Hard Times

Original version

BBC Radio 7

Charles Dickens

Drama: Classic & Period

Radio adaptations of Dicken's classic English literature.

BBC Radio 4 Extra

Charles Dickens: Hard Times: Episode 1

Charles Dickens - Hard Times

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Charles Dickens, Hard Times, Episode 1

The arrival of a circus challenges the provincial thinking of two local businessmen.

The arrival of a circus challenges the provincial thinking of two local businessmen. Stars Kenneth Cranham and Philip Jackson.

Hard facts are all that provincial businessmen, Mr Gradgrind and Mr Bounderby feel are necessary in life. But the arrival of Sleary's circus in Coketown shows another way...

Charles Dickens's 1854 classic about struggles in the industrial north, dramatised in four parts by Doug Lucie.

Thomas Gradgrind    ......    Kenneth Cranham
Josiah Bounderby    ......    Philip Jackson 
Mrs Sparsit    ......    Eleanor Bron
Mrs Gradgrind     ......    Thelma Barlow
Sleary    ......    Derek Waring
Helen Longworth    ......    Louisa
Rachael    ......    Becky Hindley 
Stephen    ......    Alan Williams
Mrs Pegler    ......    Marcia Warren
Francis Jeater    ......    Mrs Blackpool
Mr M'choakumchild    ......    Stephen Critchlow
Childers    ......    Chris Moran
Josephine    ......    Jaimi Barbakoff 
A Boy    ......    Gregg Prentice
Servant    ......    Ioan Meredith 
Waiter    ......    Declan Wilson 
Sissy    ......    Stepanie Rawson
Bitzer    ......    Alexander Slater
Tom    ......    Nick Roud 

Music by Nina Perry.

Director: Janet Whitaker

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2003.

Charles Dickens: Hard Times

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

Dickens' classic appraisal of trade unions and post-Industrial Revolution pessimism.

Dickens' classic appraisal of trade unions and post-Industrial Revolution pessimism. His only novel not to feature London, instead set in a fictional Northern mill town.

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Hard Times

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