Short Works

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Short Works: Is This Platform Four Madam? Is it? by Pauline Melville

Is This Platform Four Madam? Is it? by Pauline Melville

BBC Radio 4 - Short Works, Is This Platform Four Madam? Is it? by Pauline Melville

The haunting story of a remarkable encounter with two mysterious strangers on a train.

4 Extra Debut. The haunting story of a remarkable encounter with two mysterious strangers on a train journey south. Read by Deborah Findlay.

An original short work for radio by the acclaimed Guyanese-born author Pauline Melville.

The haunting story of a remarkable encounter with two mysterious strangers on a train journey south from Newcastle to London. 

A post-graduate is leaving Newcastle and heading south after finishing her English studies when she is struck by two unusual men who seem oddly over-anxious to establish if they are on the right train. Once on board the pair break into song and it emerges they are travellers, who have never learnt to read, on their way to their annual festive gathering, Appleby Fair. 

This short work captures a fleeting moment when two contrasting cultures, rural and urban, lyrical and literary, age-old and modern, rub up against each other on one memorable summer's evening.

Read by Deborah Findlay.

Produced by Karen Holden.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2019.

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Is This Platform Four Madam? Is it? by Pauline Melville

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