The official Daphne du Maurier website, approved by her Estate
BBC Radio 4 and 4 Extra to explore Daphne du Maurier’s Life and Work – March 2024
Daphne du Maurier's 70th birthday portrait
We are so excited to be able to tell you all that BBC Radio 4 and 4 Extra have put together a fortnight of special programming about Daphne du Maurier and her work to be broadcast during March 2024. The BBC aim to shine a new light on Daphne du Maurier and her work, who they, quite rightly, describe as
One of the twentieth century’s most enduringly popular writers.
The BBC go on to say
The series will celebrate the imaginative variety and power of arguably one of the most underestimated but prolific and radical female writers of the last century.
The series of programmes begins on Saturday 2nd March and will include dramatisations of some of Daphne du Maurier’s short stories and novels. Frenchman’s Creek will be the Book at Bedtime, read by Emma Fielding, and there will be an episode of Open Book that explores Daphne’s relationship with Cornwall. There will also be a chance to hear Rebecca, first dramatised for radio by Brian Miller back in 1989 and The Year Between, starring Diana Quick as Diana Wentworth.
Alison Hindell, BBC Radio 4’s Commissioning Editor, says that she is looking forward to bringing the audience less familiar titles as well as some of Daphne’s most popular and well-known work and has included titles set in the three locations that recur most often in Daphne’ writing - Cornwall, France and Venice.
We particularly look forward to the new dramatisations of Don’t Look New, The Blue Lenses and The Little Photographer, as well as readings of some wonderful but perhaps less well-known short stories, including East Wind, The Doll, The Happy Valley and The Supreme Artist.
As more news comes our way, we will, of course, share it with you through our News Page, Facebook and X (Formerly Twitter).
Ann Willmore, February 2024.