Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Classic Serial

Drama: Classic & Period

Adaptations of works which have achieved classic status

BBC Radio 4 FM

Classic Serial: A Larkin Double

Samuel Barnett

Andrew Wincott

Robin Brooks

Classic Serial: A Larkin Double: Episode 1: Jill

A Larkin Double

Episode 1

Episode 1: Jill

Jill

BBC Radio 4 - Classic Serial, A Larkin Double, Jill

A young student arrives at Oxford and is drawn helplessly into his own imaginative world.

John Kemp arrives at Oxford for his first term. Socially awkward and inexperienced, he is attracted by the reckless and dissipated life of his roommate, Christopher Warner.

Episode 1 (of 2): Jill

Dramatised for the first time on BBC Radio 4 by Robin Brooks (Ulysses, I Claudius, The Chandler Season). Starring Samuel Barnett as John Kemp. With Jessica Raine , Richard Goulding and Frank Dillane, and introducing Grace Englert as Jill.

Jill was Philip Larkin's first novel, written when he was 21 and just out of Oxford. John Kemp, a Northern Grammar boy arrives at Oxford for his first term. Socially awkward and inexperienced, he finds he is sharing rooms with the upper class Christopher Warner, whose brash loutish behaviour both intimidates and attracts him.

Jill is a subtle and moving account of a young man facing the big issues of life - sex and class - and retreating into the world of the imagination. In effect, Jill is about Larkin finding himself as a writer - a book about the craft of writing and a young man's journey from boyhood to maturity.

Dramatised by Robin Brooks
Producer/Director: Fiona McAlpine
Sound: Alisdair McGregor
An Allegra production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC Radio 4

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

Dramatisations of Philip Larkin's only two novels

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Classic Serial

A Larkin Double

Episode 1: Jill

Contributors

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4