episode. Scott has gatecrashed the event performing an impromptu eulogy to his mother. What follows is a succession of discoveries.  Why is Scott really back from America? Why did he never return before? Events proceed to a, perhaps, surprising conclusion.

Episode 3 of 3

After a bristling initial conversation, stepbrothers Scott and Andrew catch up on their previous 40 years apart - and beyond. Childhood relationships and the interesting background around Scott's departure to the USA keep the pot boiling. Andrew learns some home truths about his father and stepmother, the recently-deceased Lillian, with blackmail and betrayal to the fore.   

Episode 2 of 3

Scott is a  wanderer returning. After many decades he is back in England from the USA, having heard of his mother Lillian's death and on the eve of her funeral.

He meets Mason, a friend of Lillian.  But there is still a closer, less genial family member to encounter.

Episode 1 of 3

Having seen off the first ghost, Scrooge's education in the current lives of others during the festive season  proceeds to the houses of the Cratchit family and his nephew, courtesy of a jolly Ghost of Christmas Present.  

With a grim parting from him, the final, mysterious spectre appears to show Scrooge a series of visions for life after death, in which his focus on money and gain "leave not a wrack behind".

Now fully chastened, the miser's spirit breaks - into something much more human.

Episode 2 of 2

Charles Dickens' classic Yuletide tale is presented in a two-part adaptation that gives you more of the story, focusing particularly on the corrosive effects of early Victorian capitalism.

In Part 1, we see Scrooge in all his business and money-focused selfishness - until Jacob Marley and the Ghost of Christmas Past show up, confronting him with long-forgotten events that end with violent consequences.

Episode 1 of 2.

 

Edward is back from Scotland with good news from eldest daughter Greta. For Lia, it is decision time for them regarding her pregnancy.

As she leaves, Edward's youngest daughter Megan arrives in a fractious mood.  More family strife ensues as the "archaeological dig" on their past relationship begins again.  After a few stiff drinks, new revelations on the depths of her bitterness, the teenage affair with a teacher, and some shocking truths about her miscarriage are finally revealed.

Will daddy and his girls finally sort it all out?

Episode 4 of 4.

The showdown happens. Angry daughter Megan meets with Lia, her dad's new and much younger partner.

The discussion ranges far and wide - fatherhood and loss, bringing up children, mothers and teenagers. It all gets personal about motives and attitudes. Then the issue of Lia's new-found pregnancy rears its contentious head and major conflict ensues.

Will they be "good" by the end?

Episode 3 of 4.

Edward and Lia meet in a wine bar to discuss the bombshell of their relationship announcement for his grown-up daughter Megan.

It is time for some honesty about his past marital infidelities and Megan's significant teenage perils and mishaps.  Lia suggests that he visits Greta, his other daughter, in Scotland; but strangely, she is not drinking wine and feels a little bit queasy. This is the prelude to a second major and life-changing revelation.

Episode 2 of 4.

The up-and-down relationship of a father with his grown-up daughters.  In this first of four episodes, recently-bereaved Edward brings home some "interesting" news to Megan about a new romantic attachment...and quite a lot more.

Cue conflict and the revisiting of sins from the past. What will Megan and her sister do?

On holiday in Spain with his brother, Geordie Chris encounters a strange, feral dog.

They call him "Fella" as he follows them to a restaurant. It is then that the situation turns nasty...and deadly.

But will this be the end of "Fella" for Chris?

Memories of people and places in his past life are revisited by a man recovering from serious illness.

Ashcombe Hall and a summer holiday spent there with his school friend Roddy are recalled as he approaches the now-derelict country house.

In the dilapidated gardens, memories of flowers and an "act of stupidity" trigger powerful emotions about past and future loss.

Mr Hobson is on a train journey back to Liverpool for the funeral of Jim Sweeney, an ex-work colleague.  

He is accompanied by memories of teaching at Quarry Bank - the teenage John Lennon's alma mater -  cheeky "doppelganger" school photography, and paradoxical visions of atheist Jim in heaven.

Teachers' nicknames, tragically unfortunate pupils, and "why me?" thoughts also flood Hobson's mind - underpinned by the optimistic words of Lennon's famous song "Imagine".

A woman relives memories of her father: planting potatoes on Good Friday, pipe smoke in his shed, and telling stories of old world magical woods, witches, hares and death.

Touching recollections mix with more kindly, paternal hokum of supernatural romance and fatal birth, ending in the final words of worldly advice from a dying man to a loving daughter and her unborn child.

In this final episode, in limbo with Molly, Keith survives his heart attack and begins to see the light of past misdemeanours and the fragility of the life he has left to live. Meanwhile, philosophical disagreements about healthcare continue to occupy the doctor and nurse caring for him.

His conscience rises in time for Molly's fate to be played out. But the consequences of past sins cannot be entirely erased.

Seriously ill Keith is still alive in the hospital - sort of. 

In a kind of limbo, he meets Molly, the unconscious and badly-injured patient in the bed opposite. She has his scrolls: a record of the many downs of his dubious life as a licentious driving test examiner and tax dodger (amongst other things).

Can he, will he repent before it is too late?

Keith, the driving test examiner, wakes up in hospital next to a critically injured woman, having had a "cardiac event" in his car. He is tended to by a doctor and nurse with markedly different views on the philosophy and practice of health care. 

In his still-confused state, our hero cannot understand why his wife is not there. He hears an ominous tune and enters a strange white room...is this "the end"?

Part 1 in a series of three episodes.
 

Based on true accounts, the tragic story of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 is told from a new perspective - that of a young, female Pomeranian dog called Lady.

Accompanying her mistress Margaret Hays, she hobnobs with the pets of the rich and famous - including other dogs, a canary, and a pet pig. Excitement at the prospect of an onboard dog show is interrupted by the unfolding disaster of the famous ship.

From Lifeboat 7, she is rescued with her mistress, who becomes involved in the famous kidnapping of two boys: the "Titanic orphans".  

In this final part of his life and times, the focus is on Geoffrey's father - a taciturn, diffident Northerner with distinct and sometimes quirkily "interesting" views, likes, and dislikes.

We learn about life on match day at Bolton Wanderers football club in the 1940s and 50s - brass bands, cough lozenge sellers, and the different stance of some players who had been miners during the Second World War.

As his life and the death of his wife proceed, Geoff's dad moves from domestic dependence towards comparative self-sufficiency, coping with car accidents, visits to hospital, and the other perils of old age. All met with bracing degrees of stubbornness, idiosyncracy and eccentricity, until his sad, elegiac end.    
 

As Geoff enters Cambridge University, two major themes are pursued in this penultimate episode of his memoirs. 

First, the life of his mother as a working class woman of the mid-20th century – her ailments (bunions to be precise), work ethic (“work must not only be done, but be back-breakingly done”), quaint views of his passion for acting, and ultimately her sad death from Alzheimer’s.

The world of acting also hoves into detailed view. Our hero begins slowly at university, deals with the theatrical prejudices of ‘normal’ people, and tells stories generated from his efforts in the quirky and sometimes perilous world of amateur dramatics: short-sighted sword fighters, a beautiful but hopeless female Shakespearian actor, high camp Roman centurions, and theatrical sets and props that have a life of their own! 

In this episode of Geoffrey’s memoirs, he joins “the snob factory” (i.e. Bolton Grammar School) on his way to Cambridge University and a degree in French. Crucial to this progress is the guiding influence of Irish teacher Emma Saxelby. 

En route, we hear of the Reverend Hough (limp handshake, boring sermons), the four modes of Lancastrian language, scouting, a new baby sister, fashion as applied to shirt tails and long trousers, and the sad wartime fate of fellow pupil Arnold, the conscientious objector. 

Part 3 ranges far and wide in the life of Geoff as he grows up to secondary school age at Bolton Grammar School, and with a nod to his future in both the teaching and acting professions.

The Raymond Street gang, playground fights, the vagaries of corporal punishment, and his interview for 'big' school are some of the boyhood delights, along with the scarily bewhiskered, one-armed caretaker Mr Hammond. He attends the 'soap church' (in honour of its benefactor, the future Lord Leverhulme), learns the facts of life, and proceeds to pass them on to a decidedly unappreciative spinster, his Auntie Nora.

Meeting A.D. Walsh at Bolton Grammar introduces him to an influential teacher, future colleague, and fellow theatrical thespian, famed for his unwitting star turn as a loudly vociferous, deaf mute.  

   

Geoffrey’s memoir continues a journey through boyhood, dominated by the figure of Grandpa Tomlins - a stylish ladies' man fallen on hard times - who arrives, unbeknown to young Geoff, to stay with the Banks family. 

We learn also of the strange rituals of Empire Day, the wonders of cricket and Bolton Wanderers football club, the fate of Norman Isherwood, and at his demise, the resolved mystery of Grandpa Tomlins’ strange protuberance. 

The life and times of Geoffrey Banks: teacher, broadcaster, thespian and TV actor in Coronation Street, Poirot, and a host of other shows and films.  As told in his memoirs of growing up and living in 20th century Northern England and read by his son Nigel.

In this first episode, we learn about Geoffrey, the background to the origination of Cottoning On, and begin the exploration of his early life in Bolton, Lancashire: multiple house moves, coal men, mud pies, Norman Nuttall, and much more.

I and the writer really do appreciate your constructive feedback.  Just email me at peoplescope@aol.com. 

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An empty city centre and railway station. No people and no activity. Suddenly, a camera drone appears. A story of surveillance, suspicion, social contact and surprise.

This is the third and final in our series of short story “Lockdown Squibs” that dramatise different aspects and impacts of the pandemic virus. 

I and the writer really do appreciate your constructive feedback.  Just email me at peoplescope@aol.com. 

Contacts:
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All is not well for a USS submarine crew as they hear of a virus affecting the world above. Long term confined isolation leads to strife and conflict. Will they survive and make it to dry land?  If they do, what will they find? 

This is the second in a series of three short story “Lockdown Squibs” that dramatise different aspects and impacts of the pandemic. 

I and the writer really do appreciate your constructive feedback.  Just email me at peoplescope@aol.com. 

Contacts:
Twitter - twitter.com/peoplescope
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The social and economic impact of lockdown hits a man hard. He has lost his job. Coping with the fall-out of this and trying to just survive has taken him to the edge. But a blackbird offers a glimmer of hope.  

This is the first in a series of three short story “Lockdown Squibs” that dramatise different aspects and impacts of the pandemic virus. This squib draws on material contained in the BBC programme “Your call is important to us - new claimants tell us about their lives on hold”, Monday June 29 2020.

I and the writer really do appreciate your constructive feedback.  Just email me at peoplescope@aol.com. 

Contacts:
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In this second and final episode, George Smarden Dike redoubles his efforts to extract money from the artist J M W Turner, this time through blackmail.  

Turner is faced with a dilemma: losing one of his paintings or jeopardising his most important private relationship. He has little time, but comes up with a plan.  But will it work?


I and the writer really do appreciate your constructive feedback.  Just email me at peoplescope@aol.com. 

Contacts:
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Turner’s Gift is a fictional story in two parts, recounting a dramatic series of events in the late life of the celebrated English artist, J M W Turner. It is based significantly but not entirely on real aspects of his existence.

In Part 1, Turner - recovering from serious illness – receives two visitors at his London studios. One is a potential assistant, Francis Sherrell, who Turner then takes on and who proves to have an immediate, positive influence on the artist’s motivation.
  
The other visit is from George Smarden Dike: a strangely-behaving man who targets the wealthy Turner with an idea for a new printing process. The artist easily sees through his reproductive pretensions, and Dike is ejected: but his pursuit of the artist has only just begun…


I and the writer really do appreciate your constructive feedback.  Just email me at peoplescope@aol.com. 

Contacts:
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This is a distinctly different, American gangster story.

Mobster Louis Gainsborough meets glamorous Dolores (FBI Agent Cody in disguise) in the bar owned by his criminal rival Frank Schulz.....except that these characters continually interrupt the imagination of the writer as he creates this story.  

Louis gets to choose his own name.  Feisty Dolores decides what she will and won't do and say.  Meanwhile, the action moves atmospherically towards its double crossing and surprisingly murderous end.

We really do appreciate your constructive feedback.  Just email peoplescope@aol.com. 

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Andrew lies in a hospital bed in mental decline. Memory flits in and out of the past as he tries to remember old actors, movies, Shakespeare, football players.

He is visited by younger brother Tom, back from abroad, who he does not initially recognise. They relive old times - visits to the cinema, the pub, paper doilies - and begin to remake the connections of a relationship.

We really do appreciate constructive feedback about this story.  Just email  peoplescope@aol.com. 

 

The excitement of a family trip to a Beatles tribute concert is disrupted by an encounter with a loud, aggressive man with a grey poneytail.

Tensions rise and a vicious punch is thrown.  But the tables soon turn seriously for the perpetrator.

Underneath the blankets, a young mind damaged by parental abuse is heroically protected by Dan "The Teddynator" - his one-eyed toy. And slowly healed in adulthood by a kindly, patient therapist. 

A woman in her 50s sits in her favourite Italian restaurant at lunchtime musing on a life now empty, save for career and the dubious comforts of food.  A song, a voice, and a romantic face from the past enter the room.  

Will they be able to put right a 30 year-old mistake? 

The famous, wily Belgian sleuth Diogènes Flambert closes in on the perpetrator of his latest dastardly case - the murder of Doctor Ebony.  

He has assembled the potentially guilty in one room for the dénouement.  Will it be Major Coleman, Madame Blanche, Principal Peach, or someone else?  As the tension mounts, be prepared for one final and unexpected twist.  

Matt Radice is the travelling salesman with a busier agenda than most: stretching job, boorish boss, and a complicated personal life.  

Add in a strangely-behaving satnav called Sadie and you have the ideal conditions for the perfect storm of a day...

Two men are fighting.  One shouts "keep me safe!" - why?

In his hospital bed Ralph, a retired lawyer, thinks of the letter he should have sent many years ago to Jess, the now-deceased love of his life.  

Chronicling the history of their relationship – its ups, the final bitter down, and detrimental impact of this break-up on the rest of his life – a profound realisation kicks in.

Alex and cake-loving Robbie, the carpet fitters, arrive at Mrs Tyson's bungalow to fit her new carpet, in the room she shares with her lovely budgerigar Barnabas.

They finish the job and are about to leave.  But where has the bird gone?

A woman watches a man dressing mannequins in a shop window, surrounded by fog.

This leads her to fantasy, a brief connection, illness, and finally....sorrow. 

Driving home at night, Will is forced to stop after colliding with something in the road - possibly a badger?  

Getting out of the car he realises quickly that something is not right.  And then the police arrive...  

Ellie is relieved that she fails to post a rancorous letter to her father.  But then, in "Sliding Doors" fashion, the letter is despatched.

Regretting the vicious content immediately, she tries to intercept its arrival - with ironically deadly results. 

Left in a state of confusion at the end of Part 1, Jimmy “Skiver” McIver manages to kick start his quest to inherit old school mate Roger Soul’s considerable fortune.

By way of an Italian volcano via an East Kent hillside, Jimmy (and occasionally, his trusty side-kick Spud Murphy) face their sternest challenge yet – from an unlikely source.

Hear how love (aided and abetted by bucket loads of money) wins through for our hero...in  curiously dubious circumstances. 

Ashes to Ashford is a “quest” story…with a difference.

Instead of a heroic Odysseus, Sir Lancelot or Luke Skywalker, we have Jimmy McIver, a feckless Cockney failure living in 21st Century England.  Having made very little of his existence thus far, Jimmy is given one last chance to “make it big” by a now-deceased old school friend and success story, Roger Soul.  

To inherit his earth, McIver must successfully complete four tasks set for him by Roger.  In Part 1, we hear what these challenges are and how Jimmy fares with the first two of them, accompanied by his doughty assistant Spud Murphy – imagine an Irish version of Sancho Panza.

What could possibly go wrong?  Listen in to both parts and see how McIver makes it.

This last story from "The Pickwick Papers" finds Dickens in roister-doister form with a rollicking, enchanting tale of derring-do: featuring a hero, heroine, and a couple of posh, dastardly villains!  

On a visit to Edinburgh, Jack Martin spends a " heavy" last night with Scottish friends and, on his way home in the wee small hours, he stumbles across a park full of abandoned old mail coaches.  Nodding off, he awakes to find a magical change as the coaches and their human contents spring into new life.  Our hero is whisked away on a journey involving kidnap, conspiracy, sword play and a beautiful, feisty heroine in peril.  Listen to how Jack makes it through to an exciting, romantic, but sadness-tinged denouement.     

This is the third of our short-story adaptations from Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers" and his first Yuletide supernatural tale.  It tells of Gabriel Grub, a morose, lonely and drunken grave digger who hates people, particularly during the festive season.  

One Christmas Eve, while at work in the graveyard, he encounters a startlingly scary Goblin Queen (and her many subjects), who terrorises and whisks him away to her underworld lair where Grub is shown the true human values of the season.

Dickens was to return triumphantly to this theme seven years later with "A Christmas Carol".

Another short story from Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers" and the only one in our series that is truly serious. 
 
Having been imprisoned by him, and after witnessing child and then wife die in abject poverty, George Heyling vows to be revenged on the man responsible for this tragedy - his father-in-law.  What follows is a path of destruction as Heyling systematically - and legally - ruins the man's life, engineering his death in a final, fatal confrontation. 

"Tom Smart" is one of four short stories adapted from Charles Dickens' first major work "The Pickwick Papers".  Originally called "A Tale Told by a Bagman", it is a story of magical transformation.  After a few too many drinks at the inn where he is staying, our hero Tom  notices a strange wooden chair in his bedroom.  What follows is a fantastic encounter that changes Tom's life forever.