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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

Book of the Week

Audiobooks

Factual

Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

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Book of the Week: Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl

Book of the Week: Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl: Episode 2

Factual: Life Stories

Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl

Episode 2

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl, Episode 2

The dramatic effect of a wartime air crash steered Roald towards writing books.

The dramatic effect of a wartime air crash steered Roald towards writing books. With Julian Rhind-Tutt and Ian McDiarmid.

"Roald Dahl thought biographies were boring. He told me so while munching on a lobster claw."

The new biographer of Dahl is Donald Sturrock, who once made a film about the writer, so knew the man and his family very well. His book charts Dahl's rich and varied life as fighter pilot, intelligence operative, and the adult writer who then wrote for children in such an impactful way that he remains hugely popular with today's young readers. He was truly on their wavelength. He spoke to them through books such as Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, The BFG and Danny, Champion of The World. 

Sturrock investigates Dahl's eternal popularity as a writer. And of course the man behind the books...

2. According to Dahl, it was a dramatic war-time plane crash that steered him towards being a writer.

The reader is Julian Rhind Tutt and the voice of Dahl is Ian McDiarmid

Producer Duncan Minshull.

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.

Julian Rhind-Tutt reads from Donald Sturrock's biography of Roald Dahl

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Book of the Week

Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl

Episode 2

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