Over the weekend, I listened to the first 5 episodes (15 minutes each) of Lady Audley's Secret and Hercule Poirot - After the Funeral.

This weeks, I'm listening to the last 5 episodes of Lady Audley's Secret, The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and dramatizations of John Buchan's The 39 Steps, Greenmantle, and Mr Standfast.

It's the BBC.  I listen over the internet.  Each program is available for 7 days.  Here's the link to this week's schedule:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4extra/programmes/schedules/2013/w35

Just click on a program you want to hear.  A new page will load giving you info about the progam and a play now link.  The site is being a bit balky today for me.

Tirama,  thanks for the link to BBC;  I've never heard of these.  When I heard  "radio drama,"  I thought of my all-too-long-lost childhood.  People nowdays don't believe me when I say we didn't have TV,  but had to sit around and watch radio.  I remember dramas like  "The Shadow,"  and serials like  "Our Gal Sunday:"   "The story that asks the question:  Can a young girl from a little mining town in the west find happiness as the wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman?"
Please forgive my ramble.

BBC Radio 4 extra is running 8 episodes of Yes, Minister.  The actors in these radio programs are the same ones who appeared in the tv shows.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jl60
 

barregar wrote:

Tirama, this has nothing to do with radido dramas but it is concerning Downton Abbey.  I assume you have the dvds for all 3 seasons?  Would you know what is the difference between the UK Edition and the PBS edition?  I saw it on Amazon.ca and the PBS edition for seasons 1-3 is a very good offer price but I was wondering what I would be missing id I don't get the UK edition?  would you know?  I want to treat myself to this set for Christmas.

I don't own any of these dvds. 

When it was first reported that Downton Abbey was going to be on US tv, one of the British newspapers claimed we were getting shortened versions.  It turned out that the reporter in question was comparing the length of the time slots and the program ran with commercials over in Britian, but didn't contain commericals when it ran on PBS, so the lengths were almost identical.  I read on some message board last night that the versions shown on PBS had additional scenes (or lengthened scenes) specifically shot for abroad to make certain things like entails more understandable to the non-British.

So you would be getting slightly more in the original PBS versions, but you better grab them while you can, because once they're gone, all that will be offered for sale will be the UK versions.  The PBS broadcasts, however, will still be versions cut to fill our time slots and slightly longer than what's shown on the UK.