Shocking family truths about the Winshaws pile-up, but what's in-store for their biographer, Michael?

But whenever he feels stressed, Pearce turns again and again to view a clip of his favourite film, What A Carve Up!

Robert Bathurst stars in Jonathan Coe's wickedly funny, black comedy, inspired by the immorality, greed, corruption and ambition of 1980s Britain - adapted by David Nobbs (The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin).

Coe's cult 1994 fictional novel was inspired after he watched the old British comedy horror film, What A Carve Up! (1961) starring Sid James, Kenneth Connor and Shirley Eaton. Coe opted to borrow both the film's title and the theme of a family -- as a way of exposing foul play in the British Establishment - and the excesses and evils of all aspects of Thatcherite Britain during the 80s and early 90s.

Michael ...... Robert Bathurst
Fiona ...... Fiona Allen
Hortensia/Tabitha ...... Flaminia Cinque
Mark Winshaw ...... Alan Davies
Hilary Winshaw ...... Rebecca Front
Mortimer Winshaw ...... Charlie Higson
Michael's Mum/Dorothy ...... Geraldine McNulty
Thomas Winshaw ...... Geoffrey Palmer
Phoebe ...... Lucy Punch
Henry Winshaw/Pyles ...... Jeff Rawle

Producer: Lucy Armitage

Made by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Radio 4 and first broadcast in 2005. Show less