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  • Published: 1 December 2004
  • ISBN: 9781405698610
  • Imprint: BBC DL
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 3 hr 49 min
  • Narrators: Tim McInnerny, Bertie Carvel, Amanda Redman
  • RRP: $13.99

The Odyssey




A BBC Radio 4 full-cast production of Homer’s epic seafaring adventure, dramatised by award-winning poet Simon Armitage

and starring Tim McInnerny, Amanda Redman & Benedict Cumberbatch.

‘My fame is written in the heavens, and my fate too...’ So speaks Odysseus as he starts to recount his struggles to sail home to Ithaca, in one of the greatest pieces of storytelling in Western literature.

'The Odyssey' is his incredible traveller’s tale – and also the story of his faithful wife Penelope who waits for him, besieged by suitors, and their son Telemachus who has a quest of his own. In a twenty-year journey, fabulous fantasy mixes with extraordinary reality as Odysseus encounters enchantresses, nymphs, monsters, prophets and ghosts. From the temptations of the lotus flowers and the Sirens’ song to the horrors of the Cyclops’ cave and the Land of the Dead, the story of his encounters is riveting. We hear of Circe, who turned his men into swine; Calypso, who held Odysseus prisoner for seven years; and the dreadful six-headed monster Scylla who devoured some of his crew. And we hear of the Gods, who have a vital role to play....

Dramatised by major contemporary poet Simon Armitage to celebrate the return of the Olympics to Athens, this full cast production brings Odysseus’s adventures to vivid life, conveying all the excitement, suspense and poetry of the original. A stunning aural rollercoaster ride, 'The Odyssey' will have your heart in your mouth and stir your soul.

'As irresistible as gravity ... a production so thrilling that it rapidly becomes unthinkable to press the stop - or even the pause - button' - Independent on Sunday.

Odysseus: Tim McLnnerny
Penelope: Amanda Redman
Telemachus: Benedict Cumberbatch
Athena: Janet McTeer
Zeus: John Wood
Eurycleia: Mary Wimbush
Hermes: Bertie Carvel
King Alcinous: Geoffrey Whitehead
Queen Arete: Cheryl Campbell
Princess Nausicaa: Alice Hart
Calypso: Adjoa Andoh
The Cyclops: Barrie Rutter
Antinous: Danny Webb
Eurymachus: Jonathan Keeble
Amphinomus: Chris Pavlo
Eurylochus: Ewan Bailey
Polites: John Rowe
Elpenus: Stephen Hogan
Eurybates: Philip Fox
Antiphus: Jon Glover
Eumaeus: Ioan Meredith
Circe: Frances Barber
Ghost of Anticleia: Joanna McCallum
The Sirens: Elena Ferarri
The Sirens: Belinda Sykes
The Sirens: Harriet Williams

  • Published: 1 December 2004
  • ISBN: 9781405698610
  • Imprint: BBC DL
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 3 hr 49 min
  • Narrators: Tim McInnerny, Bertie Carvel, Amanda Redman
  • RRP: $13.99

Other books in the series

The New Penguin Book Of American Short Stories, From Washington Irving To Lydia Davis
A Dog's Heart
The Black Tulip
The Lady of the Camellias
Selected Poetry
On Sparta
Man and Superman
Saint Joan
Botchan
Kusamakura
Military Dispatches

About the authors

Robert Fagles

Robert Fagles was Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Comparative Literature, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He was the recipient of the 1997 PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His many translations include Sophocles’s Three Theban Plays, Aeschylus’s Oresteia (nominated for a National Book Award), Homer’s Iliad (winner of the 1991 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award by The Academy of American Poets), and Homer’s Odyssey. Robert Fagles passed away in 2008.