Episodes

In his hospital bed Ralph, a retired lawyer, thinks of the letter he should have sent many years ago to Jess, the now-deceased love of his life. Chronicling the history of their relationship – its ups, the final bitter down, and detrimental impact of this break-up on the rest of his life – a profound realisation kicks in.

Alex and cake-loving Robbie, the carpet fitters, arrive at Mrs Tyson's bungalow to fit her new carpet, in the room she shares with her lovely budgerigar Barnabas. They finish the job and are about to leave. But where has the bird gone?

A woman watches a man dressing mannequins in a shop window, surrounded by fog. This leads her to fantasy, a brief connection, illness, and finally....sorrow.

Driving home at night, Will is forced to stop after colliding with something in the road - possibly a badger? Getting out of the car he realises quickly that something is not right. And then the police arrive...

Ellie is relieved that she fails to post a rancorous letter to her father. But then, in "Sliding Doors" fashion, the letter is despatched. Regretting the vicious content immediately, she tries to intercept its arrival - with ironically deadly results.

Left in a state of confusion at the end of Part 1, Jimmy “Skiver” McIver manages to kick start his quest to inherit old school mate Roger Soul’s considerable fortune. By way of an Italian volcano via an East Kent hillside, Jimmy (and occasionally, his trusty side-kick Spud Murphy) face their sternest challenge yet – from an unlikely source. Hear how love (aided and abetted by bucket loads of money) wins through for our hero...in curiously dubious circumstances.

Ashes to Ashford is a “quest” story…with a difference. Instead of a heroic Odysseus, Sir Lancelot or Luke Skywalker, we have Jimmy McIver, a feckless Cockney failure living in 21st Century England. Having made very little of his existence thus far, Jimmy is given one last chance to “make it big” by a now-deceased old school friend and success story, Roger Soul. To inherit his earth, McIver must successfully complete four tasks set for him by Roger. In Part 1, we hear what these challenges are ...

This last story from "The Pickwick Papers" finds Dickens in roister-doister form with a rollicking, enchanting tale of derring-do: featuring a hero, heroine, and a couple of posh, dastardly villains! On a visit to Edinburgh, Jack Martin spends a " heavy" last night with Scottish friends and, on his way home in the wee small hours, he stumbles across a park full of abandoned old mail coaches. Nodding off, he awakes to find a magical change as the coaches and their human contents spring into new ...

This is the third of our short-story adaptations from Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers" and his first Yuletide supernatural tale. It tells of Gabriel Grub, a morose, lonely and drunken grave digger who hates people, particularly during the festive season. One Christmas Eve, while at work in the graveyard, he encounters a startlingly scary Goblin Queen (and her many subjects), who terrorises and whisks him away to her underworld lair where Grub is shown the true human values of the season. ...

Another short story from Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers" and the only one in our series that is truly serious. Having been imprisoned by him, and after witnessing child and then wife die in abject poverty, George Heyling vows to be revenged on the man responsible for this tragedy - his father-in-law. What follows is a path of destruction as Heyling systematically - and legally - ruins the man's life, engineering his death in a final, fatal confrontation.

"Tom Smart" is one of four short stories adapted from Charles Dickens' first major work "The Pickwick Papers". Originally called "A Tale Told by a Bagman", it is a story of magical transformation. After a few too many drinks at the inn where he is staying, our hero Tom notices a strange wooden chair in his bedroom. What follows is a fantastic encounter that changes Tom's life forever.