Episode 1 (of 2): Jill

Dramatised for the first time on BBC Radio 4 by Robin Brooks (Ulysses, I Claudius, The Chandler Season). Starring Samuel Barnett as John Kemp. With Jessica Raine , Richard Goulding and Frank Dillane, and introducing Grace Englert as Jill.

Jill was Philip Larkin's first novel, written when he was 21 and just out of Oxford. John Kemp, a Northern Grammar boy arrives at Oxford for his first term. Socially awkward and inexperienced, he finds he is sharing rooms with the upper class Christopher Warner, whose brash loutish behaviour both intimidates and attracts him.

Jill is a subtle and moving account of a young man facing the big issues of life - sex and class - and retreating into the world of the imagination. In effect, Jill is about Larkin finding himself as a writer - a book about the craft of writing and a young man's journey from boyhood to maturity.

Dramatised by Robin Brooks
Producer/Director: Fiona McAlpine
Sound: Alisdair McGregor
An Allegra production for BBC Radio 4. Show less