J. Sheridan Le Fanu: A BBC Radio Full-Cast Gothic Horror Collection
by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Don McCamphill, Alan Drury, Neil Brand, Anne-Marie Duff, Brana Bajic, David Warner, Celia Imrie, Jacqueline Pearce, Nigel Anthony, Roger May, Kenneth Cranham, Ian McDiarmid, Teresa Gallagher, Graham Crowden, Dorothy Tutin, Joan Sims, Kathleen Byron, Tessa Worsley, John Hartley, Jonathan Keeble, Geoffrey Whitehead, Stephen Critchlow, George Cole, Jane Wittenshaw, George A. Cooper, Becky Hindley, Pauline Letts, David Collings, John Evitts, Linda Regan, Joan Littlewood, Paul Chahidi, Haydn Gwynne, Jonathan Forbes, Ruth Everett, Matthew Durkan, Alexandra Hannant, Rebecca Crankshaw, Chris Jack, Michael Begley, Neil McCaul, Seán Barrett
Narrated by full cast, Anne-Marie Duff, Roger May, David Warner, Celia Imrie, Haydn Gwynne, Teresa Gallagher, Paul Chahidi, Joan Sims
About This Audiobook
J. Sheridan Le Fanu shaped much of what we recognize as Victorian Gothic, and this BBC Radio collection gathers several of his most important works in full dramatization and reading. The centerpiece is Carmilla — the lesbian vampire novella that predated Dracula and influenced it directly — alongside Uncle Silas, Schalken the Painter, and a portmanteau drama connecting Le Fanu's short fiction to a contemporary Dublin setting. Together the pieces span the author's range from intimate dread to full-scale Gothic thriller.
The full-cast production features Anne-Marie Duff, David Warner, Joan Sims, and other distinguished performers who give the Victorian material contemporary vitality. The BBC Radio treatment has always served Gothic literature particularly well — the audio format's reliance on voice and imagination suits a writer whose horror is as much psychological as physical. At just under six hours, this is an excellent introduction to a foundational horror writer.