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Book at Bedtime: Jonathan Coe - Expo 58

Tim McInnerny

Joanna Green

Libby Spurrier

Jonathan Coe

Book at Bedtime: Jonathan Coe - Expo 58: Episode 5

Expo 58

Episode 5

Jonathan Coe - Expo 58

BBC Radio 4 - Book at Bedtime, Jonathan Coe - Expo 58, Episode 5

Thomas discovers that his roommate and the highly-prized ZETA machine have disappeared.

Having awoken in a strange hotel room, Thomas returns to the Expo to find that both his roommate Tony and the highly-prized ZETA machine have mysteriously disappeared.

London 1958: Unassuming civil servant Thomas Foley is plucked from his desk at the Central Office of Information and sent on a six-month trip to Brussels. His task - to keep an eye on The Britannia, a brand new pub which will form the heart of the British presence at Expo 58, the biggest World's Fair of the century and the first to be held since the Second World War.

As soon as he arrives at the site, Thomas feels that he has escaped a repressed, backward-looking country and fallen headlong into an era of modernity and optimism. He is equally bewitched by the surreal, gigantic Atomium, which stands at the heart of this brave new world, and by Anneke, the lovely Flemish hostess who meets him off his plane.

But Thomas's new-found sense of freedom comes at a price. The Cold War is at its height, the mischievous Belgians have placed the American and Soviet pavilions right next to each other - and why is he being followed everywhere by two mysterious emissaries of the British Secret Service?

Expo 58 may represent a glittering future, both for Europe and for Thomas himself, but he will soon be forced to decide where his public and private loyalties really lie.


Written by Jonathan Coe
Abridged by Libby Spurrier

Read by Tim McInnerny
Produced by Joanna Green

A Pier Production for 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.

Jonathan Coe's comic novel set during the Cold War. Read by Tim McInnerny

Jonathan Coe's comic novel set during the Cold War. Abridged by Libby Spurrier and read by Tim McInnerny

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