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Classic Serial: PG Wodehouse - Summer Lightning

Classic Serial: PG Wodehouse - Summer Lightning: Episode 1

PG Wodehouse - Summer Lightning

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - Classic Serial, PG Wodehouse - Summer Lightning, Episode 1

4 Extra Debut. Romance, scandal and pig-napping in a timeless comic classic.

4 Extra Debut. Romance, scandal and pig-napping in a timeless comic classic. Stars Matt Lucas, Charles Dance, Patricia Hodge and Samuel West.

A star cast in a timeless comedy. 

Affably absent-minded Earl of Emsworth, preparing his prize-winning pig Empress of Blandings for the Shropshire Agricultural Show, is afraid that rival pig-owner Sir Gregory Parsloe is planning to nobble his precious Empress. Parsloe fears that Emsworth's brother Galahad's memoirs contain scurrilous stories about their younger days in the naughty 1890s - particularly a racy story involving some prawns. He plans to hire private detective Percy Pilbeam to purloin the manuscript.

Emsworth's sister Lady Constance, equally desperate to stop publication, also has a secret plan. 

And romance is in the air. His Lordship's new secretary and Emsworth's niece Millicent are secretly in love, but need financial help to pull off the marital merger. Emsworth's nephew, Ronnie Fish, is also in love with an unsuitable person - chorus girl Sue Brown. But Emsworth refuses to allow Ronnie any more money. Ronnie concocts a plan to regain his uncle's approval. 

Pig-napping, private detection, impostering, mistaken situations, fisticuffs and broken engagements ensue. All is set for glorious mid-summer mayhem.

Galahad Threepwood ..... Charles Dance
Lady Constance ..... Patricia Hodge
Beach ..... Tim Pigott-Smith
Percy Pilbeam ..... Matt Lucas 
Lord Emsworth ..... Martin Jarvis
Hugo Carmody ..... Samuel West
Sue Brown ..... Lisa Dillon
Ronnie Fish ..... Matthew Wolf
Millicent ..... Rachael Stirling
Rupert Baxter ..... Jared Harris
Sir Gregory Parsloe ..... Michael Jayston
Stage Doorman/Second Waiter ..... David Weston
Commissionaire/First Waiter ..... Jon Glover
Pagegirl ..... Anna Moore
Voice of Wodehouse ..... Ian Ogilvy

Dramatised by Archie Scottney.

Director: Martin Jarvis
Producer: Rosalind Ayres
A Jarvis & Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.

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Dramatisation by Archie Scottney of PG Wodehouse's timeless comic classic

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