Alison Hart is a professional medium, an awkward, obese, disorganised woman, but with a gift for empathy and a good platform technique.

Her familiar spirits are figures from her chaotic childhood, principal among them a small, foul-mouthed circus performer with disgusting personal habits called Morris who is her unpleasant and bitter spirit guide.

To try and create some order in her messy existence she has taken on an assistant, the highly efficient but essentially heartless Colette, who, although she is a regular witness to Alison's gift, is nevertheless a profoundly sceptical companion. The two of them are bound together by a need that neither wants to recognise.

Hilary Mantel's blackly comic novel about a professional medium with a troubled past.

Dramatised in ten parts by Caroline Harrington.

Alison ...... Alison Steadman
Colette ...... Rosie Cavaliero
Morris ...... Bill Wallis

Director: Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2010. Show less