Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Book at Bedtime

Audiobooks

Podcasts

Drama

Readings from modern classics, new works by leading writers and world literature

Readings from modern classics, new works by leading writers and literature from around the world

BBC Radio 4 Extra

BBC Radio 4 FM

Book at Bedtime: The Girls of Slender Means

Emilia Fox

Muriel Spark

Sally Marmion

Justine Willett

Book at Bedtime: The Girls of Slender Means: Episode 4: Let Them Enjoy Themselves while They're Young

The Girls of Slender Means

Episode 4

Episode 4: Let Them Enjoy Themselves while They're Young

Let Them Enjoy Themselves while They're Young

BBC Radio 4 - Book at Bedtime, The Girls of Slender Means, Let Them Enjoy Themselves while They're Young

Greggie's stories of unexploded bombs in the club's garden prove to hold some truth.

Greggie's stories of unexploded bombs in the May of Teck Club's garden prove to hold some truth. Read by Emilia Fox. From January 2015. Episode 4 of 5.

'Few people alive at the time were more delightful, more ingenuous, more movingly lovely, and as it might happen, more savage than the girls of slender means.'

Emilia Fox reads Muriel Spark's rapier-witted portrait of the lives and loves of a group of genteel but down-at-heel young women in postwar London. In the so-called May of Teck Club, a boarding house for single ladies, life carries on as if the world were back to normal: elocution lessons, poetry recitals, jostling over suitors and the sharing of a single taffeta gown. But the war has ended and things are not normal and never again will be. Into this world arrives Nicholas Farringdon, a writer and anachist, who is beguiled by these girls of slender means and their giddy, carefree lives. This meeting, we soon learn, will end in his death.
Today: Greggie's stories of unexploded bombs in the Club's garden prove to hold some truth.

Spark's 1963 novel, The Girls of Slender Means, has become a modern classic. Muriel Spark was an award-winning Scottish novelist and biographer, known best for her acclaimed novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

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.

Muriel Spark's rapier-witted portrait of genteel young women's lives in postwar London.

Muriel Spark's rapier-witted portrait of genteel young women's lives in postwar London. Read by Emilia Fox. Abridged by Sally Marmion.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Book at Bedtime

The Girls of Slender Means

Episode 4: Let Them Enjoy Themselves while They're Young

Contributors

Genres

Formats

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4