'It was tempting to think, at times like this, that some bizarre hysteria had gripped the British people.'

Jonathan Coe's novel is a comic yet poignant look at Britain in the run up to Brexit as Prime Minister David Cameron rolls the dice on the EU Referendum.

Beginning eight years ago on the outskirts of Birmingham, where car factories have been replaced by pound shops, and London, where riots give way to Olympic fever, Jonathan Coe's novel follows a Britain through a time of mind-boggling change.

There are newlyweds Ian and Sophie, on either side of the Referendum debate; Doug, the leftwing journalist who writes about austerity from his Chelsea townhouse, and his radical teenage daughter who will stop at nothing in her quest for social justice; Benjamin Trotter, who embarks on an apparently doomed new career in middle age, and his father Colin, whose last wish is to vote to leave the EU. Through these lives is the story of modern England: a story of nostalgia and delusion; of bewilderment and barely-suppressed rage.

Through these lives, Jonathan Coe, tells the story of modern England: a story of nostalgia and delusion; of bewilderment and barely-suppressed rage.

Omnibus of the last five of ten parts abridged by Richard Hamilton.

Read by Jeff Rawle

Producer: Justine Willett

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2018. Show less