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  • Published: 3 March 2016
  • ISBN: 9781785292620
  • Imprint: BBC DL
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 2 hr 0 min
  • Narrators: Holliday Grainger, Toby Jones
  • Pages: 240

I Capture the Castle




Toby Jones and Holliday Grainger star in a new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of the enduringly popular coming-of-age novel. In the 1930s, young Cassandra Mortmain lives with her family in a crumbling castle in the English countryside. Her observations of her closest relations, and of the world she is growing up into, form the basis of the story.

Toby Jones and Holliday Grainger star in a new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Dodie Smith's enduringly popular coming-of-age novel In the 1930s, seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain lives in a crumbling ruin of a castle in the Suffolk countryside. Her father, an author wrestling with writer's block, spends his time reading detective stories; her bohemian stepmother Topaz is an artist's model, and her beautiful older sister Rose is determined to escape the poverty of their existence – ideally by marriage to a rich man. Intelligent and observant, Cassandra chronicles the eccentricities of her relations in her journal, in a bid to capture her family and their lives at the castle.


When two rich American brothers, Simon and Neil Cotton, arrive unexpectedly, the family's isolation is disrupted. Rose accepts a marriage proposal from Simon, and as she is whisked off to a world of wealth in London, Cassandra is left to deal with the increasingly bizarre behaviour of her father – as well as her own feelings for Simon...


Dodie Smith's charming, funny and poignant love story is a classic of 20th-Century English literature and this sparkling adaptation, starring Toby Jones and Holliday Grainger, will enchant and delight. Duration: 2 hours

  • Published: 3 March 2016
  • ISBN: 9781785292620
  • Imprint: BBC DL
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 2 hr 0 min
  • Narrators: Holliday Grainger, Toby Jones
  • Pages: 240

About the author

Dodie Smith

Dorothy Gladys 'Dodie' Smith was born in 1896 in Lancashire and she was one of the most successful female dramatists of her generation. Her first novel, I Capture the Castle, was written when she lived in America during the 1940's and marked her crossover debut from playwright to novelist. The novel became an immediate success and was produced as a play in 1954. She has written numerous other novels but is best known today for The Hundred and One Dalmatians, a story for younger readers. The Hundred and One Dalmatians became the basis of two Disney Films.

Also by Dodie Smith

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Praise for I Capture the Castle

There are many good reasons to read Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle: it provides excellent advice about dressing on a budget (dye all your clothes sea-green); how to cope when the man you love falls for your elder sister (keep a diary) and your stepmother dances naked in the rain (ditto). Given that most teenagers believe their parents to be mad - and vice versa - the novel also serves as a helpful guide to recognising the fine line between eccentricity and outright insanity

Guardian

A book for anyone who is young, poor, fed up and yearning for something exciting to happen

Irish Times

When I read I Capture the Castle it immediately became one of my favourite novels of all time, and I was very annoyed that nobody had told me about it before

J.K Rowling

Unputdownable and loved by teenagers and adults everywhere.

Observer

Everyone I've passed it on to has found it a hit - it works every time, for absolutely everybody

Nigella Lawson

So what makes these different to any other set of classics? In a moment of inspiration Random House had the bright idea of actually asking Key stage 2 children what extra ingredients they could add to make children want to read. And does it work? Well, put it this way...my 13-year-old daughter announced that she had to read a book over the summer holiday and, without any prompting, spotted The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas...and proceeded to read it! Now, if you knew my 13-year-old daughter, you would realise that this is quite remarkable. She reads texts, blogs and tags by the thousand - but this is the first book she has read since going to high school, so all hail Vintage Classics!

National Association for the Teaching of English

A complete joy of an eccentric English coming-of-age novel

Kerry Fowler, Sainsbury's Magazine

The perfect lockdown read - gentle and infused with a glowing warmth, featuring an emotional complexity that makes the simple story rewarding throughout

Independent