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Classic Serial

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Adaptations of works which have achieved classic status

Classic Serial: Herman Melville - Moby Dick

Classic Serial: Herman Melville - Moby Dick: Episode 1

Drama: Action & Adventure

Herman Melville - Moby Dick

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - Classic Serial, Herman Melville - Moby Dick, Episode 1

Captain Ahab's obsessive chase for the great white whale as seen by the sole survivor.

4 Extra Debut. Captain Ahab's obsessive sea chase across the high seas for the great white whale, as witnessed by sole voyage survivor Ishmael. Stars Trevor White.

Stef Penney, author of the critically acclaimed The Tenderness of Wolves, has adapted this well known American novel by Herman Melville.

Moby Dick is a story, she says, that gets its hooks into you, even though it's one of the strangest books you'll ever read. It has very little narrative, no character development to speak of, and there's no dramatic conflict for over five hundred pages. And yet it's completely compelling, like a fevered dream or a horror film, and, of course, as soon as Moby Dick is mentioned, you know where you're going to end up. For anyone who has ever longed to escape, it is the ultimate trip - and the ultimate morality tale of why you shouldn't go! Captain Ahab is all our darknesses personified; not an evil figure, but a decent, intelligent, could-have-been-ordinary man who gives in to the tyranny of an obsessive dream, or in this case, nightmare.

In Episode 1, Ishmael, now in middle age, looks back on his younger self and remembers how this voyage of a lifetime began. 

Ishmael ..... Trevor White
Young Ishmael ..... PJ Brennan
Captain Ahab ..... Garrick Hagon
Peter Coffin ..... Howell Evans
Queequeg ..... Sani Muliaumaseali'i
Peleg ..... Mark Meadows
Elijahh/Captain Mayhew ..... Dorian Thomas
Starbuck ..... Richard Laing
Stubb ..... Simon Lee Phillips
Archy ..... Adam Redmayne
Daggoo ..... Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

Specially composed music by Stuart Gordon.

Directed at BBC/Cymru Wales by Kate McAll.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Stef Penney's adaptation of Herman Melville's classic American novel

Stef Penney's adaptation of Herman Melville's classic American novel about the pursuit of a great whale

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Herman Melville - Moby Dick

Episode 1

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