Kieran Hodgson
Decline And Fall

Decline And Fall

  • Radio comedy drama
  • BBC Radio 4
  • 2015
  • 2 episodes (1 series)

Jeremy Front dramatises Evelyn Waugh's darkly comic 1920s romp, with a host of comedy actors in the main roles. Stars Kieran Hodgson, Geoffrey Whitehead, John Sessions, James Fleet, Ben Crowe and more.

Key details

Genre
Comedy Drama
Broadcast
2015
Channel
BBC Radio 4
Episodes
2 (1 series)
Stars
Kieran Hodgson, Geoffrey Whitehead, John Sessions, James Fleet, Ben Crowe, Emilia Fox, Alex Lawther, Tilly Vosburgh and more
Writers
Evelyn Waugh and Jeremy Front
Director
Tracey Neale
Producer
Marion Nancarrow
Company

2015 adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's fast-paced 1920s comic fiction. Set in the early jazz age, the tone of Decline And Fall is Wodehousian with added sex, drugs and alcohol.

Paul Pennyfeather, a scholarly young student at Oxford, knows nothing of 1920s high life until one night he encounters The Bollinger Club...

Paul is an innocent but, nevertheless, the engine of the piece. The fuse is lit in Oxford after which the plot moves listeners quickly to London, then out to a tenth rate school in rural Wales where we meet the headmaster Dr Fagan, and two fellow teachers Grimes and Prendergast.

From here the story moves to a glass and steel fantasy of excessive modern architecture in the middle of the English countryside, the home of the beautiful Margot and designed by the eccentric Otto.

Paul's travels then take him to hot and sweaty Marseille and into trouble which results in him ending up in a British prison.

Paul's adventures end in a rather Alice In Wonderland fashion when he is given a new identity and returns to Oxford, exactly where he started, but with the addition of a beard.

Additional details

Production
Studio

Broadcast details

First broadcast
Sunday 26th April 2015 at 3pm on BBC Radio 4
Most recent repeats
  • Saturday 18th May 2019 at 3:00am on Radio 4 Extra - Episode 2
  • Friday 17th May 2019 at 3:00pm on Radio 4 Extra - Episode 2
  • Friday 17th May 2019 at 10:00am on Radio 4 Extra - Episode 2

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