Strangers and Brothers
An Epic BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation
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Strangers and Brothers
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By:
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C. P. Snow
About this listen
The full-cast BBC Radio adaptation of C. P. Snow's epic series about the English establishment across the 20th century.
In 1920s Leicester, Lewis Eliot must escape the drudgery of a council clerk's office and his provincial lower class background to begin his decades-long rise to power. As the years pass, and Lewis progresses to successful London lawyer, to Cambridge don, to wartime service in Whitehall, to senior civil servant and finally retirement, he faces in his own life and the lives of those around him collapsing marriages, terrible illness, the politics of academia, Nazism, nuclear weapons, the price of power and the ever-present realities of war.
The New York Times praised the book series, saying, 'through [them] as in no other work in our time we have explored the inner life of the new classless class that is the 20th century Establishment.' John Betjeman claimed the books were 'as full of life as life itself'. The Strangers and Brothers series captures perfectly the ever-present battle between political and personal integrity Lewis must face, as well as all the upheaval and social change of the two world wars and the decades that followed.
This adaptation stars David Haig and Adam Godley as Lewis Eliot, Bill Wallis as George Passant, Juliet Aubrey as Margaret Davidson, Stephen Moore as Herbert Getliffe, and Danny Webb as Percy Hall, with a full cast including Jeremy Swift, David Tennant, Anne-Marie Duff, Iain Glen, Claire Skinner and Tim McInnerny.
Directed by Jeremy Howe and Sally Avens.
Dramatised by Jonathan Holloway.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, January - June 2003
Full cast:
Narrator/Lewis Eliot - David Haig
Young Lewis Eliot - Adam Godley
George Passant - Bill Wallis
Marion - Laura Doddington
Sheila Knight - Anastasia Hille
Herbert Getliffe - Stephen Moore
Percy Hall - Danny Webb
Charles March - Jamie Glover
Leonard March - John Standing
Katherine March - Carla Simpson
Ann Simon - Emma Woolliams
Mrs Getliffe - Suzanna Hamilton
Revd Knight - Brett Usher
Young Francis Getliffe -Andy Taylor
Winslow - Clive Merrison
Young Brown - Philip Franks
Roy Calvert - Adam Levy
Young Jago - David Calder
Nightingale - Jeremy Child
Chrystal - Matthew Marsh
Crawford - Hugh Quarshie
Mrs Jago - Joanna Monroe
Sir Horace Timberlake - Ian Hogg
Young Hector Rose - Rupert Vansittart
Houston Eggar - Peter Marinker
Willy Romantovski - Kenneth Collard
Gilbert Cooke - Anthony Calf
Margaret Davidson/Margaret Eliot - Juliet Aubrey
Rosalind - Anne-Marie Duff
Betty Vane - Carla Simpson
Martin Eliot - Tim McInnerny
Walter Luke - Jeremy Swift
Irene - Claire Skinner
David Rubin - Rolf Saxon
Sawbridge - Adrian Scarborough
Edgar - Andrew Wincott
Captain Smith - Sean Baker
Sir Hector Rose - John Carlisle
Sir Thomas Beville - Robert Laing
Austin Davidson - David Collings
Jago - Sean Barrett
Dawson Hill - Peter Blythe
Skeffington - David Acton
Francis Getliffe - Geoffrey Whitehead
Brown - Jonathan Coy
Donald Howard - David Tennant
Roger Quaife - Iain Glen
Lord Collingwood - Ronald Pickup
Caro Quaife - Julia Watson
Lord Gilbey - John Woodvine
Diana Skidmore - Avril Clark
Phillips - Richard Firth
Osbaldiston - David Leonard
Brodzinski - Christopher Rozycki
Ellen Smith - Emma Bown
Monteith - Paul Venables
Trafford - Stephen Critchlow
©2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2022 BBC Studios Distribution LtdListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"A vivid portrait of British academic, political and public life." (Guardian)
"A very considerable achievement.... It brings into the novel themes and locales never seen before (except perhaps in Trollope)." (Anthony Burgess)
What listeners say about Strangers and Brothers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Simonetta
- 15-04-24
Excellent
I enjoyed everything about this. Excellent dramatisation and reading. I’d never read Snow before, the book is an epic story of the era around WW2. Moving, fascinating and exciting, I listened to it virtually in a oner as I was unwell and had the time. An excellent report of the integrity and lack of it of its time. A story of loyalty and treachery and what happens in the corridors of power and academia. An upper class soap really! Very enjoyable and very real.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Gill Fowler
- 29-03-23
One of my all time favourites
I love these books. Read/hear them at least every 3 years Brilliant stuff beautifully written
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Just Some Woman
- 14-12-22
A stellar cast and an epic saga.
If, like me, you like trying to put a face to voices, this gripping tale is performed by a magnificent cast of very well known actors. If it sounds like a well known face, then it is! I heard this many years ago when it was first broadcast on the radio, and was very happy to add it to my library. It's one of those things that bear hearing over and over. And how many writers, apart from Shakespeare, have created an expression that has entered the English language; Corridors of Power started here.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Parvenu
- 10-01-23
Superb
A brilliant production. Fine performances and a compelling story. I just wish there was more of it.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- William Whawell
- 28-09-24
Superb telling of the best and worst of England
Having heard episodes on Radio 4 and read the books this is an excellent telling of Britain its class structures education and attitudes. Covering a period of profound change and war this is a most listen to those who want to understand how the nation runs
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- HumanBeing
- 26-08-22
My favourite BBC dramatisation
Strangers and Brothers covers 11 novels by the UK author, senior civil servant, and scientist CP Snow (Baron Snow).
"They deal with – among other things – questions of political and personal integrity, and the mechanics of exercising power." for the period 1914 to 1968.
There are some autobiographical and historical elements.
Snow's was among the 2,300 names of prominent persons listed on the Nazis' Special Search List, of those who were to be arrested on the invasion of Great Britain and turned over to the Gestapo.
The music is an extract of the early-twentieth-century British composer Gerald Finzi's Cello Concerto.
The books were previously adapted by the BBC, into a 13-episode television series, which began airing in January 1984.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Isabel Birney
- 20-11-22
Brilliant and fascinating
This is a brilliant and fascinating book, beautifully narrated by David Haig snd acted by a stellar cast. iwas sorry when it finished.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dr. R. Matthews
- 04-01-23
Brilliantly done.
I have really enjoyed this wonderful audiobook. Really great stories and brilliantly produced. Highly recommend.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Nick M
- 17-02-24
A superb performance by all concerned
The books are very long, and this was a good effort at condensing the whole thing. At times it felt a little rushed. It will never happen, but a cover to cover reading by David Haig would be an interesting challenge. Haig is excellent as the intellectually honest and forthright Lewis Eliot. I will always remember the way he say he ‘strode out into Whitehall under a gunmetal sky’ . The music is quite haunting, the Andante Quieto from Gerard Finzi’s Cello Concerto.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- S. Keane
- 13-09-22
Wonderful
I really liked this. It was great company while doing some mundane clearing out.
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