Does anyone else listen to radio dramas/plays?

[AlpacaTheBags]

I find audiobooks are much too long for me. I know that you can increase the speed but I'm a fast reader and I can still read the book in less time than it takes to listen to them. I also prefer a full cast to one narrator.

Radio plays are perfect for me. I usually listen while cleaning or while shopping or chatting online. I particularly like horror related dramas but classics too and I'm in the middle of Ben Hur at the moment.

Does anyone else enjoy them?
And do you please have any other recommendations? Which have you most enjoyed?

TIA

Yes I love them, especially when doing the housework or to get to sleep. There are loads on Youtube if you look up BBC radio drama, just put in BBC supernatural or crime drama. I've recently listened to Salems lot for example and The Omen is currently on bbc Sounds. Also listened to Jewel in the Crown which was great and a drama about the Nuremberg trials which was better than it sounds ! A few BBC podcasts are good like the lovecraft chronicles which is like a drama series.

I do...but on Podcasts.

I’m exactly like you! I love radio plays.I really enjoyed the Radio 4 long adaptation of Zola’s classic novels with Glenda Jackson.”Blood sex money” I think it was called.Also “Homefront” about life during the war and currently “Faith Hope Gloria” all via BBC Sounds

Love the Agatha Christie plays on bbc sounds, they also occasionally do Neil gaiman and terry pratchett

Love them all!

Love the Agatha Christie plays on bbc sounds, they also occasionally do Neil gaiman and terry pratchett

The Derek Jacobi I, Claudius is fab.

Oh I loved homefront between 2014-18. It was amazing.

BBC sounds app has loads of their plays and dramas.

I agree on the Agatha Christie as above. Over lockdown I got into the Archers sadly I keep forgetting about it now.

Love them. If I wake up in the night I often put one on to fall asleep to. There was one a few years ago about the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. It has stayed with me

Yes, on a long and boring motorway drive.

Cavalry by Dan Revellato. Just had a google and it's downloadable still

Do u have audible. If u do I can recommend lots for u

Yes I like the plays and serialisation.
It is about time they did some new ones.
How many more times will they make do with Wimsey and the bloody bell ringers?
Or Julie Enfield?

Absolutely! I love coming across a Radio 4 drama when I'm driving on my own. I also use them to switch off to when I'm struggling to sleep. Loved The Barchester Chronicles.

@Paranoidandroidmarvin

Do u have audible. If u do I can recommend lots for u

Please do

I feel as though this is my specialist subject! I love radio plays. I grew up without tv, and radio 4 and the afternoon play was my introduction to many books! I listen on BBC Sounds, but joined Audible to get loads more.

I love Barchester Chronicles, Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, Dickens, War and Peace… Very emotional plays like “Spoonface” which made me cry a lot.

There are newer ones, like Shardlake, No 1 Ladies Detective Agency which have been out over the last few years!

I adore, and have listened to countless times 'Where this service will....' terminate, depart etc. 5 plays by Katherine Jakerson about a couple that meet on a train from London to Cornwall.

Thank you all so much for the suggestions. I really appreciate it. It's nice to see that so mant others enjoy them too and that I'm not alone in struggling with the length of audiobooks.

I'll try to find as many of these as possible on BBC Sounds and YT.

I've finished Ben Hur now, which I really enjoyed. Now I've started Madame Bovary. I also enjoyed Lucinda Brayford recently.

Paranoidandroidmarvin
Do u have audible. If u do I can recommend lots for u

I don't have Audible yet but I'd appreciate any recommendations as I have a free trial available.

I adore, and have listened to countless times 'Where this service will....' terminate, depart etc. 5 plays by Katherine Jakerson about a couple that meet on a train from London to Cornwall.

I keep re listening to this also. Just fantastic. I also recently enjoyed the “Little Lifetimes” a series of small playlets written by Jenny Eclair.

@LizzieSiddal oh thanks will try those.

Okay. Some of favs on audible are…

The Maltby collection
The unforgiven
On mardle fen
High table lower orders
6 degrees of assassination
November deadlist
Undone
Holding back the tide
Tracks series 1-4

On ones I got from Apple before I got audible are
Any Charles Paris ones
The sensitive
The Martin beck stories
The spaceship
Welcome to our village please invade carefully
My first planet.
All probably on audible but they are on my Apple Music.
Then of course you have the normal detective ones
Yes minister and dads army are favs of mine as well.

I used to listen to plays all the time and then fell in love with books being read to me.

Yes, I do!

If you go on YouTube there are loads and loads. I love it!

Lying on the hammock in the garden in summer with a glass of wine and headphones listening to a radio play, sometimes from decades ago with long dead actors. It's amazing to hear some of the great radio dramas of the past.

One of the best things I ever listened to was while painting my bathroom and it was an hour long radio documentary about the morse messages sent out by The Titanic after it hit the Iceberg, up until it eventually sank.

It's incredible to hear how they start off relatively mild 'we've hit something' and the disbelieving reaction from other ships, getting more and more frantic and desperate until eventually, radio silence.

Radio plays/documentaries are wonderful because you don't have to sit and watch a screen. You can go about your business, and just listen while you work or relax.