Showing results by author "Mike Walker" in All Categories

Visionary author and journalist George Orwell was the man behind two of the best-loved and most influential novels of the 20th century: Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. This collection celebrating his life and work features dramatisations of both these classic books, with stellar casts including Christopher Eccleston, Pippa Nixon, Tim Pigott-Smith, Tamsin Greig and Nicky Henson. 

From the echo of the first line ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’ to the final ‘It is a far far better thing that I do than I have ever done’, Dickens’ classic novel of the French revolution tells a story of the redemptive powers of love in the face of cruelty, violence and neglect.

Eleven compelling BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramas telling the stories of the Russian tsars. Broadcast to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution, this extraordinary drama cycle by Mike Walker comprises 11 ambitious plays spanning over 400 years, exploring the lives of Russia’s key rulers from Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin. 

Inspired by Holinshed's Chronicles, this series of radio dramas about the Plantagenet dynasty tells the story of the birth of a new Europe after the dark ages. The issues of control, freedom, belief and the temptations of power were new to an age which had no template for domination on this scale.  

Eleven BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramas telling the stories of Mary Queen of Scots and the Stuart royals. Under the Stuarts, Britain entered the modern world. But with great change came turmoil, and for 111 years, the Stuart monarchs faced dynastic struggles, religious conflict, the rise of parliamentary democracy - and civil war. These dramas chart that turbulent epoch through its royal family, from Mary, Queen of Scots to the ‘last Stuart’, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s daughter Charlotte.

Nine BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramas by Mike Walker, chronicling Rome’s greatest rulers. Drawing on historical sources including Suetonius’ ‘Lives of the Caesars’, Mike Walker’s compelling drama cycle follows the story of the leaders of Rome, from Julius Caesar’s ascension to power to the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West in AD 475. 

Charles Dickens was, for a time, editor of a daily newspaper. This series takes an imaginative look at how Dickens would have tackled bringing the news to the masses. We follow Dickens the editor as he contends with railway crashes, gory deaths in the River Thames, having his editorial judgment scrutinised, working with tyrannical landowners, entering the murky worlds of opium and prostitution and, most tragically of all, investigating a child's death. He and his newspaper tackle financial plotting, encountering a young and secretive Disraeli, and the prospect of war overseas.

In the early hours of 5 June 1944, Captain Rob Collins, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is languishing in hospital, receives a call that will take him on a journey through England that will change his life. Mike Walker's play is an epic journey across England poised on the edge of a historical moment. It is set on June 5th, the day before the invasion. It is a portrait of England waiting for the invasion that will change the course of history, but an invasion only a very few know that is about happen. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliet Stevenson and Claudia Harrison.

George Orwell - the pen name of Eric Blair - was a writer and political commentator who is very hard to pin down. He is a complex mass of confusions - an antiestablishment, pro-English, ex-Etonian, ex-policeman and socialist who was ardently antiauthoritarian. He was as antifascist as he was anticommunist, a former Spanish Civil War soldier who was antiwar but pro the Second World War.

The editor of a new campaigning weekly, The Herald, he has just appointed a chief correspondent - Jack Marshall, an eager and rather handsome young man. Agnes Paxton (daughter of Joseph Paxton, Railway King, and part-owner of the paper) is in charge of petty cash. The first lead that Jack needs to chase up is who, or what, is responsible for a tragic railway accident. An awkward investigation when a Railway King and his daughter are so close to home!

Catch a glimpse inside the mind of one of the most notorious murderers in recent memory - Lyle Menendez. The cold-blooded murder of Jose and Kitty Menendez shocked the nation. At first it seemed to be the work of the mob, but it soon became apparent that the murderers were their sons Lyle and Erik. Their first trial started a media frenzy and was filled with lurid details, but these never clearly explained why the brothers killed their parents.

This work was originally published prior to the conclusion of the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Here, Knox reveals that while racial divisions existed on the panel, they were grossly exaggerated. He describes the oppressive, bizarre, and demeaning life of sequestration, where alcohol is prohibited and privacy is nonexistent...even during conjugal visits, jurors worried about having their conversation taped. Knox also explains why he was leaning towards a guilty verdict just prior to his dismissal as a juror.

Tim, Meredith and Harry are three sassy, 30 something traders who, tired of making money for someone else, combine to launch a new hedge fund. But it doesn't take long before they get seriously above themselves, losing a small fortune and making some pretty heavy enemies in the City markets.

A thrilling radio re-imagining telling the story of Charles Dickens' last days and providing a brand-new conclusion to his famous unfinished novel. April, 1870. Bone-weary, sick and struggling with a hidden guilt, Charles Dickens is grappling with what will be his final book - The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Two months later, he is dead and the novel remains unfinished: only six of the 12 planned instalments had been completed.

When disgraced City trader Tim Ng is offered immunity from prosecution by the FSA, he is alarmed to discover what it is they want in return. Although offered immunity from prosecution, he is by no means out of the woods, and he soon finds his life in danger....