The Buried Giant 

Original version

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 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 FM

BBC Radio 4 LW

David Suchet

Kazuo Ishiguro

Sara Davies

Mair Bosworth

David Ridley & Becky Ripley

Book at Bedtime: Kazuo Ishiguro - The Buried Giant: Episode 4

The Buried Giant

Episode 4

Kazuo Ishiguro - The Buried Giant

BBC Radio 4 - Book at Bedtime, Kazuo Ishiguro - The Buried Giant, Episode 4

David Suchet reads Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Buried Giant.

Axl and Beatrice continue their quest accompanied by the Saxon warrior and a young boy in peril. Read by David Suchet.

In this time of forgetting, one elderly couple - Axl and Beatrice - are determined to hold onto memories of their life together and have set out to find their long-lost son. Hoping to pass a restful night at a Saxon village, they find the community there in turmoil after an ogre attack. 

A Saxon warrior named Wistan, a stranger from a distant country to the East, frees a village boy named Edwin from the ogres, only to see his own people turn on him in fear. The villagers say the boy has been bitten by an ogre and claim he will turn fiend himself with disastrous consequences.

Axl and Beatrice agree to help take the boy to safety, and Wistan and Edwin join the old pair of Britons as they continue on their journey. 

David Suchet continues Kazuo Ishiguro's powerful novel - a moving, mysterious and deeply philosophical book about how societies remember and forget. 

“It’s queer the way the world’s forgetting people and things from only yesterday and the day before that. Like a sickness come over us all.” 

The Romans have long since departed and Britain is steadily declining into ruin. In this desolate, uncultivated land of mist and rain, people find that their memories are slipping away from them. They live in an uneasy peace but memories of the wars that once ravaged the country are stirring. 

Abridged by Sara Davies

Producer: Mair Bosworth

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2015.

Book at Bedtime: Kazuo Ishiguro - The Buried Giant

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.

By Kazuo Ishiguro. Moving and mysterious story about how societies remember and forget.

By Kazuo Ishiguro. Moving, mysterious and philosophical story about how societies remember and forget. Read by David Suchet.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Book at Bedtime

Kazuo Ishiguro - The Buried Giant

Episode 4

Contributors

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 4 Extra

About BBC Radio 4 Extra