Following on from The Secret Diary and The Growing Pains, The Wilderness Years is Sue Townsend's third book in the exquisitely funny Adrian Mole series.

It is now 1991 and our diarist is 23.

Adrian is still infatuated with his childhood sweetheart Pandora and is living in her box room in Oxford. Already in possession of a husband and a boyfriend, and sick of his attentions, Pandora recommends a therapist to help Adrian move on.

Unfulfilled by his job at the Department of the Environment, Adrian’s aspirations to become a poet and author are undimmed. Whilst working on his first novel, ‘Lo! The Flat Hills of my Homeland’, he is plagued by the literary success of his old nemesis, Barry Kent.

Adrian struggles to understand why he is so unsuccessful with women but his perseverance eventually pays off. How the female brain works remains a mystery to him, however.

As he continues to battle valiantly with the slings and arrows that life throws at him, Adrian starts to feel less of an outsider and more at ease with himself.

Omnibus of the first five of ten parts abridged by Sara Davies

Read by Harry McEntire.

Producer: Alexa Moore

A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in November 2018. Show less