Programme Index

Discover 11,128,835 listings and 279,694 playable programmes from the BBC

Drama on 4

On Mardle Fen

Series 4

Part 1: If You Build It

Duration: 45 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

By Nick Warburton. Trevor Peacock is back as inspirational chef Warwick Hedges who runs an idiosyncratic restaurant in the Cambridgeshire Fens with his permanently anxious son Jack. In the first of a new series Warwick hits on an idea for putting the restaurant on the map; a music festival. Jack is dead against it but Warwick has plans.

Warwick Hedges...Trevor Peacock
Jack Hedges...Sam Dale
Marcia Hedges...Kate Buffery
Zofia...Helen Longworth
Samuel...John Rowe
Sebastian...Adam Billington

Directed by Claire Grove

Trevor Peacock stars as inspirational chef Warwick Hedges - Mr Toad meets King Lear - who runs an up market restaurant in the Cambridgeshire Fens. His son Jack , played by Sam Dale, works alongside his father, which makes him permanently anxious. They are assisted by Samuel, an earthy odd-job man "who crawled out of the slime with the eels" and Zofia a Polish waitress. The mixture of food , family relationships and Fenland legend is handled with Nick Warburton's characteristic deft comic touch.

Trevor Peacock is a brilliant character actor best known as the bumbling Jim Trott in The Vicar of Dibley. At 80 he is still at the top of his game. He has just made a new film with Dustin Hoffman. He appeared in Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre, as Stephen Fry's father in the TV series Kingdom and in three series of On Mardle Fen. He also plays Anton Lesser's father in R4's Falco.

Nick Warburton won the Peter Tinniswood Award for the Best New Play on Radio. His series Witness dramatising St Luke's Gospel went out to great acclaim in Dec 2007 on R4. His afternoon play Friday When It Rains (TX October) was Radio Times Choice. Nick dramatised 'Father and Son' for R4's Classic Serial. His original radio plays include Our Late Supper with Marcia Warren. Other work includes 6 episodes Thrush Green and Moonfleet for Radio 4. Plays for stage and radio include Conversation from the Engine Room, which won the 1985 BBC/Radio Times Award, The Messenger for Radio 3, an adaptation of Tolstoy's Resurrection, A Grove of Straight Trees (short-listed for the BBC/Radio Times Drama Award), and A Soldiers' Debt (entered for the Prix Italia). Show less

About this data

This data is drawn from the data stream that informs BBC's iPlayer and Sounds. The information shows what was scheduled to be broadcast, meaning it was/is subject to change and may not be accurate. More