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Book at Bedtime: Sebastian Barry - The Temporary Gentleman

Ciaran Hinds

Gemma McMullan

Neville Teller

Sebastian Barry

Book at Bedtime: Sebastian Barry - The Temporary Gentleman: Episode 4

The Temporary Gentleman

Episode 4

Sebastian Barry - The Temporary Gentleman

BBC Radio 4 - Book at Bedtime, Sebastian Barry - The Temporary Gentleman, Episode 4

Is Jack and Mai's wedding day a sign of things to come?

On their wedding day, Jack realises his new wife is unhappy - a sign of things to come perhaps? Read by Ciaran Hinds.

Jack McNulty is a 'temporary gentleman', an Irishman whose commission in the British army in the Second World War was never permanent. In 1957, sitting in his lodgings in Accra, he urgently sets out to write his story recounting his strange and tumultuous marriage to the elusive great beauty of Sligo, Mai Kirwan, and the inevitable fate that he now feels compelled to reconcile himself with. He feels he cannot take one step further, or even hardly a breath, without looking back at all that has befallen him. He is an ordinary man, both petty and heroic, but he has seen extraordinary things.

The Temporary Gentleman is, ultimately, a story about a man's last bid for freedom, from the savage realities of the past and from himself.

Ciarán Hinds is one of Ireland's most prolific and esteemed actors. His many television and film credits include: Game of Thrones, Munich, The Sea, Road to Perdition, There Will Be Blood, Frozen, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Woman in Black and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

The Temporary Gentleman by Sebastian Barry
Read by Ciarán Hinds
Abridged by Neville Teller
Producer Gemma McMullan.

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By Sebastian Barry. Irishman Jack McNulty recounts his strange and tumultuous past

By Sebastian Barry. Irishman Jack McNulty, a commissioned officer in the British Army in the Second World War, recounts his strange and tumultuous past. Read by Ciaran Hinds

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