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A BBC Christmas Collection
Jeremy Front, Rachel Joyce
  • Published: 1 December 2022
  • ISBN: 9781529906929
  • Imprint: BBC DL
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Narrators: Nikesh Patel, Meera Syal, Rebecca Front, Stephanie Cole, Tamsin Grieg

A BBC Christmas Collection

30 Festive Dramas and Stories

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Get into a festive mood with this chunky collection of Christmas tales to cosy up with.

A sparkling seasonal anthology of BBC dramas and readings

Christmas is the perfect time to curl up with a good story, and this cracking collection brings you 30 wonderfully diverse tales inspired by this most special of seasons. From Santa Claus, gift-giving and family gatherings, to an unexpected encounter in a snowstorm and an alternative take on the Nativity, they're sure to get you in the festive mood.

Here are modern readings of classics such as Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Tree', Anton Chekhov's 'At Christmas Time', Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Fir Tree', O Henry's 'The Gift of the Magi', Elizabeth Gaskell's 'Christmas Storms and Sunshine' and Leo Tolstoy's 'Papa Panov's Special Christmas'. Alongside them is some superb short fiction by contemporary authors, including Stella Duffy ('South'), Paul McVeigh ('Daddy Christmas'), Laura Barnett ('Survivors'), and nine delightful stories by Alexander McCall Smith. Among the stellar narrators are Don Gilet, Nina Sosanya, Hannah Gordon, Stephanie Cole and Meera Syal.

Interspersed with these are a range of spellbinding plays, including Rachel Joyce's poignant Christmas by the Lake; festive action comedy Lena Marsh, Live and Schticking! by Jeremy Front; a very unusual and very dangerous Santa in The Morpeth Carol by Timothy X Atack; and Robert Hudson and Marie Phillips' epistolary animal tale, Some Hay in a Manger, introduced by Stephen Fry. All feature star casts including Niamh Cusack, Robert Lindsay, Sam Troughton, Clare Corbett, Tamsin Greig and Joel Fry.

Heartwarming and heartfelt, comic and bittersweet, moving and magical, these fantastic, evocative stories are a real Christmas treat.

Note: Chapter metadata updated in January 2023.

Contents
Christmas by the Lake by Rachel Joyce
Christmas Short Stories by Alexander McCall Smith:
· 'Motordrome'
· 'The Revenge, or Otherwise, of Herbie Bontemps'
· 'How to Escape in Gaelic'
· 'The Colourful Life of Cousin Grace'
· 'Good President Wenceslas'
The Christmas Present by Ben Crompton
Christmas Compass: Series 1:
· 'North' by Malachy Tallack
· 'South' by Stella Duffy
· 'East' by Ruth Thomas
· 'West' by Mike McCormack
A Time to Dance by Lucy Gannon
Christmas Compass: Series 2 by Alexander McCall Smith
· 'Winter Journey'
· 'In the DRC'
· 'Primatologist'
· 'On The Island'
Midnight at Christmas by Elliott Kerrigan
'The Fir Tree' by Hans Christian Andersen
'At Christmas Time'by Anton Chekhov
'Papa Panov's Special Christmas' by Leo Tolstoy
Some Hay in a Manger by Robert Hudson and Marie Phillips
'Daddy Christmas' by Paul McVeigh
'Christmas Storms and Sunshine'by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Morpeth Carol by Timothy X Atack
'Survivors' by Laura Barnett
Lena Marsh, Live and Shticking!by Jeremy Front
'A Christmas Tree' by Charles Dickens
'The Gift of the Magi' by O Henry
Get Santa by Peter Gibbs
'Home' by Christine Dwyer Hickey

© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd
  • Published: 1 December 2022
  • ISBN: 9781529906929
  • Imprint: BBC DL
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Narrators: Nikesh Patel, Meera Syal, Rebecca Front, Stephanie Cole, Tamsin Grieg
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About the authors

Jeremy Front

Jeremy Front is an award winning writer, actor and broadcaster. He studied Fine Art (Painting) at Goldsmith’s, University of London and Central St. Martin’s School of Art. His first feature length screenplay was shortlisted for the Oxford Film Foundation Prize and first theatre pieces were musical/sketch revues, co-written with his sister, Rebecca Front. Four Times Four, a collection of monologues for women was staged by the RSC in Stratford as part of their New Writing Season. Jeremy has written extensively for radio and television moving between original and adaptations in both drama and comedy. Work for BBC Radio includes the comedy series: Jack and Millie, seven series of Incredible Women (nominated BBC Audio Drama Award) in both of which he co-stars with Rebecca Front, and the long-running radio comedy series The Charles Paris Mysteries starring Bill Nighy. Jeremy has adapted and dramatized work by Graham Greene Stamboul Train, Elizabeth Gaskell Mr. Harrison’s Confession, John Meade Faulkner The Lost Stradivarius, Anita Loos Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Nominated and Finalist for a Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award), Chekov The Duel and Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, Scoop, Brideshead Revisited and The Sword of Honour Trilogy (Winner of the BBC Audio Drama Award).
JF

Rachel Joyce

Rachel Joyce is the author of the Sunday Times and international bestsellers The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North, The Music Shop, Miss Benson's Beetle, and a collection of interlinked short stories, A Snow Garden & Other Stories. Rachel’s books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The critically acclaimed film of the novel, for which Rachel also wrote the screenplay, was released in 2023. Miss Benson’s Beetle won the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize in 2021. Rachel was awarded the Specsavers National Book Awards New Writer of the Year in December 2012 and was shortlisted for the UK Author of the Year in 2014. In 2024 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Kingston University. Rachel has written over twenty original afternoon plays and adaptations of the classics for BBC Radio 4. She lives with her family near Stroud.
portrait photo of Rachel Joyce